why is it pro women to say "actor' rather than actress?

What's a neutral dominated society claig? It surely wouldn't be the same as a male dominated one, or are you saying that the two would realistically be the same? I agree it would be interesting to see how people have imagined this (maybe you should write a novel like this).

What if the Duke of York married a man? The title Duchess suggests 'wife of a duke', I suppose, though am I right in thinking you can be a Duchess in your own right? But a husband of a duke - Dukelet? Ducal Partner?

"addressed"

Claig...Since I am never adressed as "Actor" I doubt my insisting on the title will lead to a genderless society...it is for written purposes and for when I am being introduced...as I said...gender is obvious (usually) and therefore a system of genderless titles would not affect society at large.

Yes we should get rid of princess. We should ditch the whole notion of monarchy altogether.

About the monarchy and titles though, what about King and Queen? If the monarch is male he is KING and his wife is called QUEEN. However when the monarch is female her husband is not a KING but a Queens Consort. Why is this? Because a king is more important than a queen, more powerful. Prince Phillip has no crown because his wife is in charge.

And I can't see any problem with Baron Thatcher. Other than the fact a better title would be the late Thatcher...

Does anyone know of any novels or science fiction that deal with the use of genderless language? It would be interesting to see what this may possibly lead to. I googled and found an Ursula Le Guin novel about a genderless society, but many feminists have criticised this novel as being male based. I think there is a danger that genderless language can eventually lead to an even more male/neutral dominated society than the one we have now. It would be interesting to see if there are any novels that explore this.

I obviously have a gender....you can look at me and see it. If someone is not looking at me then it's best they don't make assumptions due to my title. So I don't think we're heading for a unisex nation at the mo.

AllarmBells, didn't know that.

Just found some more feminine specific words, baroness. Can you imagine calling Maggie, Baron Thatcher. Then there is Empress Catherine the Great and the Duchess of York. Long live the distinction. There'll soon have us all as unisex socialist robots, genderless worker bees.

Yes Claig...and the word has got negative connotations from it's history...so it's been changed.

claig I think Elizabeth I used to refer to herself as a prince.

'it's because historically any woman wo was an"actress" was often also a prostitute'

yes, but that was sexism.

I am a female actor and I can tell you why...it's because historically any woman wo was an"actress" was often also a prostitute or a pro mistress and to many people the word "actress" still has a ring of tawdriness to it...all to do with saucy wenches and stage-door Johnnies.

'We don't have that in English so there is no need to differentiate between masculine and feminine.'

Merrylegs, should we get rid of the word princess as well as actress? Should we pretend that prince is neutral?

No problem maktaitai this is an opinion type thread, plenty of different views - our great minds think alike :)

x-post allarm, sorry

Yes. But. The point of feminine and masculine nouns in, say, German, is that for the language to work you have to know the correct case. If the sentence was in the dative, for example, the definitive article would change according to the gender of the word. We don't have that in English so there is no need to differentiate between masculine and feminine.

I've never liked 'male nurse' 'male dancer' 'male speech therapist' - I prefer describing people's jobs without describing their sex, and I try to use 'actor' as I dislike the conflation of the diminutive and the female terms (ironically, as my first name is in fact a male name with a female diminutive tacked on...) But i do see claig's point that non-neutral terms could change thinking faster.

The fact is that gender is handled differently in English, we are not used to seeing gender applied to every noun, so when a noun does have a specified gender, it is much more noticeable and has a greater positive or negative effect. Similarly there are few British jobs where addressing someone by their professional title is now usual - I understand that's different in Germany. I am simply not going to refer to my closest friends as Surgeoness, Chief Superintendentess, Solicitoress, Senior Lecturess, Park Rangeress, Chief Engineeress, Male Full-time Mother et al. They seem to have done fine with more neutral titles, tbh. So I'm not going to refer to Dawn French as an actress, either.

Anyone remember Margaret Thatcher being 'humourously' referred to as the Leaderene?

There is also another pattern to be aware of:

"ambassadress" is the wife of an ambassador. A woman in the role is ambassador (no recognized term for her husband).

I think it's the same for peers: peeress is the wife of a peer; someone ennobled in her own right us a lady peer.

