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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
RainbowAshes.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 22:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
The "Generally accepted writing coventions" section needs to be redone to conform to NPOV. First, I think the title should be changed, unless good evidence can be provided to show that these conventions are indeed "generally accepted" throughout the English speaking world.
More importantly, when ever it says that something "should" be done, it should be rephrased with a qualifier - like "according to gender-neutral standars this should or shouldn't be done." For example at the begining where it says "Gender-neutral job titles should be used, especially to refer to hypothetical persons..." That should be changed to something like "proponents of gender-neutral language feel that gender-neutral job titles should be used..."
-- Blackcats 20:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)Blackcats
Actually in the UK it's more normal to be a 'chair'. Totally gender neutral. Not lady chair or whatever, and certainly not lady chairman/woman.
Secretlondon 19:16, Sep 25, 2003 (UTC)
My observations re specific cases:
-- Smjg 11:17, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Regarding the above observations, I would like to offer personal experience of English spoken in England, again this is only anecdotal.
86.0.145.210 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
You stated that a midwife can be of any gender. While this is technically true, it's hard to imagine how anyone would consider a word that contains "wife" as gender neutral. Nurse shares its origins with "nun" and is also used to describe a biological function specific to females; it is hard to imagine how anyone would consider "nurse" a gender neutral word.
According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, midwife is Middle English (not Old English) "[ORIGIN Prob. from mid preposition + wife noun.]" and is "A person, esp. a woman, with experience or training in assisting women in labour and childbirth, now spec. a nurse holding additional qualifications for this task." Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Have edited, at the end of the Debate section, "women and transgender individuals are implicitly excluded" to "women and those of other genders are implicitly excluded". The previous language was problematic because:
- It implies that transgender people are not men and women. In fact, a transman being a man, they would not be excluded (though may feel excluded iff they are not confident in passing as a man), while a transwoman being excluded is redundant to women being excluded. Exclusion on the basis of visible transgender status is likely to exist, but be unrelated to gendered language in such an advertisement, and as such to the subject at hand.
- It implies that transgender is the only gender identity that is different from cisgendered man and woman and may therefore feel excluded from a masculine-gendered position.
86.0.145.210 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Most words adding the -man suffix derive from the Old English usage, which is gender neutral, and is roughly equivalent to "person", and used to describe people. The most basic descriptions being "wyfman" (female person) and "waepman" (male person). 81.104.165.184 18:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
IF A LADY IS ELECTED AS MAYO OF CITY SHOULD WE CALL HER LADY MAYOR OR MAYORESS OR SIMPLY MAYOR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.70.235 ( talk) 14:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
As is common with these gender/race language issues, the people that actually care about such things (e.g. feminists, politicians, and anyone else trying to be politically correct) are better represented than the common person. This makes sense because they talk about it the most and thus their opinions are the easiest to find references for, however I think it gives their view undue weight. It gives multiple reasons why people dislike the terms but it fails to give more than one reason why most people continue to use them and find them acceptable. Even the one reason that is given is pretty weak: replacing the historical terms everywhere they appear (in documents, etc.) would be difficult and expensive, or that it is unnecessary. I never heard that argument before. Is it suggesting that by accepting these new genderless names we would have go back and rewrite history? No, the most common argument is that the terms are gender-neutral to begin with. This view is present when the article talks about women demanding to be called fisherman (and actors), but it is being treated as a "special case" like these females that fish are unique in this aspect. What about the linguistic and historical arguments? That the -man suffix simply means it's a person or of the species Homo sapiens (homo = man, btw)? The most obvious examples are human and woman. 75.4.145.158 ( talk) 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the main text has:
"According ... the suffix -man had the meaning "person" in Old English but in present-day English is masculine and can be used to denote people by office and occupation. Examples of this are fireman, salesman, alderman and chairman."
The implication that -man is nowadays always masculine is both POV and unsupported. It may be masculine, it may be assumed masculine (by whom?) or it may be common. Current usage and understanding is divided (in what proportion?) between speakers of English. the sentance itself is self-contradictory; having asserted that -man is masculine it then goes on to state "can be used ... by office and occupation". Can anyone have a go at removing the PC bias whilst retaining a fair reflection of modern English usage? Martin of Sheffield ( talk) 09:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
It seems that this article is not (and should not be) specifically about gender-specific titles, but covers both gender-specific and gender-neutral titles (as well as cases where it might be debatable whether or not they're gender-specific). Can we therefore think of a better title for the article? Something like Gender marking in job titles?? Victor Yus ( talk) 08:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
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I think these should be included somewhere, if only under "see also".
