RE:The lack of any indication of gender in 99% of cases in modern English is perhaps a shortcoming. In situations when it may be desirable to indicate gender, you usually have to resort to some sort of periphrasis, often clumsy.
why? if i want a lawyer-- i want the best-- be it a man or a woman. gender as faldage points out, make no difference 99.9% percent of the time..
and while i can understand consuelo concerns, what i find objectionable, is, the real thing is male, and the femine form has an ending similar to many suffixes that are used as diminutives.. a Luncheon is a rather formal lunch, but a luncheonette is so casual, it is below a diner!
So it is not just being politicaly correct to say that an air pilot an- Aviator, is a skilled person, and a woman who does the same (pilots an aircraft!) is no less skilled-- so her title should be the same.. and not some sort of diminutive title-- avaitrix
when theater started, all actors where male... actress implies something less than the usual acting company.
i think that if men where subjected to this sort of treatment regularly, they would find it objectionable..
i have worked in male dominated fields.. and spent years, looking at the started faces of people who ask--"you? You're going to .*...? Wow, i never see a female do that* before.. !" and the wierd things i did? set up computers (unbox, plug in, connect to network, and down load some files.. ) nothing really physically hard.. but while computer programing is pretty unisex, 10 year ago, computer technology was still pretty much dominated by men. (its changing and becoming more unisex too)
the stereotyping is real, and language can re-enforce it. Does it matter who carries your coffee to you? and if it doesn't why do you call one person a waiter, and the other a waitress.. why not just a server? and why a diminutive title for the woman --the job/work doesn't change-- why should the title?
an other rant might include the fact, that while the job/work doesn't change, the compensation often does.. and waiters are often paid more than waitress. and so on down the line.. the highest paid actors are never actresses.. hmm? which would you want to be? an $100,000 actor or a $85,000 actress?
