Sexism in naming conventions

I had a little disagreement with a former teacher and “person who used to be in charge of a school” about grammar and naming conventions over at Blair’s. He took umbrage with my use of the word headmaster, and claimed that it was sexist. Now, when I went to school, an appointment with the Headmaster usually meant bad things. For the sake of disclosure, I went to an all male school. We had a sister school across town .They had a Headmistress with an equally cantankerous reputation. The respect that these two people engendered in the student body had nothing to do with the name of the title they held, but from the power and responsibility that came with the position.

On those occasions when both schools came together for social interaction, the boys didn’t sit in a corner and snigger that the Headmistress was a woman and therefore deserving of ridicule. We ran a mile to avoid confrontation with a successful and powerful woman who would see us for the lustful little teenagers intent on pushing our luck with the delightful girls in her charge that we were. So why then is a term for a respected position incompatible with modern language? What is the point of androgenising all language to obfuscate gender? In the PC world imposed upon us, terms and names that are gender specific have become outdated or even offensive in the drive to promote women as the equals of men. This seems to me to be a contradiction. Women are every bit men’s equals. Why then are we ashamed to promote the fact that a woman, rather than a man, might be involved in an endeavour?

Take for example, the use of the term chairperson. If a man holds that position, he is a chairman. If a woman holds the position, she is a chairperson. Why can’t she be a chairwoman? What is wrong with acknowledging the gender of the person who holds the position? The other one that annoys me is the use of the term actor for both male and female practitioners of that art form. What is wrong with identifying a female performer as an actress? I realise that in the early days of Hollywood, actresses were exploited. I also acknowledge the rationale behind the move for actresses to become actors in order to put themselves on equal footing with men. The problem is that changing language does not change reality. You could demand that I refer to dog shit as luxurious carpeting, but that doesn’t change my innate desire not to step in it. Now, I don’t mean that to infer that women are dog shit, quite the contrary. Women didn’t achieve better remuneration, conditions and recognition by changing the name of their job title. They did it by demanding those things and having the talent and dedication to back it up. Most of that was achieved whilst they were still calling themselves actresses. Adopting the masculine title didn’t make them better at their jobs, it just confused language. We now have categories of awards for best male and best female actor. If the move to a single title was a move towards an equal recognition of talent, why the two categories? Why not just have an Oscar for the best actor, regardless of gender?

All that is not to say that English is not an evolving language. There are words that quite rightly have been done away with. They are words that cannot be used in any other way than to invoke evil. The “N” word is an example of that, despite its continued use in it’s former target. Gender specific terms do not in themselves cast judgement or incite ill will. They can be used just as positively as they can be negatively. To consign them to the dustbin of history, along with thee and thou, only robs our language of accuracy and denies women the same right men have to be successful in their own right.