Talk:Gender marking in job titles

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NPOV Issues
The "Generally accepted writing coventions" section needs to be redone to conform to NPOV. First, I think the title should be changed, unless good evidence can be provided to show that these conventions are indeed "generally accepted" throughout the English speaking world.

More importantly, when ever it says that something "should" be done, it should be rephrased with a qualifier - like "according to gender-neutral standars this should or shouldn't be done." For example at the begining where it says "Gender-neutral job titles should be used, especially to refer to hypothetical persons..." That should be changed to something like "proponents of gender-neutral language feel that gender-neutral job titles should be used..."

--Blackcats 20:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)Blackcats


 * I agree completely. Ruakh 03:22, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I made the changes discussed here. I removed the NPOV flag... let's see what happens. Feco 21:17, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Other Stuff
Actually in the UK it's more normal to be a 'chair'. Totally gender neutral. Not lady chair or whatever, and certainly not lady chairman/woman.

Secretlondon 19:16, Sep 25, 2003 (UTC)

My observations re specific cases:


 * Here in Britain, "waiter" and "waitress" are still the usual terms. Some talk of "waitressing", almost the only example of a gender-specific verb I've heard of.
 * In the plural, there seems to be a split between "actors" and "actors and actresses", but "she's an actor" is rarely heard in my experience.
 * I've noticed that the Americans among you have "freshman" as a gender-neutral term. The only equivalent British term is "fresher".

-- Smjg 11:17, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the above observations, I would like to offer personal experience of English spoken in England, again this is only anecdotal.
 * Gender neutral "Actors" and "Actors and actresses" exist with a similar frequency. "She's an actor" or similar occurs frequently as a very normal phrase.
 * I have never heard "freshmen" or similar terms, only "fresher", for first-year students. Note that this is exclusively a term that refers to University students, not students at school level.

86.0.145.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

You stated that a midwife can be of any gender. While this is technically true, it's hard to imagine how anyone would consider a word that contains "wife" as gender neutral. Nurse shares its origins with "nun" and is also used to describe a biological function specific to females; it is hard to imagine how anyone would consider "nurse" a gender neutral word.

According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, midwife is Middle English (not Old English) "[ORIGIN Prob. from mid preposition + wife noun.]" and is "A person, esp. a woman, with experience or training in assisting women in labour and childbirth, now spec. a nurse holding additional qualifications for this task." Mitch Ames (talk) 06:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The 'wife' element refers to the patient, not the medic. 'Midwife' means 'with the mother', more or less. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Supposed relevant quote from Anne Widdecombe, British conservative politician.
 * "I'm not going to be called chair - nobody sits on me, and nobody ever will."
 * I will add it if I can find a reference that states that she actually said it.--86.164.168.150 (talk) 21:25, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Have edited, at the end of the Debate section, "women and transgender individuals are implicitly excluded" to "women and those of other genders are implicitly excluded". The previous language was problematic because:

- It implies that transgender people are not men and women. In fact, a transman being a man, they would not be excluded (though may feel excluded iff they are not confident in passing as a man), while a transwoman being excluded is redundant to women being excluded. Exclusion on the basis of visible transgender status is likely to exist, but be unrelated to gendered language in such an advertisement, and as such to the subject at hand.

- It implies that transgender is the only gender identity that is different from cisgendered man and woman and may therefore feel excluded from a masculine-gendered position.

86.0.145.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

-man suffix
Most words adding the -man suffix derive from the Old English usage, which is gender neutral, and is roughly equivalent to "person", and used to describe people. The most basic descriptions being "wyfman" (female person) and "waepman" (male person). 81.104.165.184 18:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

