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AIBU?

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Original poster

The word actress?

132 replies

dottypotter · 02/02/2023 12:27

Everyone is an actor these days.
Females are not referred to as actresses any more.
A female is an actress.
Have I missed something?
Anyone else noticed?

OP posts:
CornflakesOnTheSolesOfHerShoes · 02/02/2023 14:13

Ha! That’s interesting. I can completely see the arguments for not using gender-specific terms where they’re not needed, though I think the situation with actor/actress and waiter/waitress is different from the move from policeman to police officer and fireman to firefighter where the default assumption was that it would be a man doing those jobs. But it does feel odd, after 40 years of using eg waiter/waitress as equal and opposite terms, to suddenly be told to use the ‘wrong’ one. I’d find it very counterintuitive to refer to a woman as a waiter.

LadyVictoriaSponge · 02/02/2023 14:15

I don’t think it does women any favours actually, women are being erased as it is, soon there will be no words left actually refer to the female sex at all.

AppleKatie · 02/02/2023 14:17

Historically Actress and prostitute were very similar jobs.

the connotations of the word are not great.

Krakenes · 02/02/2023 14:18

LadyVictoriaSponge · 02/02/2023 14:15

I don’t think it does women any favours actually, women are being erased as it is, soon there will be no words left actually refer to the female sex at all.

It does do harm though. Actresses are generally paid less than Actors. Waiters and waitresses do the same job, genitals are irrelevant, they should be called the same and paid the same.

LadyVictoriaSponge · 02/02/2023 14:20

Krakenes · 02/02/2023 14:18

It does do harm though. Actresses are generally paid less than Actors. Waiters and waitresses do the same job, genitals are irrelevant, they should be called the same and paid the same.

Show quote history

Well women using the term actor hasn’t magically increased their pay packet has it?

LadyVictoriaSponge · 02/02/2023 14:21

Look at the Brits for example, no award for the little women this year.

Nightlystroll · 02/02/2023 14:24

Catherine, Prince of Wales.

UrsulaTitchener · 02/02/2023 14:26

@Tangerinie , in France they say femme medecin.

Tangerinie · 02/02/2023 14:29

That's interesting @UrsulaTitchener. I used to live in Paris and only ever heard or saw une médecin. I thought femme médecin would be like people saying "lady doctor" over here

ThreeImaginaryBoys · 02/02/2023 14:30

WaitingForSunnyDays · 02/02/2023 12:59

Could someone explain in simple terms why it's seen as offensive in some way? Like a PP said, it's standard in many other languages to have a different masculine/feminine term, and it has therefore never bothered me in English. I can kind of see it for terms where there may an inherent default of male, so in the previous example given of Doctor vs Lady Doctor, but even there "doctor" is used for both male and female correctly.

Because it's a diminutive.
It also implies that the male is the norm and the female is the other.
I'm a teacher, not a teacheress.
Gendered language is only the norm when all nouns are gendered (e.g. French 'la table' or 'le stylo'). We don't gender nouns in English.

JeepersCreepersWheredYaGetThosePeepers · 02/02/2023 14:33

FuckabethFuckor · 02/02/2023 13:32

IMO the ongoing use of 'actress' in awards (such as the Oscars) continues to legitimise this otherwise increasingly outdated term.

How you'd change it without creating slightly clunky phrasing I don't know. 'Best Actor (Women)/Best Actor (Men)' or 'Best Acting Performance by a Woman in a Motion Picture/Best Acting Performance by a Man in a Motion Picture'. Neither of them roll off the tongue, exactly, but then inclusivity and equality isn't always neat and tidy is it.

Would it simply be "best male actor" and "best female actor"?

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:33

Well women using the term actor hasn’t magically increased their pay packet has it?

No, and think of that scandal of the female television and radio presenters on the BBC being paid so much less than men. They didn’t have feminised versions of their job names.

JeepersCreepersWheredYaGetThosePeepers · 02/02/2023 14:34

What about Queen and King?

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:35

LadyVictoriaSponge · Today 14:15
I don’t think it does women any favours actually, women are being erased as it is, soon there will be no words left actually refer to the female sex at all.

I agree. This is part of what led to that imo.

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:40

I'm a teacher, not a teacheress.

It used to be ‘school mistress’ and there was plenty of respect for such a woman even if that would sound outdated now.

Neededanewuserhandle · 02/02/2023 14:41

I actually find it easier and more logical to have one word. I suspect the gendered versions of things are a hangover from Norman French or maybe Anglo Saxon German?
Hero instead of heroine for me too - much easier.

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:45

And I've seen a fair few Shakespearean parts sex-swapped. Fiona Shaw in Richard II, Maxine Peake and Cush Jumbo both doing Hamlet, Glenda Jackson playing Lear.

Part of the idea that there is only gender, not sex.

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:46

Do you think a hero and a heroine approach their heroic deeds in the same way and at the same costs to themselves? I think they are equally important but not the same.

Fifthtimelucky · 02/02/2023 14:48

Llovecookies · 02/02/2023 13:11

What's the neutral word for a seamstress?

Tailor?

I think actress has unfortunate connotations, best exemplified by all the "as the bishop said to the actress" type jokes that were so common in the 1970s.

userno777 · 02/02/2023 14:49

I was just thinking about this the other day when I heard someone call a female an actor. This was the start wasn't it. The start of de-sexing us, taking away our names, our professions. Pretending that sex doesn't matter.

I'm going to start using actress again.

LadyVictoriaSponge · 02/02/2023 14:56

userno777 · 02/02/2023 14:49

I was just thinking about this the other day when I heard someone call a female an actor. This was the start wasn't it. The start of de-sexing us, taking away our names, our professions. Pretending that sex doesn't matter.

I'm going to start using actress again.

👆👆👆

Totally agree.

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:57

It is interesting to think of some reversals of words related to occupations that have a distinctly female association and whether they could equally applied to men in the same work.

An example that came to mind is ‘ballerina’. Could a man be one? Never no matter how great a dancer that would not be the word for him.

‘Goddess’ is somehow not just a male god.

Can anyone think of other examples?

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:59

Goddess is not just a female god, I meant to say.

FuckabethFuckor · 02/02/2023 15:01

ScrollingLeaves · 02/02/2023 14:45

And I've seen a fair few Shakespearean parts sex-swapped. Fiona Shaw in Richard II, Maxine Peake and Cush Jumbo both doing Hamlet, Glenda Jackson playing Lear.

Part of the idea that there is only gender, not sex.

How so? (I'm genuinely interested, I'm not trying to be goady.)

girlfriend44 · 02/02/2023 15:02

Just seen an advert for a waiter or a waitress!