We Have Finally Reached Consensus on “Ladies”

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN GENTLES ALL:

Did you know that some people do not like to be called ladies?

I know, I know. You thought it was just a polite way to address women. You heard women don’t like to be called females or girls!

You’re right. For some women, “ladies” is a charming, even an empowering, term. For others, it’s condescending and limiting, enforcing stereotypes about women’s weakness and social codes prescribing ladylike behavior; plus, its use very often involves making assumptions about a person’s gender, assumptions that may be incorrect. Not even feminists can agree if it’s a word we want to use!

I asked some pals (I did a pal-poll) how they felt about this important topic. I also interviewed myself.

Here are circumstances under which I do not want to be called ladies:

• When I am eating lunch with my mom and a waiter assumes we want dessert because it is deliciously sinful, ladies. Several people I talked to seem to hate being called ladies by waiters, especially “smarmy” male waiters: “Bleech.”
  
• When I’m in like a Guitar Center with my band and we’re trying to pick out a distortion pedal.
• When I’m at, like, childbirth class.
• I don’t know, probably if I were at an academic conference and like a dude said it. But don’t worry, dudes at academic conferences are usually way too enlightened to say ladies. Instead they deliver their microagressions with the practiced hand of a true connoisseur of misogyny.

Here are circumstances under which my pals do not want to be called ladies:

• In any professional context, especially when coming from men. “I hate it 95% of the time. Worst of all when beginning work emails to a team of women—’Hi ladies, Deliverables action items etc. etc. parking lot please advise.’ Why not just ‘Hi all’ or the much maligned ‘folks’ even?… I think I am sensitive to being called out by my gender in an environment in which gender is seen as influencing professional skills… (influencing these skills for better or worse—like whatever the gender equivalent of romantic racialism is).” (On the other hand, many pals pointed out that they much preferred “ladies” at work to “girls” or “gals” or “honey.”)
  
• When used by men in general, especially at work or in an email or at a bar.
• “From a sarcastic cop.”
• “Generally, any situation when I’m not behaving in a particularly lady-ish manner but attention is drawn to my behavior as a woman… because I don’t generally go around thinking about my woman/lady status, so when someone draws attention to it unexpectedly, it feels weird and out of place.”
• “I hate it when people refer to a group of women I am part of as ‘ladies’ because really how can they know.”
• “I can’t imagine liking it. Every mental scenario I’m running makes it sound condescending.”
• “Never love it. Always hate it. I recently heard it in an educational setting, where someone was being chastised for her behavior not being ‘ladylike.’ That’s what ruins it for me. It’s a box people try to put around us.”
• “Always [hate it], b/c even when it’s not a creepy dude who does it I’m still being misgendered; still answering because I 100% fit the category of people who fit most of the boxes commonly associated with ladyhood, and will certainly be included by anyone making a group assumption.”

Here are the circumstances under which many women seem to appreciate being called ladies.

• “I don’t usually like it at all, but I do get a kick out of the sign in my allergist’s restroom that says ‘let’s not be nasty, ladies’.”
• “I think I got a real kick out of it when I was about ten, but I also got a real kick at that age of being informed that I was NOT a lady by a complete stranger who I guess objected to me aggressively racing a friend indoors.”
• “I admit to not minding when an individual man says ‘How may I help you, young lady?’ Maybe because I am NOT young and am NOT a ‘lady’ with all that implies. I am however a woman.”
• When it’s used by “my dad or another adorable dad figure” or “by someone both very nice and at least two generations my senior.”
  
  
• “I don’t think I ever love it, but I don’t mind it. To me it’s just useful: ‘Women’ would be too formal, and ‘guys’ too familiar.”
• “When it’s a situation where gendered behavior is happening (e.g. dancing), and is prefaced with, ‘all the people dancing the followers’ roles, hereby referred to as ‘ladies’ sounds much better to me than men/women, and also produces a feeling of being classy and dapper and stuff as should go along with dancing.”
  
