Yale changes class names to be gender neutral

Sherkeu

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Sherkeu
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From here.

This type of change had not even occurred to me. Congressman and Postman feel male but somehow freshman doesn't, like mankind doesn't - probably because I have been in those groups.

Freshwoman sounds catchy!

Are there more terms that we don't think twice about that will be changed? I can't think of any, but I didn't think of this one either.

After beginning to roll out the new terminology in formal correspondence early last spring, University administrators have now begun the process of replacing the terms “freshman” and “upperclassman” with the gender-neutral terms “first year” and “upper-level students” in official campus publications, such as the Undergraduate Regulations and the First-Year Handbook.

Chun emphasized that the memo was distributed to notify faculty and staff how the administration now refers to its students, without attempting to dictate to recipients that they use any specific terminology.
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Sherkeu said:
From here.

This type of change had not even occurred to me. Congressman and Postman feel male but somehow freshman doesn't, like mankind doesn't - probably because I have been in those groups.

Freshwoman sounds catchy!

Are there more terms that we don't think twice about that will be changed? I can't think of any, but I didn't think of this one either.
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'Midwife' will have to change to 'midspouse'.

'Husbandry' to 'spousery'

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for? ;)
 
GlennB said:
'Midwife' will have to change to 'midspouse'.

'Husbandry' to 'spousery'

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for? ;)
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Exactly! Had not thought of those quite common ones.

I looked up what male midwives call themselves and it turns out the name is the same. Mid= with Wife= woman, so the wife part is always a woman (for now!).

Ditto for husbandry. hus means house and the term means housefarmer.

Should the origin of a term matter for the purpose of neutrality? The modern 'sense' of the word would seem to be the priority for what they are trying to do even if it didn't mean what we think it means.
 
Sherkeu said:
From here.

This type of change had not even occurred to me. Congressman and Postman feel male but somehow freshman doesn't, like mankind doesn't - probably because I have been in those groups.

Freshwoman sounds catchy!

Are there more terms that we don't think twice about that will be changed? I can't think of any, but I didn't think of this one either.
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Fireman - firefighter
signalman - signaller

In the day (and it was too) I suggested "signal operative" nobody liked it and it was changed back to signalman <smh>
 
Actually, I don't care. The same debate came up when fire departments opened their ranks to women. "Firewoman" didn't exactly roll-off the tongue, so they changed the name to "firefighter". That's OK with me, as long as they are describing the same job.

ETA: Journeyman?
 
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BobTheCoward said:
Yeoman?
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Depends upon who you ask. Did a Trekkie in the 60's ever associate the yeoman rate with anyone but a woman? I've yet to meet a female yeoman in the American submarine force. Plenty of them in the shore and surface navy though :)

Ranb
 
Sherkeu said:
Exactly! Had not thought of those quite common ones.

I looked up what male midwives call themselves and it turns out the name is the same. Mid= with Wife= woman, so the wife part is always a woman (for now!).

Ditto for husbandry. hus means house and the term means housefarmer.
Click to expand...

I learned something, cheers! So the terms are actually gender neutral, when you get to the etymology.

Sherkeu said:
Should the origin of a term matter for the purpose of neutrality? The modern 'sense' of the word would seem to be the priority for what they are trying to do even if it didn't mean what we think it means.
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That's a whole can of worms.
 
Sherkeu said:
Should the origin of a term matter for the purpose of neutrality? The modern 'sense' of the word would seem to be the priority for what they are trying to do even if it didn't mean what we think it means.
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I'm a pretty progressive person, but I think the origin, so to speak, should matter. Not every "man" in a word is a reference to the male gender.
 
Sherkeu said:
From here.

This type of change had not even occurred to me. Congressman and Postman feel male but somehow freshman doesn't, like mankind doesn't - probably because I have been in those groups.

Freshwoman sounds catchy!

Are there more terms that we don't think twice about that will be changed? I can't think of any, but I didn't think of this one either.
Click to expand...

With regards the change mentioned in the OP, it makes perfect sense, as for the other thing I do remember a cartoon from back when Political Correctness first appeared where the dialog went something like this:

1: "We're Women"
2: "You can't say that, it's sexist"
1: "We're WoPeople"
 
I hope they will study Theirtory or even Theirstory using the gender neutral third person pronoun instead of the male one.
 
GlennB said:
Sherkeu said:
Exactly! Had not thought of those quite common ones.

I looked up what male midwives call themselves and it turns out the name is the same. Mid= with Wife= woman, so the wife part is always a woman (for now!).

Ditto for husbandry. hus means house and the term means housefarmer.
Click to expand...

I learned something, cheers! So the terms are actually gender neutral, when you get to the etymology.

Sherkeu said:
Should the origin of a term matter for the purpose of neutrality? The modern 'sense' of the word would seem to be the priority for what they are trying to do even if it didn't mean what we think it means.
Click to expand...

