Do you object when you are referred to in the male form of your job title?

[headfairy]

I'm not sure I'm phrasing this correctly... are you offended for example if you are referred to as a chairman rather than chairperson? Waiter instead of waitress? Actor instead of Actress?

One of the jobs I do is pretty male dominated and the job description is {jobname}man.... It just sounds odd to refer to it as {jobname}woman or {jobname}person. Should I insist on being referred to as a {jobname}woman/person?

Is any of this making any sense at all

if the camera 'takes' images, we could use 'caminicker'. Oh maybe not.

Ah, but a cinematographer is different. That's the person who sets up the shot in the way the director wants, and it's considered artistic. Not to knock camera, uh, operators, but they're considered to be technicians whose skill is running the camera. It's true that a still photographer would do the equivalent of both jobs, but I think in movies and TV it's different. Or is that all wrong? But in news video, there's no chance for a cinematographer to get to work, and no aim to be artistic. it would be very misleading to call a news cameraperson a "cinematographer".

I've been wondering about term would be used for a female "cameraman" for a while and I too would go for camera operator though it doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as cameraman does.

I object to terms like "chairman". You wouldn't get a male calling himself a "chairwoman" yet women I know think it's fine to be called a "chairman". I always say "chair" and other gender neutral terms.

Exactly, TeiT. Cinematographer already has a definition separate from Cameraman.

Ah,I stand corrected, my thesaurus had them as synonyms. But then again the OP said 'Camera technician sounds ... a bit technical. I'm an artist don'tcha know' - so if she's not already a cinematographer, maybe that's what she really wants to be.

Videographer?

A chair is a piece of furniture.

But a woman who presides over a meeting--you can address her as "Madam Chairman", and how wonderful is that? There are recompenses for not having one's gender fully recognized.

No

The only person I've ever head someone say "Madam Chairman' was an ancient old gimmer from another age. I bet he didn't call male chairs "Sir Chairman". Mostly in the sort of meetings I go to people call each other by their names.

He probably did, Nooka. Well, almost. The proper way to address the person chairing a meeting is "Mr Chairman" or "Madam Chairman".

I'm a manager. But because I work in a very techie area, people always assume I should be male. I get many emails referring to me as "he", and have een once been introduced as "Slug, the blah blah Manager...she's a woman"

I thought it might be PrettyCandles. Which is interesting because Mr is not the equivalent of Madam is it. I guess Mrs Chairman would imply that the chair was married to the real chairman.