Job Titles and Gender

[Stu]

Does anyone agree that we sometimes get hung up unnecessarily on gender, especially when it comes to jobs? I have a friend who is a Danish former policewoman and she related a story on several occasions of the only time she ever drew her firearm and declared: "Halt! Jeg er politimand" - "Stop! I am a policeman". Her gender didn't enter into it: she was stating what her job was. I had never understood why people, usually feminists, object to terms like "policeman" or "fireman". Does it matter? We know you are a woman and that women do these jobs as well.

On the final day of my hospital stay, I got to have a brief conversation with the matron of the department I was on - a man called "Paul". I had seen him knocking around before, but had not spoken to him and it took a few days before it registered who he was. He wore a dark blue uniform with epaulettes bearing two white stripes, making him look more like a Royal Navy lieutenant than the chief nurse. He still used the title "matron" in spite of its feminine associations and that was on his door plate. His deputy was a "senior sister" and the ward managers all had the title "sister" - they were all female, but I met a male "sister" elsewhere in the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) and with "Sister" on his name badge. I know some hospitals have dispensed with "matron" and "sister" titles and replaced them with expressions like "ward manager" and "senior nursing officer" and I had previously thought that was standard for all hospitals. I recall many years ago, a male nurse being interviewed on TV as his hospital's first male sister saying he had worked hard for the promotion and was proud of the "sister" title and certainly not embarrassed by it. I also remember when I was first courting my wife when we were both teenagers. She was 16 and I was 17 - and she was still at school full-time. She had a job each Saturday at a clothing and food supermarket called BHS and was what was called a "Saturday Girl". The local fruit and vegetable market tended to recruit boys rather than girls and called them "Saturday Lads". One college friend of mine was among the first male to get a Saturday job in retail in a huge pharmacy store called "Timothy White's" and, in spite of him being male, he would say (only half-joking) that he worked as a "Saturday Girl" each weekend. He was followed in short order by a boy I knew who got a job at a department store (CRS - Co-operative Retail Stores) on the leather goods counter and he also used to say he earned extra pocket money as a "Saturday Girl". Everyone knew what a Saturday Girl was and they weren't exclusively female.

[Fred in Skirts]

The titles of "Fireman, Policeman, Trash-man, (for the British Binman,) Etc.
Have nothing to do with the actual sex of the person doing the job. But are common because they used to be done by only men. Before women started in the work force. They became the norm for the job. Just as Dog Catcher is not a dog playing baseball at the catchers position.

If your poor minds are offended by the titles, then get over it, you are not being harmed by them so shut up already.

[Susie]

If you send me an email at work that starts ' Hi guys!' you are going to get the minimum assistance I can give and keep my job.

I think it's like pronouns - you should check.

[Stu]

If you send me an email at work that starts ' Hi guys!' you are going to get the minimum assistance I can give and keep my job.

Then don't expect a promotion or bonus

I think it's like pronouns - you should check.

People have names: they don't have pronouns.

[Susie]

And how do you know I'm not the boss?

Do you know what a pronoun is???

[Stu]

No responsible boss would give a colleague "minimum assistance".

Yes, I know what a pronoun is. When asked my pronouns, I say "none", which is a pronoun. But people don't have pronouns.

[Susie]

Well there you go - wrong, wrong and wrong again.

I have been the Chair of the board, CEO, and Vice-Chair all of different organisations.

I choose not to be in a mangement position because I have had enough.

Pronouns replace a noun so anyone with a name (i.e. a noun) has a pronoun.

[Stu]

Well there you go - wrong, wrong and wrong again.
I have been the Chair of the board, CEO, and Vice-Chair all of different organisations.
I choose not to be in a mangement position because I have had enough.

I don't see how that is remotely relevant.

Pronouns replace a noun so anyone with a name (i.e. a noun) has a pronoun.

Well "None" replaces my name, so it's a pronoun.

People have names. They don't have pronouns.

[Susie]

it is relevant because you suggested that my attitude prevented me from being mangement material.

[Stu]

I said you shouldn't be in management if you only offered colleagues "minimum assistance" because they used a word you didn't like. That is petulant and childish.

[Fred in Skirts]

Hey guys lets play nice here!!!

[moonshadow]

I've never liked the terms "you guys", or "hi guys", or "__________ guys".

I always assumed a "guy" was a slang word for a man, or male. "Gal" being the female counterpart.

It seems to be a thing everyone uses except for the U.S. south (where "y'all" is normally used, short for "you all").

I myself am a "y'all" guy, and yes I am a guy. If someone were to ask me my gender, I might look at them funny and then state... "I'm a guy".

I don't get hung-up over the whole pronoun thing, nor does it bother me when people ask about it or put it in email signatures, etc.

I figure asking the question "what are your pronouns?" is much easier and faster than: "in what gender should I refer to you as in conversation?".

Finally, on a name tag, "Andrea Palumbo he/his" might be the only thing I can fit... imagine a name tag that said:

"Andrea Palumbo - A human male with a feminine name in the U.S. masculine in Italy, pronounces it "Ann-drey-ah", who sometimes expresses himself in clothing traditionally considered feminine by current modern/western standards, who is usually considered "a man" by society, but is spiritually non-binary, but that only applies to the spirit, not the flesh, thus really has nothing at all to do with any worldly and/or social matters, but he doesn't make the rules, you're welcome to disagree, and hey, it's 2024, you probably will, but Andrea doesn't give a sh!t, now go rant about it on reddit."

What a mouthful. He/his seems a lot easier.

[denimini]

The term human applies to all genders

[Ray]

I said you shouldn't be in management if you only offered colleagues "minimum assistance" because they used a word you didn't like. That is petulant and childish.

Ironic, when you state that you won’t use a word you don’t like (when others ask you to refer to them as, for example, she/her).

By your own yardstick, that suggests you are petulant and childish.

[Ray]

To the original post, I would find it bizarre if a policewoman were to refer to herself as a policeman.

The historical context explains how we arrive at the term policeman - but the world has changed and so too does the language, to reflect these changes. I always refer to policewoman, firewoman (firefighter is a better term for all in my view) and postwoman. To me this is logical. The designation tells me what the person does and what sex they are. Non-sexed terms are, to me, even better, as the sex of the individual is in most cases irrelevant.

However, referring to a woman in a role as [insert role] - man is wrong. It’s factually incorrect. It may be tradition, but that’s a term weaponised by the lazy and those with an inexorable mindset. I have no time for tradition if it propagates incorrect outcomes or maintains what is clearly wrong.