Month: February 2006

One of the things that makes English an easier language to learn than many others is that it is largely gender-neutral. Unlike French, for example, where a car is feminine but a truck is masculine, we don’t have to worry about such confusing, seemingly arbitrary, yet alluringly poetic distinctions. No, in English it’s all business.

There is, of course, an illusion of gender specificity in English, at least when it comes to titles and occupations. But those are fading and archaic distinctions from an earlier time when it was inconceivable for a woman to be on equal standing as a man. Hence we have (or should I say, had) atrocities such as "poetess" and "manageress."

A poet, of course, is one who writes poetry, not a man who writes poetry. Thus, "poetess" is an unnecessary feminized version, designed to imply that she isn’t quite a real poet, like Byron, or Shelley. Ditto manageress, who must surely report to a real manager.

There are, of course, a few such terms that are struggling to hang on. Some people still call the woman who serves them terrible food on an airplane the stewardess, which is just an unnecessary feminized version of steward. There was a time when all such airborne servers were women, so it was easy to maintain this anachronism. Now, however, there are almost as many males in that job as females, so we have rightly adopted the name flight attendant for that role (although steward would have been fine too).

An anachronism that still clings is actress. Heath Ledger is an actor (one who acts, not a male who acts), so why is Scarlett Johanssen an actress? Why must we specify she is female, but we don’t specify that Ledger is a male? We don’t make that distinction with astronauts, disk jockey, pilots, or  musicians. I think it has something to do with the power of television and the need to make Academy Award® and Golden Globe® award shows easy to understand for the brain-zapped.

Then there is governor and governess. While governor has always meant one who governs (which historically meant a male), governess has always meant a woman employed to educate and train the children of a private household. In other words, there has never been an etymological possibility of a woman governing anything other than someone else’s children. Unless, of course, she is called "governor."

I raised this question a few nights ago when I was knocking back a few Molsons and shooting pool with my old drinking buddy Michaëlle Jean. I said "has anyone ever called you "Governess General?" She ran some english into a triple combination, smashed a half-full Ex over my head, and said "Google has 319 hits for ‘Governess General’ and they’re all wrong."

I was owned by the GG. But when it comes to gender-neutralizing titles it isn’t about political correctness. It’s about getting rid of archaic usage.