gender neutrule terminology
transcript
Screenshot of a tweet by @feralhousepuppy: hey so you’ve been calling me “bro”, “man”, and “dude” a lot and it’s really invalidating to my masculinity cause those are all gender neutral things you call trans women :/
I think the australians have this figured out with “mate”
Nah, mate is as gendered as dude. Like sure some woman won’t mind, but it’s mostly men being called mate by other men.
No straight man is going to be like “I had sex with my mate” when talking about say a fwb.
Nah, women can easily be mates, it’s not a gendered term at all any more.
been using “m8” for too long, that I don’t think I’m call’em “benefits.” @That point: “tis my partner[s]” or “oh em? that’s ma spotter/coach.”
Mate doesn’t pluralise well though, ‘I’m going out with my mates’ is fine but ‘hi mates’ sounds wrong. Also a lot of it is in the delivery, calling someone ‘mate’ can be anything from friendly to neutral to hostile depending on the tone and the words which precede it.
Of course “Hi mates!” feels wrong, it needs to be either “g’day mates” or “ahoy mateys” or “oy mates”…
Sorry.
Btw. you have the same “problem” (imho, feature) of tone determining level of friendliness with dude, dude. And partly even with bro, though bro feels harder to turn unfriendly when adressing someone.
For me, “Hi mates” or “oy mates” sounds completely okay, but I’m a non-native speaker.