Gender bias in terminology

[Phyrebrat]

And more interesting topics. Like can green energy really work given the huge infrastructure (especially gigantic battery arrays) it will require and why isn't anyone talking about thorium reactors that will solve the energy crisis. But I digress

Yes, you do. And there is not a finite limit on what we can discuss. If you are into discussing green energy why not start a thread? Personally I don’t appreciate the insinuation that there are more important things to discuss as if this is using up some kind of bandwidth.

I started this thread as it is important to me - as a writer of (hopefully) rich characters, and a teacher who is trying to get used to pronouns in my work with trans and non-binary students.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Yes, you do. And there is not a finite limit on what we can discuss. If you are into discussing green energy why not start a thread? Personally I don’t appreciate the insinuation that there are more important things to discuss as if this is using up some kind of bandwidth.

I started this thread as it is important to me - as a writer of (hopefully) rich characters, and a teacher who is trying to get used to pronouns in my work with trans and non-binary students.

No insinuation - I said it out straight, with no intention of demeaning the thread. I, like everyone else, find some threads more interesting (hence important) than others, but sure, different people have different priorities. But I certainly do not intend to discuss thorium reactors here as that would derail the thread. It's already been discussed elsewhere.

 

[Swank]

But there are other professions that men and women do differently, acting being one. Men act as men and women as women (bar contemporary action dramas including SF and fantasy action dramas where women act as ninjas), so the distinguishing terms "actor" and "actress" adequately delineate that fact, without demeaning either men or women. Diversity is enriching and all that?

When Linda Hunt won an Academy Award in 1984 for playing a man named Billy Kwan, was she an actress or actor?

Several good Tilda Swinton examples also on offer.

 

[Justin Swanton]

When Linda Hunt won an Academy Award in 1984 for playing a man named Billy Kwan, was she an actress or actor?

Several good Tilda Swinton examples also on offer.

Sure, there are always exceptions (I mentioned the ninjas) but they don't invalidate the general premise. Your example actually confirms it since a woman acting as a man is seen as something remarkable - a departure from a norm which proves the existence of the norm.

I don't quite get the reference to Tilda Swinton. She plays a ninja in Constantine but is clearly a woman in other movies I know.

 

[Justin Swanton]

A friend of my son's works at the local hospital, he always categorises himself as a male nurse.

I asked once why he didn't just say a nurse and he told me he then gets lots of dire jokes about saucy uniforms etc from people who think the Carry On franchise is the funniest thing ever.

Interesting example. Men and women do nursing in exactly the same way, but nursing always has been and still is a predominantly female occupation, so "nurse" implies a woman just like "postman" implies a man. "Male nurse" doesn't quite solve the problem as that says a male woman. Isn't "medical orderly" taking up the load these days? How about "caregiver"?

 

[Swank]

Sure, there are always exceptions (I mentioned the ninjas) but they don't invalidate the general premise. Your example actually confirms it since a woman acting as a man is seen as something remarkable - a departure from a norm which proves the existence of the norm.

I don't quite get the reference to Tilda Swinton. She plays a ninja in Constantine but is clearly a woman in other movies I know.

She plays a sexless angel in Constantine and plays a young man in the first half of her famous debut in Orlando.

I didn't say anything was invalidated, but you are the one with the premise - so was Linda an actor in that role, since she did a stellar job playing that male character?

In traditional Kabuki, the onnagota are men that specialize in playing women. Are they actresses?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Isn't "medical orderly" taking up the load these days? How about "caregiver"?

Maybe in some countries, but not in the US, where an orderly is someone who performs non-medical tasks in a hospital—quite different from a nurse. Men who go into nursing—and there are a lot of them caring for patients in our hospitals over the last several decades—are called nurses.

A caregiver is different again: a relative or a hired professional, who takes care of someone who is chronically ill or very elderly, or otherwise long-term incapacitated, in the patient's own home.

 

[Swank]

In Portugal male nurses are called Blade Runners.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Didn't Linda Hunt win an Academy Award for best supporting actress for that role as a man in "The Year of Living Dangerously"?

 

[Steve Harrison]

Didn't Linda Hunt win an Academy Award for best supporting actress for that role as a man in "The Year of Living Dangerously"?

Yes, and Cate Blanchett won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and a bunch of other awards - and was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA - for playing (one version of) Bob Dylan in I"M NOT THERE.

