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Original poster

Gingerbreadperson

60 replies

Zandathepanda · 24/09/2021 11:50

Sainsburys! Where’s the gingerbread man gone? Dd refuses to buy a gingerbreadperson. Good on her.

Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me as I don’t exist anymore.

OP posts:
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winkybonky · 25/09/2021 08:05

This is rather silly! I often say ginger bread person to my child just because the default for everything is male and it's irritates me

TheWatersofMarch · 25/09/2021 08:03

Sorry not understanding why this is an issue. It comes across as petulant. Feminism has argued for years for the default position to be neutral sex rather than male, to challenge the perception that women are 'other'. Eg Actors, Chair Person, Police Officer, Head Teacher etc

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz · 25/09/2021 03:59

@EmergencyHydrangea

Not sure whats wrong with gingerbread person to be honest? Do you object to chairperson, fire fighter, police officer?
This.

There should either be both GB men and GB women, or one GB person. Rather than just the default male as everywhere else in life.

NiceGerbil · 25/09/2021 03:47

Really for me don't care.

Our bakery has had gingerbread shapes for about 15 years.

XiXimXerJinping · 25/09/2021 03:37

Does anyone here think Neil Armstrong was excluding women when he said 'mankind'?

Others have already mentioned snowman, ploughman etc...

FFS stop being ridiculous and leave perfectly ok language alone.

KittenKong · 24/09/2021 20:27

Waitrose have gingerbread men. I think they also have gingerbread friends. Not sure why prets one is called these days (it was Geoffrey I think).

Deliriumoftheendless · 24/09/2021 17:19

@lawofdistraction

What are people's thoughts on snowmen?
Not as tasty as gingerbread.

Personally I want gingerbread dinosaurs because, well, dinosaurs are cool.

lazylinguist · 24/09/2021 17:13

lazylinguist you have a way with words

Thank you. A lot less witty than many on this thread though Grin.

ethelredonagoodday · 24/09/2021 16:21

To be fair I worked for a local bakery chain in my teens (am now in my 40s) and they were gingerbread people then.

Mamainthemaking · 24/09/2021 16:12

@MoorGirl

It’s a ploughpersons at my local pub now. 🤦‍♀️
Is this real!? Shock
Original poster
Zandathepanda · 24/09/2021 16:08

lazylinguist you have a way with words - this is what I was trying to articulate.

OP posts:
WhoWants2Know · 24/09/2021 16:05

Personally, I enjoy a gingerbread Peppa Pig.

trancepants · 24/09/2021 15:58

I have a set at home for making zombie gingerbread biscuits. It's called The Walking GingerDead.

LobsterNapkin · 24/09/2021 15:43

It rather makes a mockery of real concerns about compelled language.

Yes, this I think.

It's not on purpose, IMO. This kind of fiddling with language is what civil liberties seems to have come to, and it's been moving in this direction for a long time.

But it doesn't accomplish anything.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/09/2021 15:40

Gingerbread cervix haver.

lazylinguist · 24/09/2021 15:37

Obviously there is nothing inherently either ideologically or anatomically wrong with having gingerbread men, women or persons/people (not least because there'snothing particularly obviously male about the usual style of gingerbread man). There's just something a bit petty and ott (or maybe tongue-in-cheek!) about feeling the need to change the standard name of something as inconsequential as a bloody biscuit in deference to either a feminist or a genderist agenda. It rather makes a mockery of real concerns about compelled language.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 24/09/2021 15:31

I think I'm quite cheered to see the removal of the word man for a change. I'm a bit scarred from the torrent of women replaced by cervix havers, birthers, chest feeders, gestators and the rest by clueless prostrate havers.
Let the gingerbread men get it for a change and give us women and mothers a rest Wink

CiaoForNiao · 24/09/2021 15:27

The best gingerbread person I ever had was a gingerbread Morrisons delivery driver. They sent it free when I placed my first order with them.

We've got a cutter somewhere that makes gingerbread people with no legs. Instead their are holes you put your fingers through to make them dance.

BelleOfTheProvince · 24/09/2021 15:25

That sounds a little bit like ignore it and it will go away.
You have to look at it from a pc perspective. Suspects don't give a fig for sexism, but might react differently to 'a police officer is on the way' than 'a police woman is on the way'.
Actor is neutral like officer so that's fine. Although female actors and male actors obviously need different awards etc. Or males would dominate.

lawofdistraction · 24/09/2021 15:22

What are people's thoughts on snowmen?

IvyTwines2 · 24/09/2021 15:17

@BelleOfTheProvince

Just to form another perspective. My friend is a police officer. She says she is very happy with the change to officer/sergeant as bias on documents and even in calling through to another officer using the word 'policewoman' was very apparent.

The police is still hugely sexist though, but at least she's been afforded one layer of protection.

I understand that reasoning, but I think it would be better if we could move to a situation where the idea of a policewoman or actress etc. wasn't considered silly, less serious, second-best or more vulnerable in some way. The switch to the gender-neutral term feels like an admission and confirmation that it is. It concretes that idea in, rather than challenges it.
BelleOfTheProvince · 24/09/2021 15:13

Make it for free cos I forgot to put my purse in?

LobsterNapkin · 24/09/2021 15:05

@BelleOfTheProvince

Just looks to me like a way to skimp on the icing. This is why we have to sing pat a cake man. Person has very few rhymes that work with the narrative of making a cake quickly.

Pat a cake pat a cake baker's person
Make me a cake before I finish nursin'?

Bake me a cake before I'm done versin'?
LobsterNapkin · 24/09/2021 15:01

I can't really care about this, for a plain gingerbread figure, undifferentiated by decorations.

However, I've always thought that the general man for human was fine and the change makes about zero difference in terms of how sexist people are in actual life.

I'm quite happy also with gingerbread men and gingerbread women, indicated through abstract depictions of traditional men's and women's clothing. In fact, at Christmas, I often make gingerbread St Nicholas, who has a miter but is not actually a bishop or even a Christian.

I'm also happy to be a chairman, or, in my youth, even an infantryman, though at the time I was a soldier in order to avoid seeming sexist the young officers were trained to call us "men and females" which always made me roll my eyes a little. It had, as you might expect, no correlation to actual sexism by said young men.

Ihopeyourcakeisshit · 24/09/2021 14:59

@MoorGirl

It’s a ploughpersons at my local pub now. 🤦‍♀️
Seriously?
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