LADY MAYOR OR MAYORESS
IF A LADY IS ELECTED AS MAYO OF CITY SHOULD WE CALL HER LADY MAYOR OR MAYORESS OR SIMPLY MAYOR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.70.235 (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * First, she might not appreciate you shouting like that. Second, I'd suggest "mayor" unless she asks to be called otherwise. -- Smjg (talk) 18:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If a woman becomes a mayor, she's just 'mayor' unless she chooses 'mayoress' instead. If she accedes to a post that's otherwise 'lord mayor', I think she normally becomes 'lady mayor', unless she chooses 'lord mayor' or 'lady mayoress'. Under normal (admittedly conservative) circumstances, the title 'mayoress' implies the wife of a male mayor. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Here in the Borough of Charnwood, possibly in other place as well, a mayoress is the female consort of a mayor, whether married or not. -- Smjg (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Balance
As is common with these gender/race language issues, the people that actually care about such things (e.g. feminists, politicians, and anyone else trying to be politically correct) are better represented than the common person. This makes sense because they talk about it the most and thus their opinions are the easiest to find references for, however I think it gives their view undue weight. It gives multiple reasons why people dislike the terms but it fails to give more than one reason why most people continue to use them and find them acceptable. Even the one reason that is given is pretty weak: replacing the historical terms everywhere they appear (in documents, etc.) would be difficult and expensive, or that it is unnecessary. I never heard that argument before. Is it suggesting that by accepting these new genderless names we would have go back and rewrite history? No, the most common argument is that the terms are gender-neutral to begin with. This view is present when the article talks about women demanding to be called fisherman (and actors), but it is being treated as a "special case" like these females that fish are unique in this aspect. What about the linguistic and historical arguments? That the -man suffix simply means it's a person or of the species Homo sapiens (homo = man, btw)? The most obvious examples are human and woman. 75.4.145.158 (talk) 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup required with NPOV
The first paragraph of the main text has:

"According ... the suffix -man had the meaning "person" in Old English but in present-day English is masculine and can be used to denote people by office and occupation. Examples of this are fireman, salesman, alderman and chairman."

The implication that -man is nowadays always masculine is both POV and unsupported. It may be masculine, it may be assumed masculine (by whom?) or it may be common. Current usage and understanding is divided (in what proportion?) between speakers of English. the sentance itself is self-contradictory; having asserted that -man is masculine it then goes on to state "can be used ... by office and occupation". Can anyone have a go at removing the PC bias whilst retaining a fair reflection of modern English usage? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * This sentence has apparently gotten worse since you wrote this. Now it's "The suffix -man had the meaning "person" in Old English, but in present-day English it is predominantly masculine." I would heavily disagree with this wording. The WORD "man" is indeed masculine in modern English. However, the SUFFIX "-man" is not. Moreover, the many words that end with -man are all different in how the listener perceives the masculinity of the subject. For example, something like fireman or policeman might be more likely to conjure up the image of a male, specifically.  However, words like chairman or congressman are less likely to be thought of as exclusively male.  And words like layman or freshman are universally understood to be used towards both males and females equally.  In fact, of all the alternate titles people have been making up in recent years, it seems nobody has ever seen the need to make a freshperson or freshwoman.  So yeah, it's pretty clear that -man as a suffix is most definitely NOT "predominantly masculine", depending on its usage.
 * I mean, if you really want to be silly about it, just take the word "woman". Also ends with the -man suffix, and absolutely nobody would think the subject in question is a male. I'd actually propose replacing the sentence with something like "The suffix -man in present-day English is sometimes MISTAKENLY thought of as applying to males only." That's usually the entire problem. People who hear "-man" as a suffix thinking it means the same thing as "man" as a word.162.235.42.170 (talk) 05:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Title
It seems that this article is not (and should not be) specifically about gender-specific titles, but covers both gender-specific and gender-neutral titles (as well as cases where it might be debatable whether or not they're gender-specific). Can we therefore think of a better title for the article? Something like Gender marking in job titles?? Victor Yus (talk) 08:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm moving this. If anyone objects or has a better idea, please move back or forth as applicable. Victor Yus (talk) 08:17, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

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Examples of gendered job titles, often with Wikipedia articles
I think these should be included somewhere, if only under "see also". Obsolete job titles: Current jobs: Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:54, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Lady for info on landlady etc.
 * Washerwoman or laundress
 * Charwoman or charlady
 * Tea lady
 * Lunch lady or dinner lady