I just came out of another thread where the OP’er ranted that the correct singular unknown pronoun is still “He”, notwithstanding the efforts by many, if not most, to avoid
gender exclusion with “they/their”, etc.
In English we rarely read anymore of “comediennes”, for example, and the female occupational words like “stewardess” and “waitress”, and sometimes even “actress”, seem to be avoided in favor of gender-neutral words.
Now then, what happens in languages like German, where virtually EVERY occupational title has a masculine and feminine form? Have there been efforts to degenderize job titles there, and what direction did they take?
My opinion: they’re trying to make gender less of an issue.
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Related somewhat but not really: I saw a sign on tv something to the effect of “Black and white: unite to fight!” Sigh.
Before you lambaste me, lemme 'splain: in my opinion that sign was separating white and black people for the express purpose of uniting them. Sort of like taking (example only: I do NOT mean to infer anything about either group) shiny pennies and less shiny pennies and separating them so you can put them together: they’re both pennies. They’re worth the same. So what if you can see the spinach in your teeth in one and not in the other?
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I personally see no problem with calling a woman an actress, unless she doesn’t like it.
male postal delivery person = mailman
female postal delivery person - mailperson
male police officer = policeman
female police officer = policeperson
male product delivery person = deliveryman
female product delivery person = deliveryperson
I am tired of this gender equality in name crap … I am a man ! … I like being a mailman … and policeman … a deliveryman …
If a woman dislikes this title, assuming that the ‘man’ in the title is gender related and not a classification (see policedog), she can go with the gender neutral title.
But the trouble with this practice is that it still sets the female apart. And there’s a big difference between deciding to use a term to refer to yourself and running up against terms in printed materials or other people’s speech that exclude people of your gender. Lazarus, how would you like it if we decided to switch to using “she” to include “he”? I am a woman, and I’d like to have everyday language acknowledge the fact that women exist and are not simply extensions of men.
The truth is that in most cases, there is an acceptable gender-neutral term that is unobtrusive and does not discriminate against anyone:
With a little thought, gender-inclusive language is not that difficult to implement. I use it every day in my job as a copyeditor; there are several excellent reference books that discuss the issues and provide options, most notable by Casey Miller & Kate Swift and also by Rosalie Maggio.
As for the pronoun, in most cases it’s possible to recast the sentence to avoid use of “he” without being clumsy or obvious about it.
Scarlett67 … the thing is this - the language is already worked around me, as a male. So of course I am happy with it. I think it should just stay the way it is. I see no problem with it.
I have a friend who is a policeman … she is female but still prefers policeman and gets irritated when the gender neutral term is used.
As for replacing everything with the female dominant … why? … working just fine the way it is (IMHO).
OK. Here’s the way I’ve always used these kinds of words. Discussion?
If I know what gender the person is, I use the appropriate gender word.
If I don’t, or if the person is hypothetical, I use the gender-neutral word.
“We are looking for a new chairperson.”
“Ms. Oates is our new chairwoman.”
“Mr. Townshend is our new chairman.”
To answer the OP: in French, the approach to gender-fairness is the opposite as in English. Since they have to mark gender due to there being grammatical gender in the word, rather than using a generic term (which would have a masculine gender), they create a feminine term. (This is more frequent in Québécois than in français de France.) So my mother is “la docteure McLauchlin,” the rationale being that she doesn’t become male when she goes to work, which I think makes sense in a language with grammatical gender. Similar things are happening in German and Spanish.
Sometimes there are other problems… “le médecin” is the doctor; “la médecine” is the practice of medicine. (I think I’ve seen “la médecin” before, though.) Similarly, in Spanish, “el policía” is the policeman; “la policía” is the police. (A policewoman is “una mujer policía”, which to my ears sounds like “a lady doctor”.)
The funniest one is the German term for “doctoral advisor,” Doktorvater, which literally means “doctor-father”. Douglas Hofstadter wanted to know if the feminine form was Doktormütter, but after checking he determined it was Doktorvaterin - “doctor-fatheress!”