I always believed (I think perhaps my mother told me) that the ess(e) or ette was a diminutive? So that usherette was a little lady usher, waitress, actress etc etc. Its certainly a secondary term to the male version.

Its so unnecessary. If I tell you I am an actor or an author, you can see that I am a women, you don't need a different word to know my gender beforehand. What does it matter?

It's all very well talking about French and German but they are different languages.

In English we generally have neutral words with a few special cases. (I agree with Elephants - they are neutral, not masculine.) The fact that there are only a few such cases implies IMO that there are only a few jobs that women can do - actress, manageress etc. If we go with the feminine words, we'll have to make up a load of new ones because so few already exist in English. I prefer the neutral titles like police officer, firefighter, cabin crew etc.

I do get a slight pang because "aviatrix" is such a fantastic word.

I am an analyst - would the feminine be analysta? Analyste?

Another advantage of the use of neutral titles is anyone who says "chaps and chapesses" can be slung in prison.

Fascinating debate.

I know some feminists who are now in their 90s and some of them insist on Madam Chairman (of X committee or Y institution). I disagree quietly but do not argue because they were fighting for women's rights (and getting flack for it) before I was even thought of.

Also know some men who insist on 'Chairman'. I ignore them too and use 'Chair' in all the reports I write.

Someone once described me as an 'editrix'. I fixed him with my very scariest steely glare. Don't think he'll ever make that crack again...

I don't think it applies to ethnic minorities. Our language has no word for a black actor that differentiates them from a white actor, but historically, our language has developed from other languages such as French, German and Latin that do have masculine and feminine forms. We do have a term that differentiates a female actor from a male actor. We also have the word queen that applies uniquely to a female regent, and the word princess rather than prince. Should we start calling Diana, Prince Diana?

For reasons that have already been covered, I am in favour of actor for both etc. For people who see it as important in order to highlight the gender where women are under represented, do you think there should also be the same on the basis of ethnicity? I can't see where the argument for this would differ, yet it would seem odd to me that anyone would suggest this. Where do people see the difference?

I didn't know that about the usage of soldate and ecrivaine. I just looked it up. It is very interesting. It seems that feminine forms for job titles are widely used in Canada and are officially recommended in Belgium, but they seem to be discouraged in France, but are growing in popular usage there as well.

The Belgian "service de la langue francaise"
www2.cfwb.be/franca/femini/feminin.htm

says
"would feminine terms like magistrate risk shocking, upsetting, making laugh or indeed ridiculing?

It seems that the decree has helped to change the mentality. Little by little, slowly and surely , the use of feminine terms has become common, first in the media, the written press, radio and television, then in daily life, during election campaigns and finally in advertising."

I think this will be hugely important as it will change perceptions and operate subconsciously. I think the Academie Francaise is possibly resistant to its introduction in France. Le Petit Larousse accepted the feminine term écrivaine in 2008 in France.

But it is interesting that autrice as a feminine form for auteur was used as early as the 16th Century by some prominent literary figures. It looks like its use was perodically discouraged by men, such as Jules Renard in 1905, who wrote

"Women are looking for a feminine term for author. There is "bluestocking". It's pretty, and that says it all. Unless they would prefer plagiarist or ecrivaine."

I don't think there is any way of stopping the increasing use of femine terms, however the establishment seek to ridicule or discourage it. I think there will be a lot of opposition from the establishment in some countries, but times are changing and perceptions and usage have to change along with them. I think it is a good thing and will only help to accelerate positive change.

But does one mind seeing those German feminine nouns with the added "in" at the end of the regular male version? It does acknowledge a woman being there, but it seems to me similar to saying "female chancellor" when if it were a man, he'd just be "chancellor". But if they didn't have a new word, they'd have the issue of words that would be masculine or feminine according to who had the job, and that wouldn't seem right in a language with gender--or could it be?

French language pundits never seem willing to accept new words. I remember seeing instructions from somewhere where people were being told not to say "une soldate" (soldier with extra e on the end for the feminine) or "une ecrivaine" (writer treated the same way). It should be "une femme soldat" or "une femme ecrivain" so as to avoid creating new words--"a woman soldier" or "a woman writer".

yet again, the mixed form "Frau Bundeskanzler" is really the male form Bundeskanzler (i.e. it isn't really neutral), because a male President could never be described as "Herr Bundeskanzlerin".