 

[Justin Swanton]

In Portugal male nurses are called Blade Runners.

 

[Swank]

Didn't Linda Hunt win an Academy Award for best supporting actress for that role as a man in "The Year of Living Dangerously"?

Yeah, the role I've been talking about: Billy Kwan.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Interesting example. Men and women do nursing in exactly the same way, but nursing always has been and still is a predominantly female occupation, so "nurse" implies a woman just like "postman" implies a man. "Male nurse" doesn't quite solve the problem as that says a male woman. Isn't "medical orderly" taking up the load these days? How about "caregiver"?

And yet "Postal Carrier" is the term du jour for the people that have the job once commonly known as "postmen."
Fire fighters.
Police officers.
Curiously, the term "nurse" is not specifically female. In the US, prior to the US Civil War 1860-1864 most nurses were men.


Women Nurses in the Civil War

Before the Civil War, most nurses in the United States were male. Women in the U.S. knew of Florence Nightingale, a British nurse who successfully served on the battlefield, but social taboos prevented well-to-do women from working outside the home. A "working woman" was an object of pity or scorn in Victorian America.

At the beginning of the war, Union Army leadership realized that they needed more medical staff and decided to accept women nurses to fill the gap. Dorothea Dix was chosen as the first superintendent of U.S. Army nurses in June 1861. Dix insisted that her nurses be between thirty-five and fifty years old, in good health, of high moral standards, not too attractive, and willing to dress plainly. Over three thousand nurses served the Union through Dix's appointments.

Northern women also found ways to volunteer as nurses without going through Dix. Regional aid societies would certify women as official nurses if they had already proven their worth as volunteers in Union hospitals, regardless of Dix's guidelines. Some experienced female nurses served, such as Catholic nuns, but any matronly, responsible woman could qualify during the Civil War. The escalating war required still more medical staff, and in 1863 the Union Army allowed surgeons to choose their own nurses.

Army surgeons and other male staff were not always happy to see women entering their domain. Without authority over hospitals or other medical staff, women nurses found ways to accomplish their goals despite male resistance. When they could not cajole, reason, or shame Army doctors into improving conditions for the patients, the women worked around them.

In addition to providing medical care, the women nurses comforted and fed patients, wrote letters, read, and prayed. They managed supplies and staffed hospital kitchens and laundries. African-American nurses were often confined to menial labor jobs, ordered to work among the most dangerously ill patients, or assigned to care for African-American soldiers.

Female nurses in the North and South went bravely where few Victorian women had dared tread. Many would consider their experiences to be among the definitive ones of their lives, leading many to further social and political service. Showing a high level of determination, knowledge, and emotional and physical strength, these women succeeded in opening the nursing profession to future women.

https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/exhibits/CivilWarImagery/Civil_War_Nurses.cfm#

 

[Justin Swanton]

She plays a sexless angel in Constantine and plays a young man in the first half of her famous debut in Orlando.

I didn't say anything was invalidated, but you are the one with the premise - so was Linda an actor in that role, since she did a stellar job playing that male character?

In traditional Kabuki, the onnagota are men that specialize in playing women. Are they actresses?

Constantine: sure, I said ninja because I was thinking about that scene where she effortlessly kills Chas Kramer and blows Constantine out of the pool room (which is pretty ninja - admit it). But few movies require the role of a sexless angel.

Orlando: according to the movie's director Sally Potter, Orlando is a wannabe woman in the first half and a woman in the second: "Orlando's change of sex in the film is the result of his having reached a crisis point—a crisis of masculine identity." So Tilda Swinton is definitely in a female role.

Kabuki: I don't have any background knowledge of this theatre form but according to the Wiki article it started out as something in the spirit of a ribald pantomine performed by all-women casts. It could that women playing men (and vice versa) was seen as inherently absurd hence comedic in the way that pantomimes are comedic (are pantomimes considered misogynist these days?). Once women were banned from acting by the shogunate kabuki used only male actors who played male and female parts. What started out as a comedic necessity became something else: men and women in the audience were titillated by the spectacle of feminine men who were required to continue the role in a more physical way after the performance. It appears that at no time were male and female roles interchangeable in a normal way, i.e. men playing women or women playing men in a context that excluded sexual jokes or straight eroticism. But I don't know how kabuki works today: I suspect it has become so traditional that the circumstances of its origins are forgotten and it's done because it was always done.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Maybe in some countries, but not in the US, where an orderly is someone who performs non-medical tasks in a hospital—quite different from a nurse. Men who go into nursing—and there are a lot of them caring for patients in our hospitals over the last several decades—are called nurses.