I should say also that in French, the title mademoiselle (Miss) is being used less and less often, being replaced by madame in most cases. (The exception is for little girls, little old ladies, and women you are trying to woo.) This is only appropriate, since madame, which is literally “milady”, is the exact gender pair of monsieur (“milord”). Similar things are taking place in Spanish, although I did hear that some region or other has taken to using “seño” as a sort of hedge between señora and señorita.
Whoops. Note in my post about “chairman” that that only applies to terms in which there are a masculine, a feminine, and a neutral.
In the case of a pair like waiter/waitress, the feminine is so entrenched, and the root so exclusively masculine, that it’s necessary to create a real neutral term (“server”). Similarly for steward/stewardess/flight attendant, or barman/barmaid/barkeep.
In the case of a pair which is less well entrenched and in which it’s less odd to use the root term for a woman, then I advocate getting rid of the feminine form (author, not authoress; doctor, not lady doctor; sculptor, not sculptress; comedian, not comedienne.)
The only exception to this is Amelia Earhart, who is the only person who can be listed in a biographical dictionary as “aviatrix” (in the same way that Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde are the only people who can be listed as “wit”.)
Finally, we come to the annoying actor/actress. Frankly, “actress” is glitzy enough that it can be left alone, except of course for those women who prefer to be called actors.
Last of all, legal terms (-ix). On this subject, I would just like to say that I read my parents’ will, in which they name my aunt as my “tutrix.” Tutrix is the silliest word in the English language. Thank you.
Hebrew is also a gendered language, but it’s easy enough to feminize a word. F’r instance, male teacher is a moreh, and a female teacher is a morah. It’s not a very big deal. However, it’s also one of those languages (Romance languages do this too) wherein a group of 100 women and 1 man are referred to in the masculine. I am given to understand that the Hebrew academy - yes, they throw words out, like the French, although it’s about as effective - is considering changing this so that either word would be correct. FTR, the two words are nearly identical, so it would be easy to use one or the other and not even have anyone notice. (“Them” is either hem or hen, and “you” plural is either* otchem *or otchen. The “ch” represents the guttural sound in “chutzpah” or “chanukkah”.)
Well, that remark certainly say a lot about you, doesn’t it? You know, the world used to be set up to the sole advantage of white people, able-bodied people, and rich people, to name a few categories. People who didn’t belong to those classes were left out, treated as second-class citizens, abused and worse. What say you join the twenty-first century, hmmm?
**
Which gender-neutral term offends her? “Police officer”? Wouldn’t she expect that her male counterparts would be called that as well? If I said within her hearing, “Ask that police officer over there,” would she correct me – “Excuse me, but I am a policeman”? I doubt it. But if that’s the case, then she has other problems.
OTOH, if “policewoman” offends her, that’s understandable, because it’s not a neutral term; it still calls attention to her sex.
Doesn’t look to me like your O is too H there. Of course males with your attitude don’t see anything wrong with the male-only system – because it doesn’t leave you out. Just because you think it’s working just fine doesn’t mean everybody else does. You don’t like the idea of the female including the male? Well, that’s how most women see it when the reverse is true.
More unfortunately, in my experience, female cops are usually called “bitches.”
I personnally take my hat off to all officers of the law. It’s a thankless job that they don’t get paid nearly enough to do. Much like teachers (hey, there is a gender nuetral title).
I didn’t mean to open a debate on the topic of gender-neutral job titles in English. This has been covered
and debated at great length elsewhere.
What I want to know is what do they do in German? Virtually every noun describing a class of workers or people is genderized, for example:
[list]
[li]Artz - Male doctor[/li][li]Aertzin - Female doctor[/li][li]Bibliothekaer - Male librarian[/li][li]Bibliothekaerin - Female librarian[/li][li]Kunstler - Male artist[/li][li]Kunstlerin - Female artist[/li]
And on and on and on. So have there been any efforts to
avoid gender connotations in German job titles, and if so how have they approached it?