That's a whole can of worms.
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They aren't gender neutral. A midwife is a woman who is with another woman when she is giving birth. A husband was originally the male head of household.
 
Lucian said:
They aren't gender neutral. A midwife is a woman who is with another woman when she is giving birth. A husband was originally the male head of household.
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The words themselves are, they do not refer to the gender of the person. In practice, they definitely are. I think almost everyone hears gender in them (I do!). Proposing a new name would require a different argument to change them than Freshmen, or Firemen which are gender specific.

Like the word 'Captain' which simply means chief or leader. We do not change it now because there's no gender in it even though it was previously used only for men.
 
Seems the Marines and Navy both adopted gender neutral job titles last year, removing the 'man' at the end for many to be more inclusive to women.

Some titles were kept, like rifleman.
However, ...
A month after announcing the change, the Navy decided the complaints were too much and restored all the names.
. There is immense pride associated with the traditional titles.
 
Sherkeu said:
Seems the Marines and Navy both adopted gender neutral job titles last year, removing the 'man' at the end for many to be more inclusive to women.

Some titles were kept, like rifleman.
However, ...
A month after announcing the change, the Navy decided the complaints were too much and restored all the names.
. There is immense pride associated with the traditional titles.
Click to expand...

"As Chief Poop Deckman, I took great pride in ordering, "Man the Poop Deck!" No way am I changing that to People the Poop Deck. That just sounds silly!"
 
Lucian said:
They aren't gender neutral. A midwife is a woman who is with another woman when she is giving birth. A husband was originally the male head of household.
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Meet the male midwifes

Sherkeu explained perfectly well that the word means somebody who is with a wife during childbirth, not a separate wife who is helping with the birth.

On that basis 'midwife' is as gender neutral as 'miner' or 'refuse collector'. 'Miner' doesn't indicate gender just because most miners are male.
 
For dog's sake, people. This:

Cl1mh4224rd said:
I'm a pretty progressive person, but I think the origin, so to speak, should matter. Not every "man" in a word is a reference to the male gender.
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Once more with feeling.

When the "man" in a word is a reference to gender, then I am all for gender-neutralising it. Firefighter, police officer, chess piece, access hatch. When it is not, there isn't a good reason to bother.
 
Manual labour?

Many uses of the term 'man' actually originate from the term from hand 'manus'.

On the other hand werewolves are specifically male the female form is correctly a wifwolf. Virtues are specifically male and clearly needs to be retermed. Warrior from the same male root as 'were' and 'vir' needs deleting soldier is perhaps more PC.
 
Ok 'Mandate' is clearly a word that needs re-making. Not only gender specific but clearly not sapphic friendly. Personmeet? Does Theresa May have a personmeet to take the UK out of the EEA?
 
Mailman doubly gender specific so clearly needs to be post-person. Or does post have phallic connotations?
 
GlennB said:
'Husbandry' to 'spousery'

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for? ;)
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No, because "husband" there is an old word for "farmer"; nothing to do with "a married man". This is precisely the sort of illiteracy that wants to change "history" to "herstory". ETA Not meaning to imply that Glennb is the illiterate one.
 
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GlennB said:

Meet the male midwifes

Sherkeu explained perfectly well that the word means somebody who is with a wife during childbirth, not a separate wife who is helping with the birth.

On that basis 'midwife' is as gender neutral as 'miner' or 'refuse collector'. 'Miner' doesn't indicate gender just because most miners are male.
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That's not what it means. The "wife" in "midwife" does not refer to the woman giving birth; it refers to the woman assisting in the birth. From the OED: " the original sense seems to have been ‘woman (wife n. 1) who is with the mother at childbirth’. With the formation compare German (arch.) Beifrau female assistant, especially midwife's assistant (1377 in early modern German as bijfrauwe concubine < bij (see by- comb. form) + frauwe (see frau n.))." Thus, "midwife" is a gendered term, just as "fireman" is.
 
Lucian said:
That's not what it means. The "wife" in "midwife" does not refer to the woman giving birth; it refers to the woman assisting in the birth. From the OED: " the original sense seems to have been ‘woman (wife n. 1) who is with the mother at childbirth’. With the formation compare German (arch.) Beifrau female assistant, especially midwife's assistant (1377 in early modern German as bijfrauwe concubine < bij (see by- comb. form) + frauwe (see frau n.))." Thus, "midwife" is a gendered term, just as "fireman" is.
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A very fair point, and I retract my own point. "Midspouse" it is? ;)
 
GlennB said:
A very fair point, and I retract my own point. "Midspouse" it is? ;)
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It's actually rather tricky. There really is no way of making it gender neutral without using a new term entirely, but "midwife" is pretty strongly established in English. While "midwife" may not be gender neutral, in Old English, "wif" was grammatically neuter (the German cognate is das Weib). "Woman," which started out as "wifmann" (or "wifmonn"), was, of course, grammatically masculine, although it was sometimes treated as if it were feminine (i.e., it was occasionally modified by unambiguously feminine adjectives).
 
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