At one point in the Depp/Heard trial, Amber Heard referred to herself as an “actor,” instead of an “actress,” and some of the boys in the Antifeminists subreddit are evidently still pig-biting mad about it.
What’s Up With Feminists Replacing The Word ” Actress ” With ” Actor “? asks DeputyDak in a post to the Antifeminists subreddit today.
I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this.
But off late some people have stopped using the word ” actress ” to describe a woman who acts professionally. And instead just calling her an ” actor “.
But why? What’s wrong with calling women actresses? They now think the differentiation between the word ” actor ” and ” actress ” is sexist. Because according to them acknowledging differences between men and women is sexism.
In that case why are they using ” actor ” as the baseline, instead of just calling males actresses as well? What a self own. Lmao. This just gives you a window into their mind. They want to be men.
Yeah, it couldn’t be that the dictionary definition of “actor” is gender-neutral, a “person who acts.” Or that “actress” — like , say, the patronizing term “comedienne” — is a diminutive, implying a lesser version of something.
But forget all that. The real reason must be that feminists — sorry, “feministesses” — want to be men.
And speaking of “comedienne.”
“They also do it with comedian and comedienne,” JoeSmith1907 complains.
I think it’s part of the agenda that says that sex is a social construct. When I see people use actor instead of actress I call them out for sexism.
Well, that ‘s because you’re an idiot. Sorry, a “male idiotress.”
GivePuppiesBazookas has an even more convoluted reason for hating women who call themselves actors.
Like everything else, they make it sexist and separate when it benefits them. When it doesn’t, we are all the same. This is them trying to say we are the same because they don’t need or want anything in that area (since it’s essentially equal anyway, men play men, women play women, etc.)
Huh
So watch, when they bring up Hollywood pay in the future, actor and actress with be separate again so they can claim actresses get paid less
It’s not a claim. They do get paid less. Which is maybe another reason not to use a diminutive when talking about them.
If you’re looking at actual everyday usage, actress is still the preferred term for female actors. But that’s changing, in part because actors like Heard are using the term “actor” instead of “actress.” That’s how language works. Definitions follow usage.
Many of these feminized terms have already fallen from fashion. No one refers to female professors as “professoresses” any more, and you’d get an annoyed look if you referred to a Jewish woman as a “Jewess.”
But “velodipedestrienne” will always be in style.
You see me rollin’ up pops you step aside.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
It’s a common usage lots of places now.
Also, calling everyone who acts an actor is inclusive of non-binary people. Of course, these boys think even less of enby folk than they do of women.
Tonight I will not be a chefess. The women who did all the tedious math in the early space era weren’t computeresses.
Step aside, pops, indeed.
Also, Linda Hunt and her Oscar for playing a man say hi.
I like to think myself as an occasional commentrix.
It feels a little odd that we even have *any* gendered occupational titles anymore. I mean, we dumped things like “doctress” and “aviatrix” a long time ago.
“Actor” for everyone is easier, as it follows the pattern of other job titles. Feminism might have something to do with it, for the reasons David outlined above, but it’s not the only reason.
You might ask instead why the gendering of actor/actress has persisted so long? One reason might be the tendency of film awards to put men and women in separate categories*. Which is a little silly, I think – this isn’t sports, where average physical differences might matter. Plus, it would encourage non-binary actors to get more recognition, given that there are some higher-profile ones now.
*edited to clarify: for acting parts. You don’t have a separate “director” and “directress” award. And if that sounds silly, well, doesn’t the whole “actor”/”actress” thing?
As an English teacher in Taiwan for thirty years, it has made life a little harder, having to switch to ‘police officer’, ‘fire fighter’, and ‘mail carrier’ instead of policeman, fireman. and mailman.Still, it’s worth it.
I worry about the future, though. They’ll be going after ‘stewardess’ next.
Flight attendant is what I hear people say.
As with many things that Redditors complain about, It’s irrelevant. Modern English tends to favor nongendered terms, whether or not the speakers regard themselves as right or left politically.
In French, where many of these gendered terms originated, there are more gendered terms remaining than in English. The Academie Francaise, if I remember rightly, has been somewhat divided about what to do with them. However, it is not an earthshaking alteration of gender to call yourself Madame La President versus Madame Le President.
> Malintzin
Indeed (and that would be Madame la Présidente, but i have got your point).
I suppose Doctor also remain for both gender ? Or are they called Doctoress ?
Speaking of agendered term, when the french Dictionnary “Le Robert” had put “iel” (combination of “il” (he) and “elle” (she)), that had made quit a fuss, especially when Mme Macron (who is a former french teacher) complain about it, of course immediatly supported by cohorts of vinegar pissers. Long is the road…
These antifeminists are so, so late to the party. Second-wave feminists were discussing gender-neutral word choices back in the 1960s. In fact, there’s a book devoted to the topic,The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing by Casey Miller and Kate Swift (first published in 1980).
And I have to assume that it was first-wave feminists who did away with poetess, janitress, and such. My favorite wordsmith among first-wave feminists is Lucy Stone, who dared to keep her own name when she married Henry Browne Blackwell in 1855. The Lucy Stone League (a group of women who kept their birth name upon marriage) was established in New York City in 1921 and reestablished in 1997.
I’m a professional actor and I’ve used ‘actor’ for years now. It’s gender neutral, which is ideal because I don’t really ID as a cis woman, and it doesn’t lower my position or add any fluff. We’re all actors and we’re all on the same level. ‘Actress’ just seems to make things all about my gender which I really don’t want.
OT, but I thought this might be of interest to you guys.