• “Some sportsy situations—on girls teams, not like ‘ladies soccer tournament today at noon,’ but rather when cheering and getting pumped up—like ‘let’s go ladies/come on ladies!’… at least between teams and coaches, it’s been pretty successfully appropriated and now feels like the go-to thing for encouraging each other to get sweaty and muscly and tired and energized as a group.”
  
• At work, when it’s used joyously by women, in solidarity and friendship. “When a woman coworker refers to me and other women coworkers as “ladies,” it feels kinda heart-warming & like we’re all really in this thing together.”
  
• When alcohol is involved, when it’s used joyously by women, in solidarity and friendship. “I like it when used by friends as in, ‘woo hoo! ladies night!'” “Basically anytime another woman is bringing a tray full of cocktails to me and our mutual girlfriends.”
  
• In general, when it’s used joyously by women, in solidarity and friendship, toward other women. But especially when alcohol is involved. “I like it best as an appositive in the plural 1st person—’We can do this, ladies!’ ‘Ladies, our champagne has arrived.'”

These examples may be confusing for prospective users of the word ladies, especially since some of them are kinda contradictory. O those irrational women! Feminist infighting! FEMINISTS, WHY CAN’T YOU AGREE UPON A PLATFORM.

But don’t worry! Feminists have finally achieved consensus about when it is appropriate to use the word ladies, and I’m going to share it with you here.

The consensus is that you should avoid addressing a group of people whom you believe to be women as ladies except under the following circumstances:

• They are wearing lace gloves and carrying parasols and also a sign that says the word “Ladies” on it.
• They are a group consisting of three generations of women AND they have declared that they only want dessert AND they have already used the phrase “deliciously sinful.”
  
• They are a group who just entered your restaurant and one of them said “Shall we, ladies?” before they all sat down giggling.
  
• They have ordered a tray full of Lemon Drop shots and one of them is wearing a veil covered with glow-in-the-dark penises and also one of them came up to you and asked, “What kinds of stuff are you actually supposed to do at a bachelorette party? Like traditionally?”
  
• They are a sports team called The Lady Wolverines or something and you’ve already held a secret-ballot referendum on the team name and the vote to keep the team name was unanimous.
  
• They are a band called Paul Hughes and His Lady Orchestra and everyone in the band was okay with that name and didn’t immediately vote it down when I suggested it would be a hilarious name for a formerly all-girl band with a guy bassist who doesn’t write any of the songs and doesn’t really want to play any shows and kind of skulks around in the background wearing a black t-shirt and who is my boyfriend.
  
• You are a lute-playing troubadour at a Renaissance Faire soliciting patronage from the audience; please note, however, that “gentles all” is preferable in this circumstance.
  
• You are a Catskills comedian and you address a group as “ladies and germs”; obviously something like “lemmings and gerbils” would be funnier in this circumstance, especially if you’re at a Small Mammals convention.
  
• You are PT Barnum or a PT Barnum impersonator, both because everyone will thrill to the feeling of being an old-time circus audience and also because everyone there probably has a fetish involving being exploited by a charismatic showman.
  
  
• You are hosting a Mad Men party, because everyone there obviously has a fetish involving misogyny and racism and “simpler times” and is hoping you will lightly smack them on the lightly-padded bottom/that they can lightly smack you on the lightly-padded bottom while typing and smoking a cigarette. Obviously check with everybody before the party begins that it is okay to call them “ladies”/pat them on the lightly-padded bottom, and make sure you establish appropriate safe words.
  
• You are hosting a Sex and the City party, because everyone is basically there to get drunk on Cosmopolitans and call each other ladies and talk about analingus.
  
• You are Beyonce and you are singing the song “All the Single Ladies.”
  
• More generally, you are inviting people who identify as “ladies” to do anything (“put your hands up,” etc.) without actually implying that all the people, or any specific people, in the room are ladies.
  
• You are in a production of Peter Pan with two or more actors playing the role of Peter Pan and you’re playing Captain Hook and it’s time for that song “O My Mysterious Lady.”
  
• They tell you that they want you to call them ladies.