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Go stroke your lobes bro (slrpnk.net)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/tenforward@lemmy.world
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[–] 6 points 8 months ago* (11 children)

"Ladies" can come across as sleazy, imo. And sometimes you're in a situation where the class/status suggested by "lady" ends up sounding sarcastic.

"Gals" implies a level of friendship, and "dames" is too old timey.

It's a tight rope walk of sounding too familiar/formal, implying old/young, or being insulting/demeaning... I conclude that we need a new word.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I think we often forget about “young man” and “young woman.”

    When someone is too young to safely call a woman, “young woman” is quite a compliment and gives her the respect of an adult anyway. If someone is just barely too old to be called a girl, they will probably find it neutral enough. And if someone is much too old to be called a girl they will appreciate it as flattery.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Hm. Calling someone young woman or young man - to my middle aged ass - means they are in trouble.

    Young man/young woman, haven't your parents taught you proper manners? We eat salad with salad fork, not dessert one!

    (You get the gist)

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah some people will have that association. But only rarely will the grammar of the situation even match that at all.

    For example, let’s say you are the store manager and a customer has requested a refund. You call down to billing to see if they can hook it up, and you say “Hi, yeah this is Dave. I have a young woman here who received the wrong size shoe in her pickup order…”

    There’s no way for her to interpret that as “she’s in trouble.”

    In fact, to match the association you’re talking about, it pretty much has to be used in directly addressing the person. And how often do you begin a normal sentence by saying “Woman, sit tight - I’m going to get you a refund for this.”

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I mean call me weird, but in both of those situations one would use "a customer" instead.

    Dear customer, sit tight.

    Dave, I have a customer here...

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    It’s an example for illustrative purposes. It illustrates the point about grammar I was making. Now you’re on another point about whether it’s even necessary to use a gendered term at all. I don’t really feel like running around in circles on this further.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I guess I can see some ways that “lady” or “ladies” could sound sleazy but I’m surprised if this is someone’s first or only association. “Lady” is literally a landed title, the equivalent of “Lord,” and the highly dignified counterpart to “gentleman.”

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    No no, definitely not what I meant! In some circumstances, it can be sleazy (like "hey ladies").

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