# What gender specific descriptors remain/will remain? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 22, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486 "2021-02-22T17:44:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/41 "2021-02-22T23:40:25Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > My experience differs - everyone I know in real-life who refers to a partner is not married. Married men often refer to their husbands and married women to their wives. You know, a lot of my married gay friends were partners for many years before they were married, and mostly for married for legal reasons, with no party, often no public announcement. As i think about it, those who were married more recently, and held weddings and stuff, do refer to “my husband”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/42 "2021-02-22T23:40:33Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > -er is the male ending and -ress is the female ending Thanks, ignorance fought. I was unaware of this history. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/43 "2021-02-22T23:43:10Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Teachers traditionally had lots of women practitioners – I wonder why the -er there isn’t considered gendered? In the middle ages “teacher” was a male profession and in the 19th Century the use of woman as teachers was somewhat controversial and some very much preferred men in that role. It’s only in the 20th Century that “teacher”, especially on the lower educational levels, became overwhelmingly female. Another profession that suffered a status drop when it became woman dominated. > [@RitterSport](#): > > Men who repair shirts and shoes – seamsters? Or, is it tailor/seamstress? Or, is tailor the preferred term for both? Someone who repairs shoes is a “cobbler”. I am not aware of a feminine form of that word, despite having been a female cobbler myself at one point. For sewing it’s tailor/seamstress. What can I say, English has irregularities. > [@Colibri](#): > > That’s a misunderstanding of what grammatical gender is. Fireman has what is known as “natural gender,” since it applies only to males. But it doesn’t have grammatical gender in the sense that other Indo-European languages have it. English has lost grammatical gender. I disagree. English grammar has vestigial gender, it is not entirely absent. That’s why we have “he” and “she” and “it” and not just one third person pronoun for everyone/thing. The -or/-rix endings are an example of grammatical gender endings. They’re rapidly fading into obsolescence, but they’re not entirely gone yet. > [@panache45](#): > > Perhaps in the very near future, people will have to reexamine the phrase “First Lady.” We already have an exception to “Second Lady.” We have a Second Gentleman. Presumably, the male spouse of a future president would be a First Gentleman based on that example. Which is fine by me. Apparently it’s also fine with our current Second Gentleman. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/44 "2021-02-22T23:50:21Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I disagree. English grammar has vestigial gender, it is not entirely absent. That’s why we have “he” and “she” and “it” and not just one third person pronoun for everyone/thing. I was speaking of grammatical gender of nouns. Grammatical gender is a way of dividing nouns into classes. > [@](#): > > The -or/-rix endings are an example of grammatical gender endings. They’re rapidly fading into obsolescence, but they’re not entirely gone yet. OK, I’ll grant that. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/45 "2021-02-22T23:51:56Z")
I cannot argue that ‘fireman’ seems deprecated in favor of ‘firefighter’. On the other hand, in both the railroads and sledding everybody is still a brakeman regardless of sex (unless I am mistaken). So natural gender is not obvious in these cases except by looking at actual usage. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/46 "2021-02-22T23:52:05Z")
Could be the difference- although some of my friends were partners for many years before they were legally able to marry, almost all of them did have some sort of celebration. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/47 "2021-02-23T00:04:30Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Ballerina seems to just be for females here. Although there are specific male words in other languages for a male ballerina, the only one I’ve heard here is “male ballerina”. Ballet as an international art form still uses a lot of French terms, including the gender-specific “premiere danseuse” and “premier danseur” for the lead female and male dancers in a company, for instance. If you refer to “danseurs” and “danseuses”, any serious ballet dancer or balletomane will know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/48 "2021-02-23T00:24:04Z")
I think that the reason why “waiter” and “waitress” are both being replaced by “server” is that, while a waiter is one who waits, that’s not the usual verb used nowadays for what that profession does. We call what they do “serving”, and so the people who do it are “servers”. And while “spouse” is a perfectly good gender-neutral substitute for “husband” or “wife”, if one is desired, @BigT has a point that English doesn’t really have a substitute for “bride”/“groom”, a spouse specifically on the occasion of es wedding. I suspect that if it did have one (either in the past or as a hypothetical), it would be “bride”, since “groom” is short for “bridegroom” (was a female bride ever referred to by some longer name parallel to “bridegroom”?). ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/49 "2021-02-23T00:39:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think that the reason why “waiter” and “waitress” are both being replaced by “server” is that, while a waiter is one who waits, that’s not the usual verb used nowadays for what that profession does. We call what they do “serving”, and so the people who do it are “servers”. They also serve who only stand and wait. