Gender bias in terminology

[Justin Swanton]

Methinks "hero" and "heroine" go further than just indicating the one is male and the other female. It's about the way a man and a women traditionally assumed the heroic role. A hero brandishes his sword and defeats his foes with might acts of valour. A heroine is noble and selfless and generous but very much in need of the physical prowess of the hero. She is heroic in a different way to the man. So a different word for each.

That is the old understanding of the terms. Today of course the entertainment media has discovered that women can be just as badass as men, even more so. Someone like Galadriel has no problem shunting three Numenorean guards into a prison cell and locking it after them. So the role of the female heroine is now identical to that of the male, going even as far as a good dose of role swapping where the man is in need of the physical prowess of the woman, and so it makes perfect sense to delineate them with the same term.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Methinks "hero" and "heroine" go further than just indicating the one is male and the other female. It's about the way a man and a women traditionally assumed the heroic role. A hero brandishes his sword and defeats his foes with might acts of valour. A heroine is noble and selfless and generous but very much in need of the physical prowess of the hero. She is heroic in a different way to the man. So a different word for each.

Can you cite a source for that? It’s interesting but I think very problematic. Would Ripley beat the xenomorphs with diplomacy or Jenna from Blake’s 7? . But it also locks men into gender stereotyping, too.

In any case, if that is the case, I’d strongly suggest retiring the definitions as incredibly chauvinistic/limited.

Speaking of Blake’s 7 I’ve recently been watching it in its entirety from the first ep (just on series 3 now). I’ve said in other threads how forward thinking and sophisticated it is but it fails mightily on gender stereotyping. So much so that watching it has made me gasp at the misogyny. The first season the women of the crew were often directed to ‘oh, shut up [Cally]’ as if they’re a silly little goose. It’s cringe on a massive level. Last night’s episode was about a live-feed execution battle; so of course the TV producer was camp AF. Cos you know; the Arts/Media… sigh.

Anyway I think hero vs heroine will be on a case by case basis as per individual preference. Much like Ms and Miss; some women I know prefer one and hate the other (some married, too but insist on Ms)

 

[CupofJoe]

If you separated Hero and Heroine from gender but kept the differences in definitions, you could have Ripley the Hero and Frodo the Heroine...
Just saying...

 

[Swank]

Can you cite a source for that? It’s interesting but I think very problematic. Would Ripley beat the xenomorphs with diplomacy or Jenna from Blake’s 7? . But it also locks men into gender stereotyping, too.

Ripley prevailed by not attempting to use force like Dallas. The end scene shows her "sharing" the shuttle with the xenomorph and then using her technical knowledge to flush it out. She contrasts the direct force of the men and the panic of her female crewmate. Ripley is always shown as the wise character.

 

[Matteo]

Possibly!

Fungi are brilliant, aren't they!

Shouldn't that be Fungperson?

Sorry!

 

[Phyrebrat]

@Swank. Perhaps, but I think that’s a stretch for me.. specially when you factor her character in successive alien films. Mind you I could see that being argued well in an
English Lit paper.

Nice to see you back on the boards.

 

[Swank]

@Swank. Perhaps, but I think that’s a stretch for me.. specially when you factor her character in successive alien films. Mind you I could see that being argued well in an
English Lit paper.

Nice to see you back on the boards.

I take my SF classics one at a time. Alien didn't get rewritten by Aliens.

 

[sknox]

>women can be just as badass as men
It just struck me that the comparison is always in the form of "women can be just as *whatever* as men".
I rarely see it presented as "men can be just as *whatever* as women". Sometimes, especially around words like "vulnerable". The comparison in both direction is awfully narrow, though. And men are by far the standard to which others are compared. And, it should be noted, not all men but a particular sort of male is the kind presented as heroic.

Note: everyone can be heroic. No one, not even a heroine, can be ... heroineic, I guess?

 

[Danny McG]

I don’t think the requirement for a new song should get in the way of gender balance and representation.

And, sadly, ‘it doesn’t sound right’ is the sort of statement that gets used to block gender equality. It only doesn’t sound right because you’re not used to it

I shall await the nuking of this unashamedly grumpy feminist post

I never said "sound right", I said "seem right".

 

[JunkMonkey]

These gender formats appear to be just hangover French loan words, where nouns originally had "gender" in terms of being masculine or feminine, even though the English language dropped that aspect of language 800+ years ago. So there's absolutely no reason to continue to use the gendered French format, other than it's an historical habit enforced by the minority rich on the rising middle classes, and therefore has absolutely no justification for continued use.

