Dec 27, 2020
I agree with everything you have written, except the photo. If you put a man in the top hat on the left, and women in the tacky dresses on the right, the captions would still be the same.
I come from a long line of feminists. I remember the first time a woman - also a feminist - said, "You guys" to a totally female group. I was like, "Can you say that?" and she said, "Sure! It's not gendered anymore."
And in fact, it turns out that "you guys" responds to a grammatical need. Almost all languages have a plural second person - "vous/Sie/jullie" - as well as a singular - "tu/du/je". English doesn't, but people crave it - and thus "y'all", "you guys", etc.
More information here!
