le tramp, I tried to find more information on actress but this is all I came up with:

actor – 1382, “an overseer, a plaintiff,” from L. actor “an agent or doer,” from stem of agere (see act). Sense of “one who performs in plays” is 1581, originally applied to both men and women. Actress “female stage player” is from 1700.


I agree with you on that, though.  Why are there gender-specific words when they aren’t really needed.  All I can say to that is that this came out of the 18th century and there may have been a reason back then but I can’t find one now.

–

So, last night’s class was actually pretty dull (relatively).  What we did talk about was how direct Americans can be (and many other native English speakers) because of our language and how that translates into other cultures.  We have a student from Japan and a student from Switzerland in our class.  They said that our directness can often be off-putting and seem incredibly rude.

The Japanese woman, especially, said that there are things that we say that she just finds over the top.  In other cases, she’s not sure what we mean.  While we’re being direct, many other cultures are used to reading the nuances of a person’s speech to determine what is really being said and so she said that she will be trying to read all of the other signs and it can be confusing.

For instance, she used this as an example:  “I’m having a party on Saturday.  You can come if you want.”  To her, that meant that the person inviting her didn’t really want her to come.  They were just saying something to be polite (and this is considered a negative politeness).  She said that she would find this rude.  She said that if they didn’t want her to come, they shouldn’t say anything at all.  She said that she realizes that to Americans, though, this is a way for people to not feel obligated to go if they don’t want to but that the option to go is there if they choose.  She said that it’s very confusing.

–

The same young woman that was commenting on Monday about women’s roles and the feminist influence in language spoke up again last night.

We were talking about conversation between men and women (along with race) and we were talking about how new relationships converse with one another.  This was the conversation:

Woman:  That movie, Passion, is playing tonight.  You wanna go?
Man:  Ok.  Fine.

Now, she said that what girls do is tell a man that they want to go, then tell the man he has to go with them.  She said that ALL GIRLS do this.  They demand a man to do what they want.

I turned around and shook my head.  I said, “No.  All WOMEN do not do that.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Right, branwyn.  You may not but all girls that I know do.”

So, this bothers me on two levels.  Number one, she’s generalizing about women (she calls all women “girls”) and lumping women into one small lump.  Number two, she’s setting women up to be labeled as people who do not believe in communication but believe in getting their way no matter what the cost.

The entire conversation bothered me.  Where is the compromise, the conversation, the discussion in this kind of discourse?  Have we taught young women to go over the top and beyond what the women before me fought for?  Have they missed that step in the middle where there is actual discourse and not a demand?

It bothered me.  It bothers me still.