Obsolete job titles:
Current jobs:
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
RainbowAshes.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 22:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
The "Generally accepted writing coventions" section needs to be redone to conform to NPOV. First, I think the title should be changed, unless good evidence can be provided to show that these conventions are indeed "generally accepted" throughout the English speaking world.
More importantly, when ever it says that something "should" be done, it should be rephrased with a qualifier - like "according to gender-neutral standars this should or shouldn't be done." For example at the begining where it says "Gender-neutral job titles should be used, especially to refer to hypothetical persons..." That should be changed to something like "proponents of gender-neutral language feel that gender-neutral job titles should be used..."
-- Blackcats 20:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)Blackcats
Actually in the UK it's more normal to be a 'chair'. Totally gender neutral. Not lady chair or whatever, and certainly not lady chairman/woman.
Secretlondon 19:16, Sep 25, 2003 (UTC)
My observations re specific cases:
-- Smjg 11:17, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Regarding the above observations, I would like to offer personal experience of English spoken in England, again this is only anecdotal.
86.0.145.210 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
You stated that a midwife can be of any gender. While this is technically true, it's hard to imagine how anyone would consider a word that contains "wife" as gender neutral. Nurse shares its origins with "nun" and is also used to describe a biological function specific to females; it is hard to imagine how anyone would consider "nurse" a gender neutral word.
According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, midwife is Middle English (not Old English) "[ORIGIN Prob. from mid preposition + wife noun.]" and is "A person, esp. a woman, with experience or training in assisting women in labour and childbirth, now spec. a nurse holding additional qualifications for this task." Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Have edited, at the end of the Debate section, "women and transgender individuals are implicitly excluded" to "women and those of other genders are implicitly excluded". The previous language was problematic because:
- It implies that transgender people are not men and women. In fact, a transman being a man, they would not be excluded (though may feel excluded iff they are not confident in passing as a man), while a transwoman being excluded is redundant to women being excluded. Exclusion on the basis of visible transgender status is likely to exist, but be unrelated to gendered language in such an advertisement, and as such to the subject at hand.
- It implies that transgender is the only gender identity that is different from cisgendered man and woman and may therefore feel excluded from a masculine-gendered position.
86.0.145.210 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Most words adding the -man suffix derive from the Old English usage, which is gender neutral, and is roughly equivalent to "person", and used to describe people. The most basic descriptions being "wyfman" (female person) and "waepman" (male person). 81.104.165.184 18:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
IF A LADY IS ELECTED AS MAYO OF CITY SHOULD WE CALL HER LADY MAYOR OR MAYORESS OR SIMPLY MAYOR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.70.235 ( talk) 14:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
As is common with these gender/race language issues, the people that actually care about such things (e.g. feminists, politicians, and anyone else trying to be politically correct) are better represented than the common person. This makes sense because they talk about it the most and thus their opinions are the easiest to find references for, however I think it gives their view undue weight. It gives multiple reasons why people dislike the terms but it fails to give more than one reason why most people continue to use them and find them acceptable. Even the one reason that is given is pretty weak: replacing the historical terms everywhere they appear (in documents, etc.) would be difficult and expensive, or that it is unnecessary. I never heard that argument before. Is it suggesting that by accepting these new genderless names we would have go back and rewrite history? No, the most common argument is that the terms are gender-neutral to begin with. This view is present when the article talks about women demanding to be called fisherman (and actors), but it is being treated as a "special case" like these females that fish are unique in this aspect. What about the linguistic and historical arguments? That the -man suffix simply means it's a person or of the species Homo sapiens (homo = man, btw)? The most obvious examples are human and woman. 75.4.145.158 ( talk) 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the main text has:
"According ... the suffix -man had the meaning "person" in Old English but in present-day English is masculine and can be used to denote people by office and occupation. Examples of this are fireman, salesman, alderman and chairman."
The implication that -man is nowadays always masculine is both POV and unsupported. It may be masculine, it may be assumed masculine (by whom?) or it may be common. Current usage and understanding is divided (in what proportion?) between speakers of English. the sentance itself is self-contradictory; having asserted that -man is masculine it then goes on to state "can be used ... by office and occupation". Can anyone have a go at removing the PC bias whilst retaining a fair reflection of modern English usage? Martin of Sheffield ( talk) 09:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
It seems that this article is not (and should not be) specifically about gender-specific titles, but covers both gender-specific and gender-neutral titles (as well as cases where it might be debatable whether or not they're gender-specific). Can we therefore think of a better title for the article? Something like Gender marking in job titles?? Victor Yus ( talk) 08:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Gender marking in job titles. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 22:02, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I think these should be included somewhere, if only under "see also".
Obsolete job titles:
Current jobs: