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?

We're not talking about the actors of the last century now Claig...but of this century. It's a very different industry now.

"Who appointed this minx as executrix?"

"Obviously it was the testatrix."

'It's a very different industry now.'

yes I tend to like the actresses of the last century. They were stars. Angelina Jolie doesn't compare to Katherine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis in my opinion. They were stellar, they created the Golden Age, they were actresses. I expect that Angelina is probably an actor.

They were paid a lot less than actors and treated far worse. Do you admire that too?

Were they really paid less? I remember hearing that our own Marie Lloyd was the highest paid woman in the world at one point.

Were stars like Marlene Dietrich paid less than Jimmy Stewart? I don't know.

No, I don't admire actresses being treated worse than actors.

I bet they were paid less and treated worse that their leading men. Hollywood did not and does not treat women well.

My gender at work is irrelevant because I am employed for my brain not my vagina.

When I chair a meeting I chair it, I don't female chair it. When I manage I manage, I don't female manage. I do understand your feeling that it might be more visible when women hold positions of power if it was obvious that they were women, but I only think this would be true if we always referred to people by title, which on the whole in the UK we don't. I also disagree on principle.

I don't think gender is irrelevant. Thatcher's gender was not irrelevant as people like Mitterand, Gorbachev and Reagan all testify.

Yes, you chair a meeting. You don't chairman a meeting or chairwoman a meeting. But that is different from being the chairwoman or chairman or chair of the meeting. Yes you manage, because there is no English word for "female manage".

Both men and women act, and they can both be called actors. But I don't think that teh word "actress" diminishes a female actor. I think that the great Hollywood stars of the past who won oscars for Best Actress, were not diminished by that title. I do think that referring to Bette Davis as an actor would diminish her, just as referring to Thatcher as Baron Thatcher would also diminish her. I prefer the term actress, because I think it denotes much more than actor.

I would think very little of someone who thought I acted in a particular way simply because I was female. Being a woman is only a part of who I am, and emphasizing that someone is female is something that is generally done to demean (as sometimes women do to men too). I don't think of Thatcher first as a woman, but as a politician (and definitely not a politicianess), as the leader of our country for a while, and a very divisive figure. Of course as a woman in a traditionally male role and at a very macho point in history I expect that she was seen as a bit of an alien at times (when they remembered that she was a woman that is - I see Reagon is quoted as calling her "?the best man in England?), but your post simply makes me think that Mitterand, Gorbachev and Reagan were all rather sexist.

If there was a female term for manager I would reject it. I don't see why it is necessary to advertise that I'm a woman, and if there wasn't a special male form then I would think it deeply sexist, a neutral term is much better IMO.

One of the things I really like about English is that it is gender neutral, I've always thought that French was quite bizarre with it's female windows and male bread. Besides which the default is to masculine (I see that Welsh unusually defaults to female).

Female actors are still payed less than male actors and especally in Hollywood.

Claig, the fact that most female actors prefer a genderless title really doesn't reflect the ability of an entire generation of performers.

Angelina Jolie and her ability or her title has no bearing on anything. There are good and bad actors; always have been and always wil be.

This is about Bette Davis and her pay, where she was the highest paid star in Hollywood in 1948

'Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly noted that "Davis was a top box office draw throughout the '30s and '40s, and in 1948 she was the highest paid star in Hollywood."'

In the thirties and forties, before the time of public TV, millions of men and women would turn out to watch the movies, and the scripts were written for adult audiences and the stars were huge. I think that much of our modern output has deteriorated in quality, and some of our violent, souless modern productions even take their inspiration from video games or cartoon strips.

I think many of the great parts and scripts of the past are no longer available. Nowadays it is people like Quentin Tarantino that is lauded. I think that is sad. But the good news is that one day the public will say enough is enough and the great films and scripts of the past will return, and when that time comes, I think female stars will once again wish to be called actresses.

The use of special girly worlds for women doing the same jobs as men has never increased respect for those women, nor has it coincided with women dominating those professions. I agree with those who find strictly gendered languages downright peculiar, and enjoy the neutrality of English. I suspect that in the end 'actress' will fall out of favour in the same way as 'poetess' has.

I don't think the quality of scripts available will suddenly change an entire generation of women and their thoughts on what title they would like claig!

I think at this point I have said all I need to say and so will leave you to your somewhat odd musings.

'I don't think the quality of scripts available will suddenly change an entire generation of women and their thoughts on what title they would like'

the reason I say that is because I think that it is no coincidence that the use of actor is now becoming the norm in Hollywood. Stars like Sophia Loren still refer to themselves as actress. I think it is the Tarantinoisation of Hollywodd, the male dominated violent kick ass movie scripts that have gone hand in hand with the use of the neutral term "actor" (which would be strange if used for a great actress like Bette Davis). I think that when this male type of influence declines again, when the action heros disappear and we get back to complex human dramas with 3 dimensional characters and when adult scripts return, then female stars will again use the term actress rather than actor when referring to themselves. You know more about the acting profession than me, but I bet that even now, there are some women who oppose the trend towards the use of the word "actor".

For working purposes,currently, i think some female performers are actors, and others, actresses. Usually determined by the performer or their agent's advice.

I think there is a level of glamour that is expected of an 'actress', and a level of overt intelligence required of a 'female actor', and roles are distributed accordingly.

This is clearly demonstrated when an 'actress' takes on a female character role (usually involving some sort of disfiguration), declaring to the awards circuit "take me seriously, I can act as well as look glamourous! - I am a serious actor"

I don't believe an actress is less talented than a female actor, but uses a different skill set.

It's equally a departure from the norm to see a 'serious' female performer glam-it-up.

I've heard Meryl Streep refer to herself as both an 'actress' and as an 'actor'. I think some performers choose to differentiate context between persona and working process using the two terms.

I don't believe the terms have to do with quality of scripts. More to do with how women are perceived in greater society.

As an aside there are plenty of quality scripts for women but no money/interest to fund them being produced at a substantial level.

Good point. Yes there must be lots of good scripts, but presumably the commercial interests are not interested in backing them.

Just out of interest, how would legends like Elizabeth Taylor describe themselves?

The other point that I'm not sure has been made, is that if you have separate words for men and women doing the same job, it makes it frighteningly easy to talk about women doing the job as a group. Generalise, cast aspersions on etc. This is aided by the fact that the male term is also the neutral term.

So for example, if you have solicitors and solicitoresses.

"solicitors are so often overpriced jobsworths" = all solicitors are included in this slur

"solicitoresses are so often overpriced jobsworths" = female solicitors only are being picked on.

There is no one-word term that enables people to generalise about men doing a certain job, in this case. But there would be one conveniently to hand to use to hit female workers with.

When I hear "poetess" "usherette" "hackette" "authoress" I hear echoing behind them the sarcastic, sexually suggestive and otherwise condescending comments so often aimed at these groups.

Saucetastic...it has nothing to do with an actors level of glamour...lol at the thought.
Are you really suggesting that all the "plain" ones are "actors"?

I happen to know some extremely glamorous and talented women who are actors. Not suggesting I am one...I am far too normal looking for glamour...but I assure you that the choice has nothing to do with looks.

Hi Mumbling, I agree with you. I don't think glamour has anything to do with beauty.

When i use the term 'glamour' I mean a masking aura of sexual/magical inaccessability. ie. faerie glamor.

This is something that any female actor can choose to do, but is part and parcel of being an 'actress'.

I think it's far more limiting artistically to brand oneself as an 'actress', and potentially creatively boring, but the powers that be keep funding those roles - so more work out there for women performers who choose to label themselves that way. (I imagine the game plan for most who choose that route is to become a successful 'actress', then find the right project to demonstrate that there was an actor underneath all along.) I'm not saying this is the only route, and in fact for UK female performers, it is a rare route. I can't imagine too many ingenues straight out of drama school wanting to limit their castability. I think the US is different though.

And no one is too normal looking for glamour!

Back to my point though: being an 'actress' is a persona (useful for some for publicity/branding/lazy casting). Being a 'female actor' is a job title (working process).

I don't know about Elizabeth Taylor and their ilk. With such a long career from child to a woman performer in her 70's, she's probably thought of herself as many things! As much a reflection on conventional society as her own personal politics.