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?

It's all very well talking about French and German but they are different languages.

In English we generally have neutral words with a few special cases. (I agree with Elephants - they are neutral, not masculine.) The fact that there are only a few such cases implies IMO that there are only a few jobs that women can do - actress, manageress etc. If we go with the feminine words, we'll have to make up a load of new ones because so few already exist in English. I prefer the neutral titles like police officer, firefighter, cabin crew etc.

I do get a slight pang because "aviatrix" is such a fantastic word.

I am an analyst - would the feminine be analysta? Analyste?

Another advantage of the use of neutral titles is anyone who says "chaps and chapesses" can be slung in prison.

I always believed (I think perhaps my mother told me) that the ess(e) or ette was a diminutive? So that usherette was a little lady usher, waitress, actress etc etc. Its certainly a secondary term to the male version.

Its so unnecessary. If I tell you I am an actor or an author, you can see that I am a women, you don't need a different word to know my gender beforehand. What does it matter?

There is also another pattern to be aware of:

"ambassadress" is the wife of an ambassador. A woman in the role is ambassador (no recognized term for her husband).

I think it's the same for peers: peeress is the wife of a peer; someone ennobled in her own right us a lady peer.

I've never liked 'male nurse' 'male dancer' 'male speech therapist' - I prefer describing people's jobs without describing their sex, and I try to use 'actor' as I dislike the conflation of the diminutive and the female terms (ironically, as my first name is in fact a male name with a female diminutive tacked on...) But i do see claig's point that non-neutral terms could change thinking faster.

The fact is that gender is handled differently in English, we are not used to seeing gender applied to every noun, so when a noun does have a specified gender, it is much more noticeable and has a greater positive or negative effect. Similarly there are few British jobs where addressing someone by their professional title is now usual - I understand that's different in Germany. I am simply not going to refer to my closest friends as Surgeoness, Chief Superintendentess, Solicitoress, Senior Lecturess, Park Rangeress, Chief Engineeress, Male Full-time Mother et al. They seem to have done fine with more neutral titles, tbh. So I'm not going to refer to Dawn French as an actress, either.

Anyone remember Margaret Thatcher being 'humourously' referred to as the Leaderene?

Yes. But. The point of feminine and masculine nouns in, say, German, is that for the language to work you have to know the correct case. If the sentence was in the dative, for example, the definitive article would change according to the gender of the word. We don't have that in English so there is no need to differentiate between masculine and feminine.

x-post allarm, sorry

No problem maktaitai this is an opinion type thread, plenty of different views - our great minds think alike :)

'We don't have that in English so there is no need to differentiate between masculine and feminine.'

Merrylegs, should we get rid of the word princess as well as actress? Should we pretend that prince is neutral?

I am a female actor and I can tell you why...it's because historically any woman wo was an"actress" was often also a prostitute or a pro mistress and to many people the word "actress" still has a ring of tawdriness to it...all to do with saucy wenches and stage-door Johnnies.

'it's because historically any woman wo was an"actress" was often also a prostitute'

yes, but that was sexism.

claig I think Elizabeth I used to refer to herself as a prince.

Yes Claig...and the word has got negative connotations from it's history...so it's been changed.

AllarmBells, didn't know that.

Just found some more feminine specific words, baroness. Can you imagine calling Maggie, Baron Thatcher. Then there is Empress Catherine the Great and the Duchess of York. Long live the distinction. There'll soon have us all as unisex socialist robots, genderless worker bees.

I obviously have a gender....you can look at me and see it. If someone is not looking at me then it's best they don't make assumptions due to my title. So I don't think we're heading for a unisex nation at the mo.

Does anyone know of any novels or science fiction that deal with the use of genderless language? It would be interesting to see what this may possibly lead to. I googled and found an Ursula Le Guin novel about a genderless society, but many feminists have criticised this novel as being male based. I think there is a danger that genderless language can eventually lead to an even more male/neutral dominated society than the one we have now. It would be interesting to see if there are any novels that explore this.

