Hi, I'll be your Gendered-Language-Confusion discussant for today

[drwex]

I'm looking at movie previews and the description of this (http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/runnerrunner/) movie immediately raises my hackles.

Dear Hollywood, the word you are looking for is "poet". Referring to a woman who writes poetry as a "poetess" strikes me as demeaning and gendered. I am married to a poet and I would never call her a "poetess." Bleah. Seriously, would you call someone a "photographeress" or a "danceress"? No, I would not.

Why, then, says my brain, do you have no problems calling someone a "priestess?"

Uh... hold on a sec. I use that term most often to describe women who lead religious functions in a pagan context. Rites I've seen often have an explicitly male-gendered "priest" and an explicitly female-gendered "priestess".

But at the same time I have no problems saying that I think the Catholic Church should be willing to consider ordaining women as "priests" (and by the way I've worked with more than one rabbi who identified as a woman so you don't get a generalized religious or role exception here).

At which point my brain sort of explodes and I have to go to lunch. Anyone got brilliant thoughts to add here?

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a priestess, I had to laugh at this post. :)

For me, "priest" and "priestess" are distinct roles. They perform different functions. They are, yes, generally divided by gender or sex (this may vary from coven to coven). Thus, I am happy to use language that distinguishes them from one another. OTOH, if the Catholic Church were to ordain women, they would--I assume--be performing the same role as ordained men. Therefore, it would not break my brain to call them "priests"--which is what the Episcopalian Church already does. A male person who writes poetry and a female person who writes poetry? They're also performing the same function (writing poetry), so I call them both poets.

The most common gendered work-titles that I see are "actress," "waitress," and "stewardess." While I do tend to use "actress" (partly because it's just so ingrained), I try to use the gender-neutral "server" and "flight attendant" for the other two roles, though sometimes I slip.

Of course, in French, calling a woman who dances a "danceur" would sort of break my brain. :)

[drwex]

Yeah, English is nohow as gendered as most other languages. Doesn't mean I don't still have confusions.

I think you're on an interesting track when you talk about the functional approach. I'm just uncomfortable with introducing non-functional elements into the descriptive. We call people "fiction writers" or "ballet dancers" to distinguish what they do functionally (from generic "writer" or "dancer") so why are we OK with (sometimes) gender-marking the differences?

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Because sometimes, the descriptors for the different functions performed are too long / too many: priest who does a b c e f and priest who does 1 2 3 4 5 6 vs priest and priestess.

[drwex]

Hurm. We manage to find short descriptors for other things that are not gendered. But perhaps so.

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

I'm on the gender-neutral train, because feminine endings are also used to diminish or trivialize things - kitchenette, e.g. I can't remember who, but someone--Jodie Foster?--said she preferred "actor" because actresses cared about makeup and silly things and actors were in the business of making theatre.

Would you trust your life to a doctorette? :)

[pryder]

I have no problem with "actress" because performing gender is a significant part of what actors and actresses do, so they are not interchangeable parts. Gender isn't properly a part of the role of a server (except perhaps at Hooters) or a flight attendant, so we should stop using gendered terms for those jobs. In the other direction, you still sometimes hear "mailman" rather than the neutral "letter carrier", and "chairman" rather than "chair".

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

In some pagan, particularly Wiccan contexts, the Priest and Priestess actually have different jobs. Thus, I refer to myself either as Priest or Priestess, depending on which of those jobs I'm doing. Wicca is historically, (as in the 60s onward) female dominated, and the Priestess had more power than the Priest... YMMV, of course.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Wicca is historically, (as in the 60s onward) female dominated, and the Priestess had more power than the Priest.

Say what?
/sarcasm

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

.pthhht.
That's what I have to say about that.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying the notion of "a Catholic priestess", though. :-)

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Given the headspace I'm in... oh dear, sure I'll blather:

"drum major" and "drum majorette"
military "sir" and "ma'am" as opposed to calling everyone "sir" (see also:Castle)
"doctor" and "doctor"
"master of his own destiny" but ummm "master of her own.." or "mistress of her own.."?
but but "master of ceremonies" "mistress of ceremonies"
"cheerleader" and "cheerleader"
...
right down to I think there are same sex couples that "husband and wife" identify, and others where it is "wife and wife" or "husband and husband"



take all that, (see also: English doesn't borrow words)
and if that fails (see also: mouse mice/house hice? ... is that a gallagher routine??)

because some damn things are mugged from french direct, and other mugged from middle english mugged from french, as well as social context filters - some tend to push gender differentiation, others do the opposite.

which is like looking at coherent light passed through several razor slits and wondering why you have interference patterns. or maybe more like polarization going through a more than a pair of polarizing filters...

so if you can trace the all the languages from "origin" to "now" and all the social contexts in all of those... then maybe you could generate a predictor of gender weighting for individual words.

Or just enjoy the takeway of "oh gods, no wonder it is a confuddling mess"

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

We've solved this in one instance - I emcee as part of my job, and most people now say "we need an emcee" rather than "we need a master of ceremonies".

One picky thing - "drum majors" lead the band. They're like an on-the-field conductor, and they are a drum major whether they are male or female (and they wear the same uniform). "Majorettes" are auxiliary performers, who generally use batons and are part of the visual impact of the band. They get those cute little white boots and the spangly leotards :)

[dcltdw]

Is it all about the initial contact you have with the words? Akin to the "your favorite recording of a particular classical piece of music is probably the first one you heard, because all the other artists are slightly different -- and thus wrong" effect.