I don’t know if any of you follow youtube stuff closely, but there is a creator called DissociaDID of Kya who seems to have gotten into serious trouble. Kya has been seen as very problematic by some people and, admittedly, I wasn’t always sure about them in the past, but I don’t think they deserve what seems to be happening to them right now.
Someone apparently offered to help them with their videos for free and because he believed in their message and content. At some point he and them had a disagreement as to how close their “friendship” should be. When Kya expressed concern about the age and power differential and said they weren’t comfortable with more “affection” the guy started writing messages to them that felt very much like emotional blackmail. After Kya cut off contact with him, they are now being inundated with copyright claims by him, their videos are being taken down, their channel has been demonetised and there is at least one court case going on in the UK and according to a threatening tweet by him, a defamation case in Portugal. And yes, they are currently raising money for legal representation, but I’m not posting this to ask any of you for money for them.
I’m mostly just trying to spread the word around a bit because this makes me really angry. And that guy is still making tweets where he’s trying to discredit them and saying this is all just a money-grab on their part.
I also wanted to ask what you all think about this. Am I the only one to whom this seems like a nice guy situation gone very badly?
I’m not good at summaries, so I’ll leave two youtube links here, to a different channel I’m sometimes watching, that does a much better job of explaining the situation:
The concerning part begins at about the eight minute mark.
As I said, they were involved in past drama, where people accused them of faking their disorder or misrepresenting it – I’m in no position to judge this, since I know almost nothing about the disorder in question. A more serious accusation involved some (furry) art by a close associate of hers which can be read as really problematic, but as far as I can see, that was someone else’s actions and Kya was mostly to blame for not distancing themselves from them fast enough an far enough. I might be misunderstanding this, though.
Anyway. What I mean to say is, I’m just going to put this here and you can make up your own minds. I just post it because the man’s behaviour feels so infuriating, he seems to be preying on a vulnerable person and he is *still* making these tweets where he’s so smug about the trouble he’s causing them. That just seemed unfair to me and I guess I felt I should do something. And maybe they *are* a fraud and I am just gullible, but I figured I’d err on the side of compassion in this case.
The problem with terms like “actress” and “woman scientist” is that they reinforce the idea that the default human is male. It’s similar to the way a plain stick figure always gets read as male. To make a stick figure female, it has to be accessorized with skirts, boobs, long hair, etc. Similarly, “doctor” apparently needs to be qualified with “lady”, “-ess”, etc. to make it clear that we’re talking about a female doctor.
It makes me think of that old riddle about the father and son brought to the ER after a car accident, and the surgeon says “I can’t operate, this is my son!” Its shock value comes from automatically assuming the surgeon is a man.
What a bizarre statement. Asking someone to share their toys doesn’t mean you literally want to be that person.
I just recently learned about the history behind the prefix ‘wif’
And ever since then, I have been obsessed about getting rid of the word “husbands” in favor of calling them “werves”
On the old TV show “Emergency!”, the two main characters were initially identified as “fireman” in the credits. In later seasons, they were “firefighter”. This was nearly 50 years ago.
They’ve been “flight attendants” for generations now. Are you even trying to keep up?
My high school English teacher in the mid 1990s convinced us to avoid gendered suffixes.
My favourite recent example of this was a minor spat here in England* over the general rise in usage of the term “batter” in the game of Cricket. For many years, the common term was “batsman” but the rise of women’s cricket made it advisable to change the term. Of course, the people who blew their top over this have never ever referred to “bowlmen” or “fieldmen”…
*England plays Cricket. Other constituent countries of the UK do also play, but it’s not the same thing at all.
@ scurra
It’s ironic that people are getting all wound up over a name.
In a game where the Silly Mid-Off can catch a Perhapser from a Googly. Howzat!
OT, but: a trans person I know just got jumped and beaten right near where they live. The cops were incredibly shitty to them too, and basically told them they deserved it.
I am so. Fucking. Tired.
When I was young and took myself more seriously, I was in what my friends and I thought of as “serious theater,” i.e., Shakespeare and Ibsen instead of comedies and musicals. (Noting that I’m aware we were insufferable snobs. Ah, youth!). As such, we called ourselves actors instead of actresses, because actresses were women who focused on hair, makeup, and becoming stars instead of professionals in the serious craft of acting. While I think we were wrong about many things -SO many things! – it looks as if that’s caught on, even if our reasoning was a little faulty.
@ another laura
At least you can use the part tense. I refuse to grow out of it.
@Cyborgette: If random “ARRGGGHHH” and “I’m sorry” from an internet stranger would help, then I offer them to you and your friend.
The last time I heard “stewardess” was as a retro joke… in the 80s. People regardless of gender have been flight attendants, firefighters, letter carriers, and police officers for decades.
@Emma: Sam Smith missed out on some musical awards because all the categories were gendered, and they’re not.
*pushes box of floofy things to comfort Cyborgette and friend*
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmergencyPuppy/status/367357563018285056
*pushes box of scaly things to comfort those who like them*
https://william-snekspeare.tumblr.com/
*pushes a history timeline of food for those who want a more intellectual distraction from the hells of the day*
https://foodtimeline.org/
Those who’ve referred to me as an “authoress” very soon regretted it
I realized that had David put a full stop after the 4th word, the headline would be true 99.99999% of the time.
@Buttercup: I realized there’s now 2 answers to that “riddle”!
@RedSilkVixen: Thank you for the puppies and the food timeline. I have had a TERRIBLE month and it’s not going to get any better due to circumstances beyond my control for at minimum 3 weeks. So all distractions are good.