why is it pro women to say "actor' rather than actress?

[Greythorne]

I noticed that Dawn French is doing a MN webchat and she is described as an actor.

I know this is the way all Hollywood types refrer to themselves, but I don't get it. Why is actress derogatory?

I like it. why should we be ashamed of being women, as actress conveys and actor leaves ambiguous.

I remember in my cultural studies book at uni, there was a cartoon from the 20s with a fabulous female aviator and the caption was:
girl? I'm no girl! I'm an aviatrix!" and I love that.

Please can someone explain?

[Ephiny]

I don't think actress is derogatory, not sure why we need separate words for male and female actors though. We don't do that for other occupations, e.g. doctor, teacher, at least not in English. I don't see what's wrong with being a female actor, or how that implies you are ashamed of being a woman.

I suppose it's polite to refer to people using the term they personally prefer, not sure what that is for Dawn French though.

[scurryfunge]

Actor sets the (male) standard and anything that comes from that word appears secondary.

Why should actress be a secondary term? We do not need to set out gender in occupations.

[claig]

I agree with you, Greythorne. Actress is a word to be proud of, it shouldn't be hidden under the term actor. We have words like actor and actress, because our language is formed from other languages, such as German, French, Latin and Greek.

The French for actor is acteur and the French for actress is actrice.
In German, there is also a difference, Schauspieler is an actor and Schauspielerin is an actress.

I think that some politically correct luvvies think that actress is in some way inferior to actor, and that is why they want to be called actor. But I think that this is subconsciously thinking that women are inferior to men.

Clark Gable was an actor and Katherine Hepburn was an actress, but Clark Gable is not superior to Katherine Hepburn. They played different parts differently. They weren't just some unisex "actors".

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

There was quite a lot of discussion of actor -v- actress on the first half of this thread.

Couple of issues for me:

1)It isn't customary in English to refer to professionals with a linguistic add-on including their sex. Unlike German where you are a teacher or a teacheress, a doctor or a doctoress, say. Therefore it sounds a bit contrived and patronising to say "actress", in the same way that "poetess" was used 100 years ago. Unless people would prefer to be referred to as social-workerettes, or she-managers for example.

3)If you were referring to a mixed group of male and female performers, you would call them "actors". Therefore it's more inclusive to call them "an actor" individually. Otherwise the collective use makes female actors invisible.

And a couple of other things that I've already bored people with on the other thread :o

Agree WRT following the person's own preference, if known.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Oh maybe one more thing - you can see in the examples from English, French and German (Lehrer and Lehrerin for example) that the female term has an added bit on the end. So it's not Teacherman or Teacherwoman, it's Teacher or Teacherlady. This kind of implies the history where men were doing these jobs, and an addition was cobbled on the end when women started doing the job. You need to mark out women, you see, so just giving them the same name as a man for the same profession would be impractical. What next - pay them the same?

[claig]

We have governor, governess
master, mistress

these type of words come from other languages such as French, where they have maitre, maitresse

I think we should be proud of our language and these differences. We shouldn't aim to hide femaleness under what is thought of as a more worthy male or neuter form. I think that that is removing the feminine from view, as if it is not as worthy as the male.
I think it is PC gorn mad and doesn't help women.

[scurryfunge]

It is the same reason that Woman Police Officer was dropped years ago....your gender should not matter in terms of employment.

[scurryfunge]

claig....it is men who define and set the rules and I think that is the issue. It does make women less worthy if they are an after thought or a deviation of the (male) norm.

[Unprune]

I thought it was because female actors felt that there had in fact been discrimination of various sorts, earlier on in the movie industry, and wanted (quite reasonably) to be seen as absolutely equal to their male counterparts.
I was told this by someone in the film industry. It was because the word 'actress' was sullied by male behaviour, not because it's an inherently bad word.

[claig]

We have the term Prime Minister, which is minister because it has always designated a male role. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. Can you imagine what the effect on the population's psyche would have been to call her Prime Ministress Margaret Thatcher, instead of using a male term. It would have embedded in everyone's mind that leading the country was a female role and after 18 years of her rule, and people hearing that term every night on the news, it would have caused profound changes in people's views. It would have changed things more than calling her Prime Minister.

[claig]

'claig....it is men who define and set the rules and I think that is the issue.'

Language affects thought and can change the rules. If every neutral headteacher in the land turned out to be a headmistress instead of a headmaster, then people would naturally associate the role with women and whenever thinking of the role, they would immediately think of a woman. But use of the neutral headteacher, disguises the reality of the role.

[vesuvia]

ElephantsAndMiasmas wrote - examples from English, French and German (Lehrer and Lehrerin for example) that the female term has an added bit on the end. So it's not Teacherman or Teacherwoman, it's Teacher or Teacherlady. This kind of implies the history where men were doing these jobs, and an addition was cobbled on the end when women started doing the job."

There is also the situation where women were doing a job long before men and where women still form the vast majority of the profession e.g. the words for nurse in German are Pfleger (for men) and Pflegerin (for women), so even in that situation, the newer male form became the "default" which can be feminised.

[claig]

They tried to use language to change perceptions by changing chairman to chair. Historically, it was chairman rather than chairwoman, because in the past, the majority of occupants of this role were men. However, in the future, there will be a time when there are as many women as men in this role. then the word chair will be used rather than chairwoman. I think chairwoman would have a far greater role in changing perceptions than the neutral word of chair (which may give the impression of a male in the role, when it was really a female).

