Do you teach your DC to say 'woman' or 'lady'?

[MrsBumblebee]

Ok, not really a problem for me yet as DS is only just 1. However, I've noticed recently that most young children seem to call women 'ladies' but men 'men' (as opposed to 'gentlemen') - e.g. 'Look, there's a man crossing the road', 'Look, there's a lady crossing the road'. This has started to bug me; not only are the words not equivalent, but the feminist in me bridles at the implication that women are somehow deserving of greater respect and politeness than men.

Thought I would do a straw poll to see what others do.

Lady I can cope with but somehow gentleman seems unbearably twee.

I'm afraid I say Lady - not doing much for the feminist sisterhood am I?!?

Both, but mainly lady.
I like the way it sounds

at DforDiva older people? 34-40 I might as well book myself into the retirement home now...

lady for laydeez ( just sounds more polite) and either nice man (maybe the nice man wil let you pat the dog) or gentleman for men. I use gentleman usually to refer to pensioner-types, as I tend to think they will find it more polite.

Lady and chap (pronounced cheip) in our house.

We use 'lady' most often, for no other reason than it's easier to say.

What annoys me is when people get their kids to say 'mister' instead of 'man'. Gives me visions of the pickpockets in Oliver for some reason and i can't think why

never heard anyone say mister!

We use lady and gentleman

WOMAN.

To me a lady is someone who deliberately disables herself with teetering heels and needs to have doors opened for her. It's almost euphemistic and deeply disempowering.

Or perhaps that's just mood I'm in at the moment realising how much better it is to be a man, even now, in 2008.

Lady and Gentleman or Genkleman as ds says he also says girls in a bizzare cockney accent for those under 21 I didn't teach him that it's his natural charm

both of my children had a phase of saying the odd word in a bizarre cokney-ish accent. A bit like Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

They also both had a spell of saying "hotel" in a sort of Deep South drawl - like "hotail".

Oh most definitely 'Lady' and 'Man'. I think it was inherited though tbh as I remember being smacked on the hand for saying 'woman' as a kid because it was 'rough'

We use both, though my husband is from 'down sarf' and uses 'bird' which I must admit to copying on occasion. LOL Retired Goth!

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I went to a Equalities and Diversity Course at work a couple of years ago and we were told not to use lady as it is insulting to lesbians!

Why?

at being considered old by DforDiva, you are welcome to refer to me as a woman anytime!
I reserve lady for dead posh types, or anyone REALLY old like say 60+!
stange about the lesbians, but that wouldn't be the first time I heard of something completely nutty at a diversity course!

GGPB, I really don't know, like the lentil eater says, they tell you all sorts of funny things on these courses, and then the next time you go on one, they have changed their minds !

Woman and man.
I think both can be said respectfully and softly, depends on the rest of the words around them.

Though sometimes I also used bloke, for well blokey types. I also use generic term of 'worker' when relevant.

Therefore my dd has some very strange turns of phrase.