Page 3 | Rob Bryson & Ruth Jones

TheAltProfessorAleksSubicofAstonUniversity · 14/06/2024 23:21

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powershowerforanhour · 14/06/2024 23:36

I like "aviatrix". Sounds like ultra glamorous aerial stuntwoman in a biplane, much cooler than "aviator" which just sounds like some dork in beige chinos who thinks his sunglassses make him look like Tom Cruise.

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Ereshkigalangcleg · 14/06/2024 23:54

When I was sorting out someone's estate after they died, I enjoyed telling institutions that I was the executrix.

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SerendipityJane · 15/06/2024 09:55

The bottom line is if you want a language you can piss about with, then you really need to start with a language with regular codified rules.

That pretty much not only puts English at the back of the queue, but out of the running.

It's a culturally historic curiosity why some professions attracted a feminine noun, and others became neuter.

The problem with the feminine, in some cases is it is also the diminutive - or seems so. "Comedienne" particularly seems to grate. As does anything ending in "-ette". Old codgers may recall Usherettes.

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Kucinghitam · 15/06/2024 10:01

FiL uses "manageress" - you'd be surprised how often this comes up!

Didn't there used to be "doctress"?

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OnTheRightSideOfGeography · 15/06/2024 12:44

SerendipityJane · 15/06/2024 09:55

The bottom line is if you want a language you can piss about with, then you really need to start with a language with regular codified rules.

That pretty much not only puts English at the back of the queue, but out of the running.

It's a culturally historic curiosity why some professions attracted a feminine noun, and others became neuter.

The problem with the feminine, in some cases is it is also the diminutive - or seems so. "Comedienne" particularly seems to grate. As does anything ending in "-ette". Old codgers may recall Usherettes.

It does seem hit-and-miss, though.

Maybe there's a change in perception when there is a distinct masculine ending and a feminine ending - e.g. waiter/waitress, editor/editrix - rather than just what is obviously the masculine with an extra suffix chucked on if it's a woman. Then again, I suppose even with e.g. waiter/waitress, the feminine is possibly just the masculine default with an ending, but with the 'e' removed out to make it easier to say.

Your point about 'enne' and 'ette' and diminutives is interesting, though. Are they actually bona fide diminutives, or it is just because they signified a female that they became widely regarded as diminutives in an inherently sexist world?

Languages like German seem obsessed with adding the 'in' feminine ending for just about every noun used to describe a person - Lehrerin (female teacher), Schulerin (schoolgirl), Freundin (female friend or girlfriend). At least they don't use 'Vaterin' to mean mother!

It's interesting that there always seems to be a shorter 'root' that is used for men, then a suffix is added to that to make a longer word for women. The only exception to this that I can think of, off the top of my head, is widow/widower.

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easylikeasundaymorn · 15/06/2024 12:55

marciaa · 14/06/2024 13:31

I think this was the start of all this insidious stuff. Making everyone "actors" "headteachers" "chair person". I've stopped all that and correctly sex the job :)

how does that work if the job is neutral though?
i.e. if you are organising a conference for headteachers, or advertising for a post?
Once someone is in the job you can call them the headmistress/master but until then it needs to be GN. If you have an appropriate GN term then having 3 different names for the same thing (headteacher/headmaster/headmistress) is unnecessarily complicated.

Plus re-gendering some terms would sound completely ridiculous - a police superintendentress? A management consultantrice?

It is a different argument when the original word is male and women are expected to be enveloped under that, as per actor/actress but I think where a GN exists they are the best option.

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TheAltProfessorAleksSubicofAstonUniversity · 15/06/2024 13:01

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Blackcats7 · 15/06/2024 13:05

Do people call waitresses waiters now?
And why did women become actors and men didn’t become actresses?
Literally sick to death of being told to deny what I can see and hear and reinventing perfectly normal polite language.
I think adopting “I am too old for this bollocks” might be a helpful shorthand phrase for me in future.

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SerendipityJane · 15/06/2024 13:09

editor/editrix

Some of these words are surely backformed ? Editrix I have never heard. And "authoress" seems a tad contrived, Pretty certain we just studied authors poets and playwrights at school. (Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf ?)

Aviatrix I knows was introduced, but seems to have faded away.

Bottom (and delightful) line is it's impossible to police how people speak. Language is an organic creation that betrays its organic roots.

I wonder if there is any connection in English to our Norman French overlords. A bit like we use Anglo saxon for the animal, but French for the meat ?

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HidingBehindTheWallpaper · 15/06/2024 13:16

Languages like German seem obsessed with adding the 'in' feminine ending for just about every noun used to describe a person - Lehrerin (female teacher), Schulerin (schoolgirl), Freundin (female friend or girlfriend). At least they don't use 'Vaterin' to mean mother!

As I understand it there is a feminine and masculine version of all occupations in German, by pretty much adding in on the end. But in the old east Germany working women were often referred to using the masculine title for reasons I forget.

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ErrolTheDragon · 15/06/2024 13:32

Your point about 'enne' and 'ette' and diminutives is interesting, though. Are they actually bona fide diminutives, or it is just because they signified a female that they became widely regarded as diminutives in an inherently sexist world?

I think the -ette is a true diminutive, as in maisonette.