A caregiver is different again: a relative or a hired professional, who takes care of someone who is chronically ill or very elderly, or otherwise long-term incapacitated, in the patient's own home.

Well then they'll have to grin and bear it.

Or they could try "institutional medical convalescence facilitator"?

 

[Justin Swanton]

And yet "Postal Carrier" is the term du jour for the people that have the job once commonly known as "postmen."
Fire fighters.
Police officers.
Curiously, the term "nurse" is not specifically female. In the US, prior to the US Civil War 1860-1864 most nurses were men.


Women Nurses in the Civil War

Before the Civil War, most nurses in the United States were male. Women in the U.S. knew of Florence Nightingale, a British nurse who successfully served on the battlefield, but social taboos prevented well-to-do women from working outside the home. A "working woman" was an object of pity or scorn in Victorian America.

At the beginning of the war, Union Army leadership realized that they needed more medical staff and decided to accept women nurses to fill the gap. Dorothea Dix was chosen as the first superintendent of U.S. Army nurses in June 1861. Dix insisted that her nurses be between thirty-five and fifty years old, in good health, of high moral standards, not too attractive, and willing to dress plainly. Over three thousand nurses served the Union through Dix's appointments.

Northern women also found ways to volunteer as nurses without going through Dix. Regional aid societies would certify women as official nurses if they had already proven their worth as volunteers in Union hospitals, regardless of Dix's guidelines. Some experienced female nurses served, such as Catholic nuns, but any matronly, responsible woman could qualify during the Civil War. The escalating war required still more medical staff, and in 1863 the Union Army allowed surgeons to choose their own nurses.

Army surgeons and other male staff were not always happy to see women entering their domain. Without authority over hospitals or other medical staff, women nurses found ways to accomplish their goals despite male resistance. When they could not cajole, reason, or shame Army doctors into improving conditions for the patients, the women worked around them.

In addition to providing medical care, the women nurses comforted and fed patients, wrote letters, read, and prayed. They managed supplies and staffed hospital kitchens and laundries. African-American nurses were often confined to menial labor jobs, ordered to work among the most dangerously ill patients, or assigned to care for African-American soldiers.

Female nurses in the North and South went bravely where few Victorian women had dared tread. Many would consider their experiences to be among the definitive ones of their lives, leading many to further social and political service. Showing a high level of determination, knowledge, and emotional and physical strength, these women succeeded in opening the nursing profession to future women.

https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/exhibits/CivilWarImagery/Civil_War_Nurses.cfm#

The whole nursing profession is a fairly recent invention though for centuries the Catholic Church had religious orders who looked after the sick - but they were always female, like St Vincent de Paul's Grey Sisters. Outside of the army as far as I know nurses were always predominantly women.

 

[Justin Swanton]

I had a look at The Year of Living Dangerously. Sure, Linda Hunt can pull off a male role in that you wouldn't suspect she was a woman if you weren't told, but most women couldn't emulate her and don't try.

So, taking a step back, we have a limited number of exceptions to a general rule which do not invalidate the rule, nor create a need to change the Academy Award's distinction between actors and actresses. And now let me run for cover....

 

[Ursa major]

So, taking a step back, we have a limited number of exceptions to a general rule which do not invalidate the rule, nor create a need to change the Academy Award's distinction between actors and actresses.

I really can understand the desire to have things (whatever they are) categorised and described in a consistent way -- we see patterns where there are none (as shown in the Pareidolia thread), and we seem to like to take this a step further, i.e. beyond just seeing shapes -- but the world (and not only the human world) is simply not made that way.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

we have a limited number of exceptions to a general rule which do not invalidate the rule

They do, however, make it seem ever so much less like a rule.

 

[Justin Swanton]

I really can understand the desire to have things (whatever they are) categorised and described in a consistent way -- we see patterns where there are none (as shown in the Pareidolia thread), and we seem to like to take this a step further, i.e. beyond just seeing shapes -- but the world (and not only the human world) is simply not made that way.

Don't quite follow this but I suspect if I asked we'd be straying into verboten territory.