Jeane Anastas, a professor of social work at the NYU Silver School of Social Work whose research focuses in part on women’s issues, said in an email to Vox, “Whatever Webster’s dictionary says about the plural ‘guys’ [‘used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex’] and despite the fact that I sometimes catch myself saying ‘you guys’ to people of all genders, ‘guy’ is a gendered word. ”

That very fact — that it’s gendered —is true whether or not we’re thinking about reinforcing male privilege or alienating women or promoting sexism when we say it.