The resulting fallout has some who think gendered terminology is outdated, others who still hold to it being fine and the last indifferent group, preferring that the discussion is taken elsewhere. So, here we are.
What do you think? Are words like that, waitress, actress, stewardess, or the tacked on suffix of -ette (like Raiderettes or what-have-you) still fine? Or are they a throwback to a more sexist time? Do they rankle you? Do you ignore them? Is there a place for them? What?
They don’t bother me but then I’m a guy so I suppose my opinion only half-counts*. I don’t mind hearing them but I tend to use the modern gender neutral term (“flight attendant”, etc) where applicable.
The one eyebrow raiser for me is insisting that female film performers are “actors” while also segregating them for award purposes. If they’re all just “Actors” then have them all compete in one group. Still, this is nothing I spend any time worrying about aside from in threads like this one.
*Not meant in a surly manner; just that it’s easy for me to not care when I’m not the one being called a whatever-ess.
For me, “murderess” jumps out as being rather quaint. I don’t recall ever coming across that word in conversation. “Waitress” and “actress” still sound fine and commonplace to my ears , but “stewardess” is another one that has crossed over to the “quaint” side for me, although that one I still hear every once in awhile. To be honest, “waitress” is slowly making its way in that direction, too (I think I generally call them “servers”), but “actor” for “actress” still makes me hiccup a little bit, as that seems to be a much more recent change in terms of colloquial speech. I generally have only heard that term in performing circles.
As to my thoughts… do the terms rankle me? They don’t, but I’m a guy. But some of them, like “murderess” do sound weird to me in a modern context.
They are quaint reminders of a sexist time. I’m not irritated when I hear them but I do have a hard time with “murderess”. I submit that the one time we should really stop caring about gender is in murder!
Waitress/stewardess/all these stupid things can just go away. Thank god we hardly had time to use “doctoress” and went straight to doctor. It’s just a reminder how we used to think women were different. Work is work and doesn’t care how we do it.
The only one I can really see is “actor/actress” and even then I see it slowly going away. We don’t have a word for “female model” and that’s a pretty gender-specific industry, isn’t it? So let’s just make it “actor” across the board.
I can’t think of any offhand besides waitress and actress which still roll off the tongue (mine anyway). The others ‘ess’ words sound archaic (not to mention non ‘ess’ ones like aviatrix v aviator ). Maybe stewardess is in the twilight zone but getting pretty archaic sounding to my ear.
There’s no fundamental reason to refuse to give up actress or waitress, then again no good reason to get bent out of shape at their use either. Dictated vocabulary is mainly a power play IMO, and ironically tends to be heavily classist and age-ist given how ‘ist’ sensitive the vocab dictators usually are. It’s generally lower class older people who fall behind most in knowing the ‘correct’ word for somebody. Then it can add racism on top when white people in that category are criticized for using the ‘wrong’ old word for something but otherwise similar people of color are given a pass, which I believe happens.
I saw the initial post and “murderess” caught my eye for the reason Left Hand of Dorkness pointed out, and because I had just watched a television show the night before that was set in 1899 Toronto where the term was used. I agree that it’s outdated and unnecessary.
I’ve adjusted my language over the last twenty years. Mailmen are mail carriers. Firemen are fire fighters. Waiters and waitresses are servers. Councilmen are councilors. And on and on.
One that’s only recently caught my attention is comedian and comedienne. I’ve noticed that in interviews those types of performers refer to each other as comics.
When I read “murderess” my first thought was “Is it 1904?” It makes me think I’m about to read a story about a woman lacing her husband’s digestive tonic with arsenic because it’s too shameful to get a divorce. Stewardess sounds like a word we all left behind in the 70s. They are not offensive, but they are old fashioned. Actress and waitress aren’t too jarring yet, but they sound a bit off and I think they will sound too old fashioned to use at all, in about 15-20 years.
I mostly agree with Anaamika, though I’d add that such terms may also have come from people trying to make English work like other languages in which nouns are gendered.
Murderess,* as a word *is fine, as is aviatrix, seamstress, washer-woman, fish monger, etc. Murderess as a description for a contemporary person seems quaint, old fashioned, and makes me wonder if anyone needs smelling-salts and bed rest for a month to recover from a “bad case of nerves.”
I watched Three’s Company the other night. I knew it hadn’t aged well (I tried watching it about 20 years ago) but it was horrible. Also of note, Jack Tripper had a “stewardess” fly in from Iceland for their date. He called her a stewardess, but she called herself a “stew”. My 12 year old son was appalled, once he found out what a “stewardess” was. (Also: I had to explain a few things including “Who cares if a guy lives with two women?” and “If Jack is gay, so what?” and "Why does Papa think this show is funny? Its rude and stupid and offensive to gay and transgender people and women, and flight attendants and probably everyone.)
If I go to a dinner party hosted by a couple, and I ask a question about the table seating arrangements, why should somebody have to say “You’ll have to ask the host wearing a dress”, instead of “Ask the hostess”?
Why the fuck should the woman be the one responsible for seating arrangements, anyway?
In this case, of course, you could always say, “Ask Larry,” or “Ask Matilda,” or whatever. That’s going to be a lot more helpful: if you don’t know Larry, saying “host” isn’t going to be that helpful, whereas if you do know Larry, his name is clearer.
In that thread, the use of “murderess” in the OP caught my eye; it wasn’t until another poster repeated its use that I got surprised enough to respond to it. Someone else wrote that it might be a Britishism. Could another Brit confirm that, that it’s in reasonably common use over there? Because here in the States I don’t think I have ever in my life heard someone use the word in conversation about a female murderer.
). Maybe stewardess is in the twilight zone but getting pretty archaic sounding to my ear.