Why Lionesses?

[EhatBow]

I'll admit I haven't been a fan of women's football. Until recently it's been a lot like watching schoolboys. I felt they needed to develop their own game, like the female tennis player have. In tennis, rather than the same play slower it's a different game and I think the female footballers have achieved that in this competition.

However, we don't have manageresses or actresses anymore, so why Lionesses? Or am I over thinking?

I disagree.
Lions are just lions - no idea whether they are male or female.
Lionesses get a special name because they are special.

Actors and actresses still have a distinction because different roles are available to them. They are also in separate categories at the Oscars although I understand there is some disquiet about that.

For those asking why have a nickname at all. Here in Australia pretty much all major sports teams have an animal nickname. Eg the Wallabies (Aus rugby union), Parramatta Eels, Penrith Panthers (both Sydney-based rugby league teams). Socceroos are the men’s football team and Matildas the women’s team (okay not an animal but still a nickname)

When we were in Melbourne recently we saw a game between the Geelong Cats and the Western Bulldogs. Cats vs. Dogs. Made for an amusing couple of hours.

What's wrong with just the women's England football team? I am sure I see more talk of the women being referred to as Lionesses than the men were called Lions.
It sort of feels like - you have serious footballers (men) and women who are just playing, in a fun way - hence the fun name. It's hard to explain it. I don't like it.

It's right through football and rugby.

I see it as a compliment. Lionesses seem to do all the stuff that matters - hunting, raising cubs, looking after the pride. The lions just stand around looking good and roaring uselessly...

The lions actually rear the cubs.

Whatever you want to call them, the team have won respect and caused a huge change of attitude, even among men. It was noticeable how the misogynist comments declined the further the women progressed in the tournament.
I was laughing at an internet meme that showed the winning women’s team photo, with a fake moustache stuck on each face, captioned: “Gareth Southgate reveals his new line up for the World Cup in Qatar”!
Lioness is a positive image - a top predator, athletic, skilled hunter, dangerous - not usually associated with women. What a huge improvement on meek little motherly housewife images!

I think given the England woman’s success they should be Lions and the mens team known as Lion Cubs.

Ess is not less in terms of RL, the women’s game, female actors etc. But linguistically the name is Lion with the Ess tacked on to denote female.

The big cats are not collectively known as Lionesses, with the ess struck off to denote the sub group of the species known as Lion, a term used only to denote male lions. ‘Lions’ as a noun covers male and female lions. ‘Lionesses’ does not.

That is irksome but it is the language so…

We do want language to evolve with meaning. Less and less does ‘chairman’ cover both sexes, ‘mankind’ is now more often known as humankind.

European Champions will do...

until the men also have that title... so a while...

It is indeed. What's your point?

In heraldry the symbols were originally leopards. Over time they morphed into lions. Think I heard this on QI.

not sure there very much difference between male and female leopard unlike in the much more dimorphic lion species

I was thinking this I don't remember the men being called Lions so much.

This is why I use the term footballeresses for women that play football.

They aren't. Doesn't mean the women can't give themselves a fitting nickname if they want to. It's so normal for sports teams to have these sorts of names that this isn't even an interesting talking point let alone a contentious/feminist issue.

Yeah, I see all the logic for having a feminised term for the women's team, but I hope that eventually they just become the Lions, because it doesn't really matter whether the men's or women's teams win, so much as the English team have won.

What has been irritating me is the references to 'England' when really referring to the men's team so the default 'England' being referred to is still male.

I listened to the drivetime show on Absolute radio today, and the dj talked about it at length but in a gender neutral way and it was really refreshing to hear.

Fair enough if it's their own nickname no problem then is it like you say

@chilledbubble they're literally never called the Lions. Bet they wish they were. But they're not

What has been irritating me is the references to 'England' when really referring to the men's team so the default 'England' being referred to is still male

Ditto

And it's like playing the UK national anthem for England. Commonwealth Games have got it right, by not doing this (they're using Jerusalem)

The women's team won't become the Lions - its been a rugby team (UK/Ireland) since the 1880s, and is also the cricket B team

Three Lions was written and released for Euro 96. I think the Lionesses owning/overtaking that is a good thing

According to Leigh Moore who was responsible for using the term Lionesses on social media, it was to give the women a more distinctive presence on social media:

www.linkedin.com/pulse/where-lionesses-came-from-why-here-stay-leigh-moore

I don't like it myself but that's a throwback to a dreadful tweet from the FA after the women's world cup referring to the Lionesses going back to their homes after losing to the USA. I think it was deleted but it was badly worded. However, it's clear from other posts that Lionesses is seen more positively by others.

I've been noticing that in cricket it's much more common to refer to the men's and women's national teams so that the men's is not the default. The Hundred competition is referred to as the men's and women's Hundred.

The RAF has never had Airwomen, well, officially anyway, though it was used in practice. When the WRAF was amalgamated in 1994, not long before I joined, the term Airman/Airmen was applied to both males and females, in the same way that soldier or sailor does to the other two armed services. They did have Aircraftwomen as a rank though for a while, and variations thereof.

Just to stick with the Aviator sub-subject for a second, the main grumble I've heard about that piece of rebranding is not about whether it should be aviator/aviatrix, being gender neutral or not, it's the use of the term at all, in either form, for those who don't fly...

It's like labelling everybody working in a hospital as Surgeon or (to try and get back to the thread) everybody associated with a football team as footballer..

English has worked bloody hard over the years to dump genders. And second person plural. And given recent events I can't see re-Europeanising English (as she is spoke 😀) going down too well.

@DomesticShortHair
And that bodge was perceived to be a problem. As you say, once the WRAF was merged into the RAF the term Airwoman was used but only unofficially. I'm not sure how many females serving in the RAF would have had a problem with the use of Airwoman being officially adopted alongside Airman - I don't have that data to hand. But if a new gender neutral term was required then I don't think aviator was it (or aviatrix for that matter) because it doesn't convey the correct meaning.

I stand by my point that the masculine term for anything shouldn't habitually be adopted as the non-gendered form.

The thinking is that pilots actually fly/pilot the plane.

But everyone in the airforce is roled for keeping them flying, hence aviator

It's like the old saw of a visitor to a cathedral under construction, asking what people were doing
'I'm buttressing this wall' said the mason
'I'm putting in the altar screen' said another mason
'I'm measueing for the stained glass' said another worker

'I'm building a cathedral' said the worker sweeping the floor

RAF is working hard to get all roles the recognition they believe they deserve