Can women be firemen or mailmen?

[angus]

Or can they only be firefighters or mailpersons?

Firefighters exist, and some of them are women.  Mailpersons do not exist.  The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) has long preferred the usage of "letter carrier" over mailman or postman.  Some letter carriers are also women.

[angus]

But that doesn't really answer the question here-- is "chairman" gendered?

I've worked for female department chairs who are regularly called chairman.  No one seems to mind.  I've also heard the word "chair" used, as in "She's our department chair..."  I'm okay with you calling a firefighter a fireman or a letter carrier a mailman, no matter the gender, although the preferred terms are firefighter and letter carrier.  I don't think anyone would take you seriously if you said mailperson though, since it isn't a word.

I also am okay with saying "yes, sir" to female starship officers or calling female starship officers Mister, as in "Mister Uhura."  However, when applied to a Potato Head toy, I think Mister specifically refers to a male.  Thus the need for a Mrs. Potato Head toy.  Her exaggerated lips and large brown posterior are both sufficiently racist and sexist that people don't even have time to notice that she is called by the very patronizing and old-fashioned "Mrs."

[angus]

I never took martial arts and I was never in the military, so I don't have a large view on this.  At my son's Tae Kwon Do class the master is called "Sir."  They're big on that.  Bowing, sirring, all that deferential Eastern stuff.  The master's minions (other black belts who assist him) are also called Sir, or, in the case of the one who is a female, Ma'am.  They're instructed to say "Yes, sir!" to the men and "Yes, maam!" to the women. 

When Neil Armstrong said "That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" I think it was okay for the women in the audience as well.  I shouldn't read too much into any of this.

A college freshman is still a college freshman, no matter whether it's a boy, a girl, a boy trapped in a girl's body, a girl trapped a boy's body, or Nathan. 

Don't get too hung up on this.  Also, don't say "chairpeople" because it'll just make you look stupid.

[angus]

relevant:  PBS Newshour anchor--notice how I said anchor?--Gwen Ifill just referred to Janet Yellen as "Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen..."

Are you chillin?  gellin?  Magellen?  Janet Yellen?

Yeah, it's yesterday's program.  I watch it on line at newshour.pbs.org whenever I can. 

Anyway, details at eleven.

[angus]

The main question here is whether "man" can be a gender neutral term.

From Mirriam-Webster:  a bipedal primate mammal of the genus Homo that is anatomically related to the great apes (family Pongidae) but is distinguished by greater development of the brain with resulting capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning, by marked erectness of body carriage with corresponding alteration of muscular balance and loss of prehensile powers of the foot, and by shortening of the arm with accompanying increase in thumb size and ability to place the thumb next to each of the fingers, that is usually considered to occur in a variable number of freely interbreeding races, and that is the sole living representative of the family Hominidae; broadly : any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae

Also, consider the etymology:  Old English man, mann "human being, person (male or female); brave man, hero; servant, vassal," from Proto-Germanic *manwaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Swedish, Dutch, Old High German man, German Mann, Old Norse maðr, Danish mand, Gothic manna "man"), from PIE root *man- (1) "man" (cognates: Sanskrit manu "mankind")

Overall, it seems so.  Also, it seems that we've made one giant fucking leap in this thread. 

[angus]

In languages like German and Swedish the word for human is more obviously related to the word for man which makes it a bit easier to accept this stuff (mensch/mann/männer, etc)

English is complicated by Latin.  Man is from the latin word for hand, and the german word for human.  So we end up with older words like manipulate, manumission, and manual having something to do with handling, and newer words like mancrush, manpurse, and mancave, all having to do with masculinity.  We also have Manhattan, which has nothing to do with either of those things.