"Don't call me a lady, although God knows my mother keeps hoping"

[resonant]

Since the kidlet identified themself as agender a while back, I've been noticing gendered language even more than I did before. And one thing I've noticed is how often customer-service politeness seems to call for identifying the genders of your customers and then calling them by it.

"How are you ladies doing?" "If you'll step right this way, ladies ..." "Would you ladies prefer a table or a booth?" "Did you ladies find everything all right?" Before, I had never had reason to notice this, but it happens nearly every day.

Why go to the small but nonzero risk of really offending someone by calling them the wrong gender, when it's so easy to address a group as "folks" (or "y'all" if you're in the right part of the country), or simply not to name the group at all?

I doubt anyone is thinking, "I'll give 'em a case of stereotype threat -- when I remind 'em that they're just females, they'll remember their place." But it wouldn't surprise me if at least some of these folks are thinking, "Treat 'em like ladies and they'll behave like ladies," which amounts to much the same thing.

Comments

[indywind]

If "y'all" is too informal or colloquial, "you" or "you all" is not.
"You guys" is definitely informal and colloquial, apart from gendered connotations.

"Guests" may be an option, or "friends" if that fits the tone of the establishment or situation (even if the people are literal strangers who don't seem friendly).

Another option is asking people how they would like to be addressed, especially if you expect to have more than a passing interaction with them. It is an old-fashioned politeness that has become rare enough to seem awkward (kind of like formally introducing people one causes to meet), but deserves to be revived. It works best if one models first, then, if necessary, asks. some people--especially older people, or those from cultures where this ritual is still practiced, will follow your lead and volunteer their own information. It might sound like: "Hello, welcome to [establishment]! I'm [how you want to be addressed, including title if you want one] and I'm happy to help you. May I know how to address you?" or "...May I know your name?" Or "My name's [Firstname Lastname], but please call me [how you want to be addressed, incl. title if you want one.] will you give me your name?"


Often people seem to use titles as a way to get the attention of people whose names they don't know-- a seemingly politer alternative to "Hey! Hey you!" An even more polite alternative, which is also gender-neutral, is "excuse me" or a bit more formal "pardon me."

[muccamukk]

They had a magazine piece on the CBC about that this spring some time. They had a list of gender neutral alternatives, though I don't remember any of them now. I think they also had cards to leave on the table, suggesting these.

Though on the flip side, I was out with a lady-presenting gender queer friend who really liked the "Here's your table, ladies" thing because it affirmed the gender she was presenting right then.

[niqaeli]

It's easy enough to get around that one with "folks" or "y'all", and I absolutely have for years now. The difficult one is formal address. Mr./Ms.(/Mrs.) are pretty much what you have, and you are forced to gender people in using those formal forms of address. And there are jobs where you pretty much must use those formal forms of address to meet customer service standards.

I'm familiar with Mx. but that's not seen adoption in the US that I've seen; most of the people who bring it up that are in the UK. I hope it does catch on the way Ms. did, because it would be such a relief if I could just use that but as it is, I'd get management going "...what the fuck?" if I used that with guests at the five diamond resort I work at.

I mean, I've solved this one in my current position -- I'm a massage therapist, rather than a front desk agent as I have been elsewhere in high-end hospitality -- by using people's full name sans formal address when I call for them; when I address them during the treatment, I use their given name rather than surname. I pretty much can get away this, even as a massage therapist and therefore in a much more intimate interaction with guests, on the strength of being very American and a touch Southern. Those Americans/Southerners, you know, so informal and familiar! (Actually Southerners are often incredibly formal in a lot of ways that non-Southerners tend to miss entirely, but that's a different topic entirely.)

But, yeah, basically: it's hard, even when you are committedly trying. English doesn't gender nouns, etc., but in some ways it's incredibly and profoundly gendered and trying to get out of that mode can often require some pretty weird linguistic gymnastics. Especially in formal/upper class usages. Which may say some fascinating things about culture and class and gender, but -- yeah. *hands*

[quartzpebble]

Yes to unexpected Southern formality! I would be interested in anything you have to say on that--I have enough just enough family from the South to pick up that there's something I'm missing and to feel like I'm always misusing sir/ma'am, but to know that I should be using it more than I normally would.

[indywind]

"Why go to the small but nonzero risk of really offending someone by calling them the wrong gender, when it's so easy to address a group as "folks" (or "y'all" if you're in the right part of the country), or simply not to name the group at all?"


If this is a real question, not a rhetorical one... I think the reasons are mostly
(a) innocent ignorance - the speaker is making a reflexive and thoughtless but basically-good-faith effort to address people according to their gender as the speaker perceives it... on basis of extremely superficial perception, and few, broad, misunderstood categories of gender.
Along with
(b)Unrecognized privilege - it doesn't even occur to the speaker that there is any other way to think of or relate to gender, much less that the way that's comfortably unconscious for them could work poorly for others, or that the others for whom it doesn't work even need to be considered.

For them, it's not "so easy"; it requires a fundamental change of perspective, that they don't even realize is a perspective, not obvious and evident truth.


I'm not agender like kidlet (though fistbump of solidarity if they want it)-- I have a very distinct gender which I go to some effort to express consistently--but it's not the binary one conventionally aligned with my sex assigned at birth. I am super used to even well-intentioned, reasonably conscientious people getting stuck on one of 2 (conventional binary) or 3 (binary plus an equally arbitrary stereotyped middle) options and being unable to comprehend anything else, even if I explicitly tell them how I prefer to be treated and addressed. These are not jerks trying to put me in my place, or being aggressive--they'd rather avoid the cognitive dissonance than confront it.

[monanotlisa]

But it wouldn't surprise me if at least some of these folks are thinking, "Treat 'em like ladies and they'll behave like ladies," which amounts to much the same thing.

Alas, yeah.

<3

[rydra_wong]

I saw a comment somewhere (from someone trans, in fact) that she got hammered by her boss if she didn't address people as "sir", "ma'am", etc..

I'm in fervent agreement with your feelings about this, but I try to bear in mind that the people using the terms to me are very often not the ones making the decisions about the standards for customer-service politeness.

[indywind]

I had a great experience with customer-service staff recently, while out with my spouse (an approximately lady-type person).

The waiter gave us excellent service: attentive, accommodating, good-tempered and polite, even though the restaurant was quite full and the few staff were all kept busy and would have been within rights to be a little inattentive or brusque. The waiter only trotted out the gendered address toward the end, asking "Is there anything else I can get for you ladies?" while giving me the check.
I said, "I'm not a lady, but I'd like to thank you for your excellent service so far."
Waiter: "Oh! I'm sorry, um, sir?"
Me:"No problem. 'Folks' is fine for us."
Waiter: "Oh! Thank you. Is there anything else I can get for you folks?"
...
We left that waiter a 30% tip, cash.

[gnomad]

Yeah, sir or ma'am is a hard one to get away from because service employees have been drilled that it's how you indicate casual politeness. I get a lot of 'sir...sorry! ma'am' and the occasional 'sweetheart' (which seems gender neutral except they don't sweetheart the dudes, blegh).

I've gotten good at using it as a casual barometer of how well I'm passing (which is sometimes not that much, sadly) and therefore which toilet it's safe to use, but that's about all it's good for.