Why are there gendered words for some professions like actor and actress but not e.g. doctor and doctress?
In: 1937
Because when those gendered job titles were invented, nobody could conceive of a woman being a doctor. God forbid! But there were already female actors. They were, of course, women of ill repute, but they existed.
/s
I don’t know for sure but I would guess that the fact that “doctor” was a male only profession originally may play a part in that. women in the medical field were simply assumed to be nurses.
English is the red headed step child of older better languages. To understand gender in English you need to understand the root language.
“Actor” is gender neutral whereas “actress” is specific to a female actor.
There is a long, complicated explanation (or perhaps theory is a better word) as to why, but there is something to be said about a defined sense of identity and the need, by some, to be recognized. Sometimes people will create a space/identity for themselves through a term that fits them, whereas other times, they do this by creating a term they *don’t* fit (actor vs. actress — “She and I are actors, but she is a woman and I am not, therefore, I shall refer to her as an actress!”)
Another example I have always thought was funny is “dude” and “dudette.” Dude is absolutely gender neutral (unless otherwise defined by a gendered pronoun like “he is a dude” or “she is a dude”) whereas dudette is not.
It is also worth noting gendered languages exist and the fact English is a bit of a mash-up of multiple different languages, so it makes sense some gendered terminology would be adopted as well. Not to mention the history of the English language and it’s development over time just in general.
Either way, the whole gendered professional title thing seems a bit sexist, as if to imply certain positions and professions can only be held by certain genders (which is silly, especially considering gender in and of itself is a social construct)… Which is WHY the whole purpose of my comment was to inform or remind whoever reads this that the professional title “actor” IS gender neutral (and there is no reason to refer to someone as an actress unless they prefer it — regardless of gender, I say).
I hope this comment sufficiently meets the standards not met in my previous comment and thus, will not be removed. Thank you.
English is a mixture of multiple different Latin based languages and some Anglo Saxon sprinkled in as well. Compared to most Latin languages, it is hardly gendered. Languages like Spanish and German have a gender that’s very obvious in the word for almost all professions. However some gendering still exists.
The strongest influences in English are French and German which are both heavily gendered languages and used to exist parallel in the language. The upper class would use all French derived words while the lower class would use German derived ones. This is why there are basically two identical words for just about everything. Over time the words took on slightly different meanings in many cases as the two versions merged, but the pronunciations are very difficult for a non native speaker because the rules change based on the root language.
Latest Answers