I’ve been back and forth with this just because of my habit to use “oh man”, or “oh dude” in the past. I’ve done pretty well with changing the terminology just to keep to the discussion at hand and being respectful for anyone I’m talking to (just feels like basic public respect, like back in the day they would say “Dear Reader,” not really a PC problem to me).
So anyways, I found myself typing “oh boy” the other day and I paused to wonder about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it brought up in discussions like man or dude. I never even thought of that phrase as it signifying the recipient is a “boy”. The more I think on it I don’t even know what the actual meaning is besides the way in which it is used (like, “shit” or “you wouldn’t believe”).
tldr: Is “oh boy” an acceptable gender-neutral response loop hole so I can be lazier when typing or has this been discussed a lot and I’ve just missed out on it?
I would love to hear the perspectives of everyone and encourage you to voice your opinion (just message if you don’t want other’s chiming in if you prefer)
I’ve never had problems using terms like “look man,” “oh boy,” or “dude” In “normal” conversion with anyone until recently. I was talking to a trans-woman I know and definitely stopped myself from dropping “hey man” in our conversation because I thought she would not appreciate it. That’s caused some self reflection and while I’ll probably continue to use genderbent language when talking with my wife I’ll probably seek to minimize it elsewhere. I don’t really know how in tune a given woman I’m talking to is with their muliebrity and it seems not my place as a cis man to make that determination for them.
I would say for a lot of people it probably doesn’t matter, but for those that it does it does a lot and it’s no skin off my back to try to be courteous in my speech with whomever.
I’d separate oh boy from hey man. Hey man is directed at someone, oh boy is just a remark about the state of things
TIL- Muliebrity (Muliebrity means womanly nature or qualities, or the condition of being a woman. It comes from Latin muliēbris, derived from mulier, meaning woman)
Feel about the same as your case. Every one has preferred pronouns, I like to point out to conservative relatives that “sir” and “ma’am” is just another form that they learned growing up for certain individuals. It’s just basic manners.