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Lostmyunicorn · 15/06/2024 13:34

@OnTheRightSideOfGeography whats interesting about widow / widower is that it mattered historically whether a woman was a widow or a spinster because her legal rights were different in each case, so there would need to be a term to connote that. It didn’t matter for men because their rights were unaffected by marriage, and I wonder if that is why the male term widower is a later extension of an existing female term? So women were referred to as widows before men were referred to as widowers, whereas in almost all the other cases i can think of, men were given the term first.

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OnTheRightSideOfGeography · 15/06/2024 13:39

SerendipityJane · 15/06/2024 13:09

editor/editrix

Some of these words are surely backformed ? Editrix I have never heard. And "authoress" seems a tad contrived, Pretty certain we just studied authors poets and playwrights at school. (Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf ?)

Aviatrix I knows was introduced, but seems to have faded away.

Bottom (and delightful) line is it's impossible to police how people speak. Language is an organic creation that betrays its organic roots.

I wonder if there is any connection in English to our Norman French overlords. A bit like we use Anglo saxon for the animal, but French for the meat ?

Editrix is (like many of the others) very old-fashioned, but it's a word that has been around for a long time.

Maybe there have historically been fewer 'editrices' because... institutional sexism again: it's an important job that only a man can do properly.

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OnTheRightSideOfGeography · 15/06/2024 13:39

ErrolTheDragon · 15/06/2024 13:32

Your point about 'enne' and 'ette' and diminutives is interesting, though. Are they actually bona fide diminutives, or it is just because they signified a female that they became widely regarded as diminutives in an inherently sexist world?

I think the -ette is a true diminutive, as in maisonette.

Good point - I hadn't thought of that one.

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OnTheRightSideOfGeography · 15/06/2024 13:43

Lostmyunicorn · 15/06/2024 13:34

@OnTheRightSideOfGeography whats interesting about widow / widower is that it mattered historically whether a woman was a widow or a spinster because her legal rights were different in each case, so there would need to be a term to connote that. It didn’t matter for men because their rights were unaffected by marriage, and I wonder if that is why the male term widower is a later extension of an existing female term? So women were referred to as widows before men were referred to as widowers, whereas in almost all the other cases i can think of, men were given the term first.

Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Maybe it could be argued, from a rank sexist perspective, that widow IS the 'male' term, as it centres and signifies that the MAN - the significant one - has died; whereas 'widower' refers to a 'lesser' woman who has died. Except, because the term is attached to a man, they couldn't call him a 'widowess'.

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tobee · 15/06/2024 13:50

To me it highlights that saying "we'll get rid of all the old bad terms, and bring in these lovely new terms, so then everything will be perfect" is just too easy and doesn't really suit everything. At all times. In all ways.

Maybe Ruth Jones always had a dream to be an actress. And yet now she's being told "no no that's bad. Do as we tell you and be an actor. We've deemed that to be the correct way."

it’s the rigidity. The inflexibility. The dogma. The shutting up of dissenters.

And age is always bought into it.

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Tallisker · 15/06/2024 13:55

Bag-ette

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AllProperTeaIsTheft · 15/06/2024 13:55

Headteacher and chairs are neutral terms. Actor is applying the male term for women.

What's inherently male about the word 'actor' though? We don't have a directress, a surveyoress a supervisoress or a solicitoress. The 'or' ending surely just indicates 'a person who does that thing'. But for some reason we unnecessarily invented female versions of (only some) jobs ending -or.

I disagree - if you always advertise for a 'headmaster' and always have a 'headmaster' you can't then be surprised that young children don't feel a woman can do that job.
Actor and actress are slightly different as you'd be unlikely to have a role that could be either, but for almost every job gender-neutral terminology is important (and nothing whatsoever to do with gender identity).

The obvious way of dealing with that is to use a neutral term when you need to - e.g. when you're talking about a hypothetical person of no particular sex, or advertising a role for either, but using the gendered versions when specifying a woman or a man. Just like you'd use 'person', 'woman' or 'man' in general, in fact. I don't see why calling someone an actress is any more offensive than calling them a woman. It kind of implies there's something inferior about being female.

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Happyinarcon · 15/06/2024 13:56

I also don’t like turning everything neutral. All it does is erase women from the language. And on that note, I’m also fed up with the idea that a woman doing maths and science is somehow better than a woman doing humanities, and a girl playing soccer is better than a girl playing netball. Unless women are occupying traditionally male roles they are seen as a disappointment to feminists.

I heard someone say once that no one hates women more than feminists. While I don’t agree and consider myself to be a feminist, I can’t help but notice that any activity with a traditionally female association is viewed almost with revulsion, like we have to save our daughters from creeping signs of femininity by making sure they don’t have dolls or pink dresses. My daughter loved pink sparkly stuff and that was OK.

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CrossPurposes · 15/06/2024 13:57

British Newspaper Archive search for authoress shows just how common the term was.

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SerendipityJane · 15/06/2024 13:58

CrossPurposes · 15/06/2024 13:57

British Newspaper Archive search for authoress shows just how common the term was.

So well into decline when I was growing up.

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TheAltProfessorAleksSubicofAstonUniversity · 15/06/2024 14:05

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SirSidneyRuffDiamond · 15/06/2024 14:21

When the RAF decided to replace the terms Airman and Airwomen with a "neutral" term they settled on Aviator! I asked why they didn't chose Aviatrix and was told that it was too archaic a word and too obviously feminine. Clearly Aviator being too masculine was not deemed an issue.

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TheAltProfessorAleksSubicofAstonUniversity · 15/06/2024 14:37

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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Rob Bryson & Ruth Jones