The French* get themselves into all sorts of knots about this- you end up with people saying things like this all the time, "le lecteur et la lectrice" where an anglophone would say "the reader". Or "Les auditeurs et audetrices" - "the listeners" . Four or five words instead of two - every time. It really eats into the airtime of the radio book programs I listen to.




* though according to the Associated Press stylebook...

AP apologises and deletes widely mocked tweet about ‘the French’

Organisation clarifies initial advice, which included term in list of phrases it thought could be dehumanising

www.theguardian.com

 

[JunkMonkey]

Methinks "hero" and "heroine" go further than just indicating the one is male and the other female. It's about the way a man and a women traditionally assumed the heroic role. A hero brandishes his sword and defeats his foes with might acts of valour. A heroine is noble and selfless and generous but very much in need of the physical prowess of the hero. She is heroic in a different way to the man. So a different word for each.

 

[Ursa major]

The choice of Hero/Heroin is easily addressed by authors

You mean like:

He wanted to help the hero succeed in her quest, but was desperate to see his dealer.

 

[Droflet]

I put a laugh emoji on JM's picture above, but now I'm wondering if that will, one day, turn around and bite me on my rear end. "Rear end" for the PC lunatics. Oops, did it again.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Can you cite a source for that? It’s interesting but I think very problematic. Would Ripley beat the xenomorphs with diplomacy or Jenna from Blake’s 7? . But it also locks men into gender stereotyping, too.

In any case, if that is the case, I’d strongly suggest retiring the definitions as incredibly chauvinistic/limited.

Speaking of Blake’s 7 I’ve recently been watching it in its entirety from the first ep (just on series 3 now). I’ve said in other threads how forward thinking and sophisticated it is but it fails mightily on gender stereotyping. So much so that watching it has made me gasp at the misogyny. The first season the women of the crew were often directed to ‘oh, shut up [Cally]’ as if they’re a silly little goose. It’s cringe on a massive level. Last night’s episode was about a live-feed execution battle; so of course the TV producer was camp AF. Cos you know; the Arts/Media… sigh.

Anyway I think hero vs heroine will be on a case by case basis as per individual preference. Much like Ms and Miss; some women I know prefer one and hate the other (some married, too but insist on Ms)

I won't be able to go any further with the topic. Peace!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

On the B7 theme, yes, some of it is really dated ('Lord, Avon!') but, also, some of it was very forward thinking - a female leader of the galaxy.

 

[Foxbat]

Speaking of Blake’s 7 I’ve recently been watching it in its entirety from the first ep (just on series 3 now). I’ve said in other threads how forward thinking and sophisticated it is but it fails mightily on gender stereotyping. So much so that watching it has made me gasp at the misogyny. The first season the women of the crew were often directed to ‘oh, shut up [Cally]’ as if they’re a silly little goose. It’s cringe on a massive level. Last night’s episode was about a live-feed execution battle; so of course the TV producer was camp AF. Cos you know; the Arts/Media… sigh.

Talking of cringeworthy dialogue. There's an old SF movie. I think it's Rocketship X-M because I'm sure Lloyd bridges is in it. There is one woman in the space crew and at one moment of high tension, she loses it and starts screaming. Eventually she gets herself under control and apologises and one crewman (it might be Lloyd) shrugs his shoulders and says something like ' you're a woman.' As if that's enough of an explanation.

Here's a taste of the dialogue (copied from IMDB)

Floyd I've been wondering, how did a girl like you get mixed up in a thing like this in the first place.

Dr. Lisa Van Horn I suppose you think that women should only cook and sew and bear children.

Floyd Isn't that enough?

As for Postman Pat/Postperson Pat, maybe we should just call them mails and femails....

 

[Phyrebrat]

On the B7 theme, yes, some of it is really dated ('Lord, Avon!') but, also, some of it was very forward thinking - a female leader of the galaxy.

Also the interracial romancing went far further than ST: OT did. It really is a surprise.

SFFH once again shining a light on, and advocating for, equal societies

 

[Ursa major]

and starts screaming

So the character wasn't named "Van Horn" by accident, then....

 

[KiraAnn]

I suppose one could write a GOR take-off where the women enslave the men...Call it ROG instead, perhaps?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Joy Chant wrote something along those lines: When Voiha Awakes, set in a land "where women rule, and men live at their pleasure" according to the description on Amazon. It was a long time ago that I read it so I don't remember much about it, but in spite of that one line in the summary and the pose on the cover, which does make it look rather salacious (if salacious is the word I want) in the manner of the Gor novels except with the gender roles reversed I don't remember it as like that at all—as much as Bantam seems to have been trying to make it look that way.

(I've read Chant's other novels many times, and this one only once. If I remember correctly, I felt that the message it was trying to get across somewhat overwhelmed the storytelling. But what I would think of it if I read it now, who knows?)