Just stuck to the TV.
Last days have been full of ER. Yup, that's right, I finally got inspired by jb_slasher and started watching ER. Well, started may not be a best word, because I'm already in season 3 (that really was Kirsten Dunst!) and I would've been further in, but Nati is over at my place almost all the time and it is awesome. She was here with her boyfriend yesterday
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"Lady doctor" definitely sounds very demeaning, almost as if it were insulting. It doesn't sound right, no. "Lady" anything wouldn't actually sound right.
Didn't know that "actress" also used to mean "prostitute" - this is a huge surprise.
I like the fact about "firefighter" - really didn't know it came from neutralizing the language. Some new facts here. :) Although, I believe there are no firewomen? Or are they? Last time I checked (at least in Poland) women couldn't become firefighters.
The fact is, a woman as a person didn't mean too much in the history - no right to vote, no right to own, no right to her own mind etc.
And don't worry, you do make sense and you probably have more facts that I do. :)
What started this whole issue is probably the fact that I have been studying Slavic languages, which in general mark the "gender" of the word, be it an animal or a simple item and don't even mention people. For example, Croatian automatically creates a female word for every male word, always and it usually happens in one of the two or three ways.
At the same time, Polish still struggles with its chauvinism and forcefully creates words, which often mislead or defect the meaning. Most of it is caused by the fact that general rule of Polish language is that female words end with a vowel "a", apart from some words describing professions and - which is a fun fact - the word "mężczyzna", which means... a man.
Anyway, for example, a word "sędzia" meaning "judge" should be female, right? Well, it is male, but we all know that there are female judges. So the language is trying to force the word "sędzina" as a female equivalent, while this word originally means "the judge's wife". Of course, it generates from the history, when women couldn't be judges and just being a judge's wife was honor enough. But skip that.
Okay, that was a little off-topic. Sorry for that.
What I am trying to say, is that English generally doesn't distinguish the gender of words and that's probably why it is considered easy to learn. I mean, there is a "she" ship and sometimes a "she" moon, but that's probably all or almost all as far as my education goes. So, why on Earth there is a "she" waiter or a "she" actor? And, if there is a waitress and an actress, why isn't there a doctress, a writress, a singress or whatever, right? Where's the consistency in that? Why did the language even create female equivalents while there's only a couple of them? If a language starts distinguishing the words' gender, it shouldn't stop. Or, by all means, the words "actress" and "waitress" should be just removed from the dictionaries, "prostitute" should become neutral and let's stick with "bride" and "groom". There will still be man -> woman, male -> female, but that goes further into the history of language and it's probably unchangeable.
My point is, I am completely for feminization of the language, as long as it's constant and present.
Of course, that'd make English a difficult language - that's why everybody hates German so much, right? Der, die, das.
So, maybe this way - there could be feminine words for professions or anywhere the need be, but they'd be, let's say - voluntary. There would be a word "actor" which'd mean both male and female, and also "actress" which'd mean just female. Although, wouldn't that be utmost, radical? That'd lead to feminization of the language, where there'd be two words to describe a woman and just one word to describe a man.
Do I make any sense at all?
The other thing is, if we just removed the words "actress" and "waitress" from the vocabulary, I'd personally feel just... weird. But like I said, I like the difference and the gender of words, probably because my mother tongue provides it in even too many forms.
So, anyway, let's forget the history and why women were unworthy and let's focus on the present and the future. What do you think a solution for generalisation of the language would be? Forgetting "-ress"es or multiplying it? I'm very curious. :)
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