If the news regularly announced that the Chairwoman of such and such a parliamentary committee had decided such and such, then public perceptions would be changed more than if the neutral, genderless term of chair was used.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

But claig you seem to be assuming that the "neutral" term has male overtones. The "er" ending of "Prime Minister" isn't manly, it is neutral. Adding an "ess" doesn't indicate the feminine version of a male word. It indicates the feminine version of a neutral word. If it was Prime Ministerchap I would totally agree that Prime Ministerlady would be ok.

Similarly with "Chair/man/woman" issue - I think the problem was rather that women were being referred to as "chairman" of the committee, not that they were being called "chairwoman". Not so bothered about a label which indicates the sex as male or female (although wholly unnecessary). It's the idea that this is the job title which sounds neutral as to gender, but if a woman is doing the job we need to find a special name for her. Nurse and Nursette. Road mender and She-Road Mender. There is nothing inherently male about being a prime minister or a nurse or a road mender, or an actor. That's why one word would do for both.



If you're a shop assistant

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

not sure how that got on the end there! :o

[claig]

Yes I think that a neutral term generally has male connotations, due to history. So a soldier, still has a generally male connotation, due to the past. We can only use the English language to express our thoughts, and it is not as grammatically rich as some of the languages that it sprung from. In French, there is a distinction between the male soldat and the female soldate, or between the male etudiant and the female etudiante.

In the long run, as women are represented in more leading positions, the distinction will become important, and it will be hidden from consciousness by these neutral words (which historically have a male connotation). In English, there is no female specific term for nurse. But there still is for actress. I think we should be proud of that distinction and use it. We shouldn't hide the female distinction under the "male" term, actor, which is now also being used as a neutral term (but still implies maleness due to its original male connotation and the fact that male actors are not called actresses).

[claig]

If we hear a news report that "a soldier was wounded", we still think of a man. They have to spell out that a "female soldier" was wounded. The female is secondary to the male in the word soldier. Similarly for the word actor. If we hear that "a British actor2 won an Oscar, we still instinctively first think of a man. they would probably still have to tell us that a "female actor" won an Oscar. So the female is secondary to teh male in the 2neutral2 word, actor. But if they told us that an actress won an oscar, they don't need to do any further explanation, and there is no secondary role of teh female to the male. That is why I think it is important to use actress, as it changes the consciousness of people, whereas the neutral term actor still has male connotations.

[scurryfunge]

So why perpetuate the difference of an occupation in terms of gender? Why not have a neutral term instead of unnecessarily pointing out the gender. Being proud of the distinction merely enables male power over language and defination of roles.

It is not a question of hiding the female distinction but disregarding females all together as secondary and an afterthought when they started performing traditionally male roles. Language is very powerful in "keeping" women in their place.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Like I said on the other thread, to my mind the more stereotype breaking thing is to abandon the use of "female" before gender neutral nouns unless it is in some way extremely relevant.

If they said "a soldier has been awarded the so and so medal" and you pictured a bloke, and then saw an image of a woman on your TV, that would break down the idea that "soldier"=man. If you use "female soldier" (where no-one would ever use "male soldier") it perpetuates the view that women are the exception and the "other". Soldier, actor, mayor are men - unless otherwise stated. This doesn't work for me in terms of breaking down stereotypes!

OT - I know a woman who's mayor and her male partner is the Lady Mayoress :o

[claig]

Languages have evolved naturally over centuries. To change actress to actor is an artificial action created at this moment in time in order to try to use language to try to blur the distinction between male and female actors. i think it is political correctness and domne with good intentions of helping women to achieve equality. But, I think it is misguided, and is in fact buying in to the concept of women being unequal to men, which is why this special manipulation of language is being used, in order to theoretically restore balance. But, I think in the end , it will have the opposite effect, and will work in the interests of men. It will hide female terms such as actress and governess and mistress etc. and use meutral terms like actor (which coincidentally happen to be male terms). So it will hide the reality of the changing roles of women, and their increasing power, under this neutral term.

[claig]

'the more stereotype breaking thing is to abandon the use of "female" before gender neutral nouns unless it is in some way extremely relevant.'

agree, using female before a gender neutral noun, reinstates female as secondary every time. That's why i like female specific terms, like actress. We don't have enough of them in the English language, because many of them were dropped grammatically. But, we should keep hold of the ones that we still have. As times change and women are represented in all positions of power equally and predominantly, it would be a shame to still perpetuate the neutral(male) words for professions, when the reality was in fact the opposite.

[scurryfunge]

We are playing by men's rules if we perpetuate the terminolgy -rules of language and writing that men decided on and employed.

[FootLikeATractionEngine]

Surely this is all about the function not the form? Why does the sex need referencing?

And what EaM said about the surprise factor. That's more powerful for changing minds than whatever claig is advocating. All that encourages is reference to same sex peers, rather than all people doing the same job.

[claig]

Why don't they make the neutral word for someone in the acting profession an "actress" instead of an "actor"? They would never do that, because they think that actor is male and is therefore superior. People like Dawn French then buy into this hidden way of thinking, by calling themselves "actors".

[claig]

I think we change things by using language to emphasise the feminine, not hide it under the use of neutral terms. It's similar to the terms God and Goddess. There is a distinction and it does matter. Writing the female terms out of the lexicon is not helpful.

I don't like the politically correct trend towards neiutrality, as it hides the feminine. It is a bit like left wing communist thinking in China, where they all had to wear the same drab clothes. I like freedom and distinction. I don't like neutrality, because it hides the truth and the human soirit, and it is most often used to deny the feminine and promote the masculine.