Oh Noez! What about Teh Menz? -Patriarchy isn't a dude's friend EITHER!

[Phox]

What's wrong with GODDAMN FUCKING ASSHOLE?

This is the preferred method of referring to someone who is behaving in a manner reminiscent of a blasphemous, fornicating sphincter, yes.

[Golden Applesauce]

Did the single working mom thing for years. I think I was pretty typical. No affordable daycare or afterschool program, low income, crappy job punching a cash register, swing shift, no child support.

...

Me: I've been here five years now. Kristi started six months ago and you've got her working days. She doesn't have kids. I have two and nobody to watch them and they always get in fights. I get calls from the cops and I have to leave work because the kids are fighting again. Why do you still have me on nights? They told me when I started that it goes by seniority.

Boss: Kristi's still in high school. She has school in the morning. Finding somebody to watch the kids is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

Translation: Boss works days and usually left not long after I came in. Kristi is not quite legal and boss liked ogling her ass.

Thank Bob for fortune telling, wish I'd found it 20 years earlier.

How does this hurt men? While it was happening, not at all. I think there's a lot of dads who are going to end up lonely old men with a house reeking of the coffee can full of piss under the bed, eating Spaghetti-O's out of the can, though. Fuck 'em.

Are either of your children male?

[Golden Applesauce]

I mean, for example, the change from "steward" and "stewardess" to "flight attendant".  Or changing existing words.  These days, when I hear "Doctor" I make no assumptions, while in the late 70s I would have automatically assumed a male, and the converse for the word "nurse".

Question:
If "steward" implies male, and "stewardess" implies female, doesn't deliberately using a gender-neutral word like "flight attendant" imply that the person in question lacks a gender? It makes it sound like castration is part of the job training, or that they replaced all the real stewards & stewardesses with vat-grown SmileyPersons® to cut costs in the late 90s.

A steward is someone who guards, protects, and preserves something. An attendant is someone who was there at the time. You can attend a funeral. I would much, much rather have stewards than attendants at twenty thousand feet.

[Phox]

I mean, for example, the change from "steward" and "stewardess" to "flight attendant".  Or changing existing words.  These days, when I hear "Doctor" I make no assumptions, while in the late 70s I would have automatically assumed a male, and the converse for the word "nurse".

Question:
If "steward" implies male, and "stewardess" implies female, doesn't deliberately using a gender-neutral word like "flight attendant" imply that the person in question lacks a gender? It makes it sound like castration is part of the job training, or that they replaced all the real stewards & stewardesses with vat-grown SmileyPersons® to cut costs in the late 90s.

A steward is someone who guards, protects, and preserves something. An attendant is someone who was there at the time. You can attend a funeral. I would much, much rather have stewards than attendants at twenty thousand feet.

Wrong. 1) Using an ungendered term does not imply lack of gender. 2) An attendant is someone who attends TO something, i.e. the needs of passengers during a flight.

[Golden Applesauce]

Wrong. 1) Using an ungendered term does not imply lack of gender. 2) An attendant is someone who attends TO something, i.e. the needs of passengers during a flight.

w.r.t. "attendant" - yeah, you're right, I was being sloppy. In every other context, they only people getting attendanted are the elderly, infirm, or disabled. While attendants are changing the dying king's bedpan and nursing his hemophiliac son, the steward keeps the castle and kingdom in order. One of those two professions is way cooler than the other.

I'm not sure I agree with you about ungendered terms. When the gendered versions are commonly used, and especially when the non-gendered version still feels inorganic and constructed, going out of the way to use the less common term gives off the impression that it's being down for a reason, like you're trying to deny the fullness of the person, or you're ashamed of bringing up the person's gender. Pay no attention the humanity and individual differences of our staff; treat them as a mass of exchangeable parts.

Flight attendant probably isn't the best example of this; as rarely as we use "attendant" in colloquial speech, we use steward even less. Outside of fantasy novels, I think I've only heard it from politicians, priests, and environmental activists.

[Golden Applesauce]

I always notice that people are nicer to you when you wear a little makeup, for some reason. It's also one of the things women size each other up by, which is kind of strange. But I've been told a few times by women that when they met me, they had a good impression because I "had my makeup on right". I've been guilty of the same thing, but truth be told, women with disorders tend to paint their faces kind of crazy. A few people look great without makeup but a lot don't, and if they never wear it I tend to wonder what the reason is - if they're allergic or if they just don't care what they look like. Which is probably fucked up of me.

I know little about managing appearance and nothing about makeup; if I notice the makeup someone is wearing, it probably means they put it on wrong. A t-shirt that says "There, now I'm not naked any more" is pretty standard among my friends. I do appreciate it when other people put effort into their appearance, though. A total stranger took time out of their day just to be easier on my eyes while grocery shopping. I imagine that if I actually knew enough about makeup recognize a good makeup job, I'd have some first-impression respect for anyone who demonstrated genuine talent in wearing their makeup.

[Phox]

So because a word is gender nonspecific, it is dehumanizing? Are you retarded or something?

