Can women be firemen or mailmen?

[Simfan34]

Or can they only be firefighters or mailpersons?

More seriously, I'm asking about gender-neutral pronouns. I've always thought the idea of the suffix "-man" being considered gendered to be a bit of an imposition. I mean, "mankind" is very clearly in reference to all people, not just men. So I'm of the opinion that women can be chairmen. Because chairperson... well it's all a bit silly. Because, you know, some men are women.



Seriously, though, it almost seems a forced sexism. This is a good quote:

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There's some good thoughts on this page as well.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/mankind-humankind-and-gender/

I'm not a linguist, and this all seems very dangerous (as if it were a black hole), but I guess I have feelings on it. I suppose this is what happens when you find that the Wikipedia page for "Chairman of the Federal Reserve" has become the inelegant "Chair of the Federal Reserve".

[Simfan34]

Women can be anything that they want to be.

The question is about linguistics, not gender roles, but I think this is still the right answer: Call any given woman in one of these types of positions what she'd prefer to be called, if she expresses a preference.

I mean if a woman calls herself a "poetess" then I suppose I would go along but I'm speaking in general terms. And we are trying to get to of the essence of the word- practice would follow convention, that is, a woman might elect to call herself a "chairperson" because she believe the word "chairman" to be gendered- but would that be correct?

[Simfan34]

Are there female firefighters?  I never heard of such a thing.

But, I think the easiest default is to use things like firefighter or mail carrier, if there's a good non-gendered word.  If there's a good gendered word like sculptress, executrix or chairman that has a nice ring to it, go with that.  For the female chairman, I think we're just stuck with awkward, bad sounding words.  Chairlady, chairwoman, chair, chairperson, all sound terrible.  

But that doesn't really answer the question here-- is "chairman" gendered? If it isn't, then alternate gender-neutral or gender-specific terms become a matter of preference rather than necessity.

But I do agree that while it's entirely subjective, I'm not going to be raising hackles or asking questions about perfectly fine words like "firefighters" or "police officers". It's inelegant words like "alderperson" or "chairwoman" that make me wonder "are we supposed to be doing this?" in the first place.

To be fair the usage of certain gendered nouns is completely arbitrary. What logical reason is there for us to use words like stewardess, actress, or waitress but not doctress, professoress, or poetess, all of which are actual words? So we are trying to determine logic in an already illogical system. Already I wonder how linguists are able to stay sane.

As for the example of "congressman" (which seems pretty inelegant as-is), I suppose the distinction is made in terms of concurrent number. I mean, there would be only be the Chairman of X at a given time but there are hundreds of members of Congress at any given time. While it might be technically correct, if we are to consider "-man" gender-neutral (but always, also?), to refer to a mixed group of members of Congress of as "these fine Congressmen", it seems strange.

Of course, this could be avoided simply by calling them "Representatives", but it raises an interesting question. Is it appropriate, for example, to have a "Conference of Chairmen of Foreign Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union". Or should it be a conference of Chairpeople, even if it is correct to call a woman "chairman".

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.

Well, I've never actually used or even heard the term "letter carrier" in daily speech, I've always referred to the person who brings the mail as a "mailman", this despite for several years, the person who did that was a woman- I, and everyone else in the family, referred to her as "the mailman". Now that I think of it, "letter carrier" is a rather unpleasant and and de-personalising term.

[Simfan34]

But only starship officers, am I correct?

(I am going to assume that in Star Trek women can be called "Mister" and "Sir", or something like that.)

[Simfan34]

Chairman is gendered, yes. I have never in any setting seen a woman referred to as a chairman, always a "chair."

I have seen a few instances. Arundhati Bhattacharya Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of India, Catherine Marron was Chairman of the Board Trustees of the New York Public Library, and Roberts Rules' instructs that a woman chair of a body be referred to as "Madam Chairman".

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

[Simfan34]

LOL