Women, female or lady

[Jossse]

Just looking for some feedback about what everyone likes to call (or be called) women, females or lady professionals.
I'm sure many of you, like me don't want to be called any gender term.
But when you're in a group or describing people other than 'they' what is your favoured term.
Please be kind to me I'm doing some research for a potential business idea. I have spent ages researching articles and scrambling my brains and know that you will all give me fantastic answers in true MN style


Do you mean things like "he's a doctor, and she's a lady doctor"??

I am a woman.

So my collective noun is Women.

I don’t require any qualifier before my professional title. Thanks.

Don't call a woman 'lady' unless it's her title?

Woman

Depends. Not females.
I think women eg. We have a meeting with 6 women representatives next Tuesday.
Or if it’s one person then lady is fine eg Matthew be careful you don’t hit that lady with your toy.

Could you give a sentence example please? Different words fit better depending on what's being said.

Eg good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, or the women in this focus group... Etc

Women.

We had a young male TA a few years ago who called the 10 female teachers in the department "lovely ladies". We did NOT like that, as it felt very patronising especially from someone so much younger and more junior than us.

Of course no prefix before job title so absolutely not female/lady/woman doctor etc.

Why do you feel is it necessary to identify professionals as anything other than their professional status?

Perhaps if you could explain why you need to do so, we might be able to respond appropriately.

(Oh, and referring to the administration staff as "the girls in the office" is a big no-no, by the way).

@MsAwesomeDragon there's someone at work who whenever he sees me and my colleague, goes hello ladies. Seriously annoys us and he's been told but he still does it. Just call us by our names. In answer to your question you shouldn't offer a prefix before a profession ever. If the business idea is something like women plumbers or something, I would totally employ a woman plumber over a man if she had all the qualifications and in that context would prefer the use of woman. I think we need to know the context.

Woman
And my job title is whatever my job title is.
Lady professional? 🤣🤣😊 what is that?

We just to be human beings so no 'ladies' or 'girls' or anything ridiculous. My name thanks! Just like you would with a man you respected.

The very idea of “lady professionals” is sexist.
Nobody refers to “men plumbers” or “gentlemen doctors”. Why is the default always male?

@Babdoc

The very idea of “lady professionals” is sexist. Nobody refers to “men plumbers” or “gentlemen doctors”. Why is the default always male?

The implication would be that there are proper doctors and then there are lady doctors

Definitely never ladies. Very rarely females. Women when necessary, and by that I mean absolutely vital to the understanding of the rest of the sentence.

Of course one also needs to know the definition of any of those words for them to have any meaning at all. So “ladies” when that also includes men, or “women” when you also mean to include bicycles, not very useful.

Women.
Use of ‘female’ is a signifier to me of, usually men who have no problem saying ‘man’, who are uncomfortable with the word women or woman. Total red flag.

@Babdoc, I've had some awful sexist, racist and homophobic tradesmen, that's the word everyone uses, in my home so would love to be able to employ a woman plumber. It's not right in a perfect world but we all know it isn't perfect.

Op, Feel like you need to get some of these t shirts from Man Who Has It All

Women, the only time I use lady is when I'm telling a small child to say thank you to the lady

Woman

Woman.

Woman.

Although our WhatsApp group has ladies in the title 😬

@HeronLanyon

Women. Use of ‘female’ is a signifier to me of, usually men who have no problem saying ‘man’, who are uncomfortable with the word women or woman. Total red flag.

I refer the right honorable lady woman female to Mr Martin Goodman ...

m.facebook.com/watch/?v=1353549934779689&_rdr

Personally, I prefer to be referred to as a "body with a vagina".

said no woman ever