[Golden Applesauce]

Language question:
In English, I'm given to understand that the male versions of words being default (i.e., "actor" is verb + "one who does" while "actress" is verb + "one who does" + gender marker) is either a linguistic reflection of social gender bias, or a mechanism or perpetuating stereotypes. There's a corresponding movement to find alternatives to gendered pairs of words, promote "they" as a third-person non-gendered animate singular pronoun, etc.

In languages where most nouns all have a linguistic gender linked to gender gender, is there a corresponding movement? Do European feminists try to find ways challenge gender norms by clever use of -o and -a suffixes?

In languages that have already have a full set of animate gender-agnostic pronouns and verbs, is it actually easier to talk about people doing things in non-standard gender roles?

[Phox]

So the answer was yes, i see. Grammatical gender and "gender gender" are not the same thing. English does not make use of grammatical gender. Having words with a gender marker serves no purpose other than otherizing one gender and normalizing another. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But maybe calling her a "harpy" would be appropiate?

Or, possibly, if you are calling an asshole out for bad behavior in most situations, it's appropriate to leave any personal insults or namecalling out of it and just address the behavior.

JUST A THOUGHT.

And if it's the kind of situation where namecalling is actually appropriate, maybe stick with "asshole", as in "That behavior makes you look like an asshole, and if you willfully continue it even after many people have spoken to you about it I am forced to conclude you are an asshole".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What's wrong with GODDAMN FUCKING ASSHOLE?

Ding ding ding ding

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wrong. 1) Using an ungendered term does not imply lack of gender. 2) An attendant is someone who attends TO something, i.e. the needs of passengers during a flight.

w.r.t. "attendant" - yeah, you're right, I was being sloppy. In every other context, they only people getting attendanted are the elderly, infirm, or disabled. While attendants are changing the dying king's bedpan and nursing his hemophiliac son, the steward keeps the castle and kingdom in order. One of those two professions is way cooler than the other.

I'm not sure I agree with you about ungendered terms. When the gendered versions are commonly used, and especially when the non-gendered version still feels inorganic and constructed, going out of the way to use the less common term gives off the impression that it's being down for a reason, like you're trying to deny the fullness of the person, or you're ashamed of bringing up the person's gender. Pay no attention the humanity and individual differences of our staff; treat them as a mass of exchangeable parts.

Flight attendant probably isn't the best example of this; as rarely as we use "attendant" in colloquial speech, we use steward even less. Outside of fantasy novels, I think I've only heard it from politicians, priests, and environmental activists.

There's a really important element missing from this discussion, which is that "steward" IS gender-neutral. There are a lot of words like that, which developed a needless, pointless feminine version at some point along the line. "Host" has nothing in it's etymology that assumes male gender. Nor does "Actor", "Steward", "Chef", "Bartender", or any of a raft of straightforward job names.

It's interesting to reflect on the elements of patriarchy inherent in deciding, linguistically, that EVERYTHING DEFAULTS TO MALE.

[Golden Applesauce]

So because a word is gender nonspecific, it is dehumanizing? Are you retarded or something?

You know that skit where a guy is trying to indicate to the foil a specific person at a bar, going through attire, what the person is eating, facial expression, into increasingly abstract characteristics, that ends fifteen minutes later with "Oh! Why didn't you just say '300lb black transvestite?" The first layer of the joke, of course, is that the first guy can't use the obvious markers because that would embarrass the person in question. The second layer is that the guy is trying to be sensitive, but his actions only make sense in the context that being overweight is shameful, being black is shameful, not being appropriately gendered is shameful - he therefore reveals that he isn't actually being tolerant, he's just being polite about his prejudices. Using politcally correct phrasing for no other reason than because it's politically correct phrasing amounts to the same thing.

When we're talking about a hypothetical person, where gender isn't a relevant part of the abstraction, gender nonspecific words make sense. When talking about a collection of people of mixed gender, using a gender nonspecific word makes sense. Otherwise, use the commonly used word . Describing Amelia Earhart with the archaic term "aviatrix" instead of "aviator" or "pilot" might be more technically correct, but it's so bizarre that it forces people out of the context of the Wikipedia article.

Okay, neither of those two points really addressed your question. Can you accept that I'm not good at this, and maybe try to meet me halfway? Restating your position and then rhetorically asking if I'm retarded is not conducive to discussion.

[Phox]

What are you on about? Yes there is no reason to use the word "aviatrix". Why is it necessary to differentiate between "steward" and "stewardess"? Because there needs to be a special word for female stewards?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

GA- you're not really making a lot of sense.

Coming up with gender neutral words is for the opposite reason of dehumanizing. It's supposed to take gender assumptions out of the equations entirely. You expect a stewardess to be female, and possibly join the mile high club with you. That's the trope right? Flight attendant can be anyone.

You get the same thing with jobs that are considered kinda crappy. You don't say someone works in the sewer system, you say they're sanitation workers. It's supposed to afford some sort of respect because the previous common word for it has a lot of assumptions attached to them.