Yes we should get rid of princess. We should ditch the whole notion of monarchy altogether.

About the monarchy and titles though, what about King and Queen? If the monarch is male he is KING and his wife is called QUEEN. However when the monarch is female her husband is not a KING but a Queens Consort. Why is this? Because a king is more important than a queen, more powerful. Prince Phillip has no crown because his wife is in charge.

And I can't see any problem with Baron Thatcher. Other than the fact a better title would be the late Thatcher...

Claig...Since I am never adressed as "Actor" I doubt my insisting on the title will lead to a genderless society...it is for written purposes and for when I am being introduced...as I said...gender is obvious (usually) and therefore a system of genderless titles would not affect society at large.

"addressed"

What's a neutral dominated society claig? It surely wouldn't be the same as a male dominated one, or are you saying that the two would realistically be the same? I agree it would be interesting to see how people have imagined this (maybe you should write a novel like this).

What if the Duke of York married a man? The title Duchess suggests 'wife of a duke', I suppose, though am I right in thinking you can be a Duchess in your own right? But a husband of a duke - Dukelet? Ducal Partner?

"Ducal partner"

'therefore a system of genderless titles would not affect society at large'

I think it does affect society, because language affects our thought. It has a profound subconscious, subliminal effect. That is why the Germans no longer thought it was polite or correct to refer to a female President, using the male term Bundeskanzler. The Belgians have officially recommended changes to their language to instate feminine specific terms for jobs. Many people originally ridiculed this, and said that it was laughable. they questioned it as follows

"would feminine terms like magistrate risk shocking, upsetting, making laugh or indeed ridiculing?"

a profound change in language shocks the consciousness, and is resisted by men like Jules Renard in 1905, because it rocks the boat, and diminishes the authority of the single male/neutral term. Teh Academoe francaise is not ready for the change yet, as far as I know. But the change will come, because it cannot be stopped, because it is progress. In the middle ages, there were no female actors, there were actors, but they were all male. When females appeared on the stage, a new word was born and entered human consciousness, it rocked the boat, announced that things had changed, and diminished the authority of the male acting profession. It was the word actress. I am sure it shocked many actors of the time. But it entered our consciousness, and now there is a politically correct trend which is removing it, and taking us back in time.

'What's a neutral dominated society claig? It surely wouldn't be the same as a male dominated one, or are you saying that the two would realistically be the same? I agree it would be interesting to see how people have imagined this (maybe you should write a novel like this).'

Yes, I think neutrality is a pretence, it is really male dominated, just like Blair's Babes were a pretence, as Caroline Flint also showed in her resignation letter to Brown.

It is a fascinating subject. I am on the case of starting to explore the ideas in a novel . It will be released just at the time that the tide changes, on the crest of a wave.

Claig

When female actors first appeared on stage they were treated abominably...underpaid and heckled by the males in the audience. They were regularly pelted with shit and rotten fruit. Their roles were usually titilating ones...with revealing costumes a normal part of performing.

So along with their unhappy intoroduction into the theatre, there came a title...meant to mark them as different to male actors. So as modern actors we wish to distance ourselves from the unhappy begining suffered by many women in the profession.

There is no going back in time now. Those days are over.

Well you'd better do your research a bit more thoroughly then Claig!

'When female actors first appeared on stage they were treated abominably...underpaid and heckled by the males in the audience. They were regularly pelted with shit and rotten fruit. Their roles were usually titilating ones...with revealing costumes a normal part of performing.'

yes, they they heckled etc. But that is because they felt threatened. It shocked them, they wanted to resist it, and turn the clock back. But no one laughed at Greta Garbo, or Arletty, or Katherine Hepburn. They were actresses and stars and the equal of any male actor. They were unique, they stood out. No one laughed or jeered or heckled an actress anymore.