As I watched the news this morning about the wild fires in California I heard the reporter announce that a woman firefighter had to be air lifted out due to heat exhaustion. What is wrong with that statement…why is it bothering me? For all you smart people, exactly… why did he have to say “woman”, if it was a man he would not have said a man firefighter. I know it might seem trivial to some but I just wish society would stop labeling when it is not relevant to a story; the black man, the gay person, the fat woman, etc. Unless you need that adjective for your story to make sense, just leave it out.
Filed under: life | Tagged: firefighters, labeling, society
I totally agree….women should not be firefighters. It is like them being doctors or something.
Wise guy…and I do need that adjective!
I actually hate the fact that they use the word woman instead of female. Woman is a noun, female is an adjective. Of course, the flip side to this is that female soldiers (my line of work) just gets shortened to females, resulting in the opposite grammatical problem.
None of this is to disagree, obviously. Just adding in the grammatical snark along with the annoyance at the persistent sexism.
Evil Fizzz…thanks for your input. So I can assume you want to be called “soldier”. On a scale from 1 to 10…10 being you are treated totally equal in the military…what number would you give?
@Evil Fizz,
At last! I thought I was the only person who had even noticed people using “woman” rather than female. What next? A man policeman?
Cheers, Mark (UK).