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/50 "2021-02-23T00:43:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Oscars will probably give up Actress within a few years as most women in Hollywood are battling against it. The problem is that fixing the language doesn’t abolish the much deeper sexism that the language reflects. Look at directors. There’s no separate category for male and female directors; men and women compete equally. The result has been that women have received five of the four hundred and fifty-nine nominations for Best Director. And won one of the seventy-two awards. (Amazingly, I have heard people saying this shows blatant favoritism - to women.) You have to suspect that if the separate awards for actors and actresses were combined into a single acting award, women would receive similar treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/51 "2021-02-23T00:51:46Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Men who repair shirts and shoes – seamsters? Or, is it tailor/seamstress? Or, is tailor the preferred term for both? A seamstress was a much lower valued profession than tailor, mostly because tailors outfitted men and seamstresses dressed women. It’s a bit like the distinction between chef and cook. For almost two hundred years after the profession of chef was established, men were universally considered to be the only candidates for the job. Ordinary cooking was not to be compared with what they did. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You have to suspect that if the separate awards for actors and actresses were combined into a single acting award, women would receive similar treatment. Indeed, this is the argument made by those who want to keep the categories separate, although I don’t understand why they can’t, like SAG, use male actor and female actor. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/52 "2021-02-23T00:53:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You have to suspect that if the separate awards for actors and actresses were combined into a single acting award, women would receive similar treatment. Probably not nearly as lopsided, but I agree male actors would probably get most awards if the categories were combined. Historically of course while there have always been plenty of both male and female actors, female directors were virtually nonexistent when the awards were created. Even in 2019 they made up only 10.6 percent of Hollywood directors, which itself was a big jump from 4.5 % the year before. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/53 "2021-02-23T06:20:03Z")
One reason I understand for female actors to not like the term actress is that they associate the term with a certain type of role that is subservient to the actor. The actress will play the love interest or damsel in distress type, or otherwise epitomize the underlying concept of the Bechdel test. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/54 "2021-02-23T11:49:29Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Steward/stewardess is already (or should be, in my view) replaced by flight attendant. It has been in at least the US industry. Almost universally, and I say “almost” only to hedge my bets, not having done exhaustive research. At the same time, much like “male nurse”, flight attendants now come in two flavors: “flight attendant”, and “male flight attendant”. When referring to an individual, not a group, the latter are known to be male, and the former are of indeterminate gender/sex, but assumed to be female until the details emerge. The larger a group you’re referring to, the more gender-neutral plain old “flight attendants” becomes. Referring to a group of 4 the term probably means all female while referring to 40 is almost certainly mixed. The desire of humans (or at least English-speaking humans) to categorize people based on their private parts seems to be pretty ingrained. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/55 "2021-02-23T12:13:08Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Lioness? What about prince vs. princess? Heir/heiress? Host/hostess? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/56 "2021-02-23T13:20:41Z")
Prince and princess refer to so few people, they will probably remain. Host/hostess seems to have staying power to me. It would never actually occur to me to call a run-of-the-mill female heir an heiress. I would only expect that to be applied to extremely wealthy heirs who happen to be women, if ever. If I die and leave some money to my daughters, I wouldn’t expect them to be called heiresses. So, I guess it’s still around, but only for the extremely wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/57 "2021-02-23T14:19:05Z")
Nuns and monks ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/58 "2021-02-23T15:17:24Z")
Thanks all. Over my adult decades, I’ve adjusted my perception/vocabulary in many respects as society/usage changed. I may have overstated my reaction to hearing the words husband/wife used in non-hetero couples. In my job, I often am required to ask people their relationship to the people they live with. Non-hetero people began describing their husbands/wives a few years ago when marriage became legal - this was a change from before (and a welcome change). I’m pretty used to it now. I note that I work in a legal environment, where the legal definition of a relationship may be significant. Some people inaccurately refer to their cohabitants as wife/husband - or “commonlaw” - despite not being married in the eyes of the law. Others refer to their “fiancee’s” (I NEVER encounter someone referring to their male partner as their fiance’), despite a lack of any planned nuptials. Personally, I think I tend to refer to my wife as my spouse. In the environment I grew up, there were often connotations of the wife being un/under-employed, being supported and protected, and subservient to their husband, etc. (Yeah - a catholic upbringing will fuck you up! ;)) My wife is certainly none of those. But somewhere back in my lizard brain such connotations exist. I admit that I still find some descriptors regarding nonbinary people somewhat challenging. I am trying to adapt my thinking/language, but I am not aware of encountering terribly many such people. When I do, and when they express a preference as to terms, I do my best to comply. Infrequent exposure retards my adaptation. Again, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/59 "2021-02-23T15:18:53Z")
At some point gender-specific terms will be phased out of hardware and plumbing (i.e. “male” and “female” parts and fittings). Assembly instructions are likely to become more confusing than they already are. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486/60 "2021-02-23T15:41:49Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Others refer to their “fiancee’s” (I NEVER encounter someone referring to their male partner as their fiance’), despite a lack of any planned nuptials. When two gay friends of mine announced their upcoming nuptials after being together for many years, I said to one of them, “So he’s finally making an honest woman of you.” They insisted I include that sentiment in my “Best Friend” toast at the wedding. And yes, it’s time to retire all the Best Man, Maid (or Matron) of Honor crap. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gender-specific-descriptors-remain-will-remain/933486.md?page=4)