Teacher told not to use gendered language

[Pregante]

In a teaching observation this month my department head noted as a point for improvement that I should try not to use gendered language when addressing the class. I use boys & girls or ladies & gents depending on the age of the students. She advised this was in order not to potentially offend any trans children. She also mentioned this to some of my other colleagues and gave them the same advice.

I care about my students and would never humiliate anyone. Is this just the norm now? What do I use instead?

I work in a girls school. It has girls in its name. I was told not to use the word girls.

Ffs 🤦‍♀️

It was women that chose to be called actors rather than actresses.

Do we call female teachers teacheresses? Doctors, doctresses? Lawyers, lawyeresses?

Have you heard of the corruption of language that refers to the female sex? and its counterpart, the elevation of all things male?

Case in point here. If you addressed a mixed gathering as "girls" or "ladies", you would either be thought to be having a laugh, what a fun thing to be calling everyone female! - or to be insulting everyone.

Addressing the same mixed gathering as "guys" is thought to be acceptably friendly and inclusive, by anyone who doesn't think about it for more than three seconds. That's because "guys" refers to the male sex and "girls/ladies" refers to the female sex. Males are elevated, females are demoted in the very language that we use.

Just because people say it and use the expression doesn't mean it's OK. It doesn't mean we like it. It's seen as one of those phrases like "have a nice day" or "enjoy your walk", to be dismissed really as being unimportant, not something to make a fuss about.

My women friends and I don't like being called "guys", whether or not it is considered to be trendy in London.

Good morning Twats and Knob ends. Would br my choice. Or possibly Teacup Cunts. Which is probably why I'm not permitted to teach the next generation.

Shame. The nation's loss 😉

Please don't use the phrase "boys and girls". It puts boys first and girls last. This is an everyday sexism that should be avoided.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/schools-and-safeguarding/seen-in-schools/

Refer to this if they cone out with any gender woo bullshit

But I have noticed that if the person in question is a man who wants us to pretend he is a woman (IRL rather than as part of his role), he will refer to himself as an actress!

I absolutely hate being referred to and lumped in as 'guys'.

Was it women who chose to be called "actors"?

Perhaps they wanted to achieve the same status as actors, that is, equal billing, equal pay, equal opportunities. Because being a woman means you're lower status than the men every time, and too old to be considered for anything when you're over 40.

Hasn't worked, though, of course.

I wouldn’t dream of it 😂

Thanks @eatfigs, I hadn't noticed that "boys" came first, perhaps because mentally I always put girls first. It should definitely be "girls and boys".

Good point.

Was it? Which actresses decided that? Because women NEVER get bullied into accepting things by men do they? I think my irony meter has just exploded 😂

This jumped out from your post @ChateauMargaux: "Care must be taken, however, not to use default male terms."

I couldn't agree more. But care is not taken, and default male terms are always used.

Are you sure it was your irony meter that exploded? I thought there was a distinct lack of irony in that post to which you were responding.

Earnestness meter, perhaps?

A haaand-baaggg?

I believe that Cate Blanchet was one of those who refused to be called an actress. But I can't remember much other than it being a topic that was raised some years ago, and has stuck. But it was a feminist issue, not some men deciding what women should be called.

This quote that I found makes it clear where women actors were coming from at the time:
Typically, there’s a gender-neutral term that officially just means “person who does [job]”. Actor, poet, mayor, lawyer, doctor. A man in that job doesn’t need a special gender marker at all, but is allowed to just use the neutral term for himself — only a woman actually has her gender attached to her job title (actress, poetess, mayoress, lawyeress, doctoress) as if her gender was somehow integral to her job performance.

So yes, the suffix 'ess' gave the impression of something lesser. And you'll struggle to find any profession or position where women choose to be othered from the neutral term to describe their role.

I say folks too!

Well, exactly. The suffix "ess" is the female gendered version, the diminutive, the lesser.

The perspective that anything female is lesser or smaller than anything male is relatively recent (couple of centuries?), and if we are aware of it, we don't have to put up with it, do we?

That strikes me as really stupid. I can’t imagine not calling boys “boys”.

But the difference actors and actresses is that they play gendered roles. It's quite important ( even if it's male playing a female or vice versa) whereas a doctor could be either sex.

I also notice it's "male" prostitute as if female is the default there.🙄 Although "sex worker" could be either.

‘And you'll struggle to find any profession or position where women choose to be othered from the neutral term to describe their role.’

Apart from female surgeons who are always addressed as Miss, female barristers who are always addressed as Ms, and female judges who are always addressed as My Lady.

Neutralising the terms we use to describe women hasn’t given us equality, pretending there are no differences between men and women hasn’t given us equality, pretending men can become women hasn’t given us equality. But sure, let’s concentrate on that instead of addressing the important stuff like the worldwide epidemic of male violence towards women and girls.

Yes, 'male prostitute' because the default is a female prostitute - a prostitute is very low status, perhaps adding the term "male" in front of the word 'prostitute' elevates it to a slightly higher status.

So in this world where male things are prized and female things are derided, a sex worker, having no sex in the name, is of greater value than a prostitute, which is a female term.

Hello again LBH. I agree with the first part of your post but I don't completely understand why you wrote that last sentence. You seem to be making a completely different point about violence rather than about language, devaluation of women and girls and the status of the female sex. Can you clarify?