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July 2010
Why are women---particularly feminists---still using attachments to a word to denote "female"? Wrong
wrong offensive! Those attachments are diminutives, defining such as heroine as "a female hero." Aside
from in this case Hero being a woman (Leander the man), why on earth are we still being defined as subsets of men?
1976 saw “Words and Women” followed in 1980 by “The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing,” both coauthored by Casey Miller
and Kate Swift. Now here comes Rosalie Maggio---who's written marvelous books on the subject of sexist vocabulary
and how to avoid it---in the first of a series of articles designed to get the right word out. We've won lots of
battles and lost a few; language may just be our last uncharted frontier.
We'll be having a monthly follow-up column with members' responses to the previous month's article, so if you have
any thoughts, questions, even disagreements about the topic, please send them to womansvoice123@gmail.com.
Joan Michel
LION/LIONESS
 Like many women reading the otherwise quite
fabulous interview with Gloria Steinem in the Los Angeles Times (March 6, 2010), I was stopped by the use of "lioness"
to describe Steinem (the reference being to March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb). As soon as
you have to fix a well-known expression to accommodate a woman, flags should go down on the play. By bringing to
mind the substitute expression (March coming in like a lioness and going out like a lamb), you get into "cute"
and you accent gender. It's not the real proverb, but it's sort of like it.
If that's good enough for you, it isn't for me. Unless you need to specify gender (talking about the old lion Fraser,
who fathered so many lion cubs, for example, or about Elsa the lioness of story), "lion" will do the
trick. By using the base word, expressions like "lion's share" are also inclusive. (What? The lioness's
share?)
 Feminine word endings (-ess, -ette,
-trix, -ine) specify a person's sex when it is irrelevant. They also carry a demeaning sense of littleness or triviality
(Rush Limbaugh derides women who succeed in traditionally male-dominated professions as "professorettes"
and "lawyerettes"). Which would you rather have, a kitchen or a kitchenette? I'm not saying a kitchenette
isn't great, but it is certainly different from a kitchen.
Most important, these ending perpetuate the notion that the male is the norm and the female is a subset, a deviation,
a secondary classification. A poet is defined as "one who writes poetry" while a poetess is defined as
"a female poet"; men are thus "the real thing" and women are sort of like them. The recommended
procedure is to use the base word for both sexes (thus, "waiter" instead of "waitress," "executor"
instead of "executrix").
Rosalie Maggio
 Of Sicilian heritage, ROSALIE
MAGGIO was born in Texas, grew up in Fort Dodge, IA, and today lives in Pine Mountain, CA. With her seven fratelli
e sorella, her best friends, she has recently co-authored "Pieces of Eight," a memoir of anecdotes from
their past and e-mail exchanges from their collective present. A graduate of The College of St. Catherine, St.
Paul, MN, Rosalie is married to David Koskenmaki and the proud mother of three. She reads hundreds of books every
year and her hobbies include a daily walk in the woods and collecting inkwells. Among her 20 books of particular
interest to feminists are the "Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage: A Guide to Nondiscriminatory Language,"
"The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women," "An Impulse to Soar: Quotations by Women on Leadership,"
"Talking About People: A Guide to Fair and Accurate Language," "Quotations from Women on Life",
"How to Say It," "Nonsexist Wordfinder: A Dictionary of Gender-Free Usage." Coming soon is
"Unspinning the Spin."
More about her at www.rosaliemaggio.com.
Your Comments are Welcome! Just Send
them to maggio1@juno.com or to womansvoice123@gmail.com.
Here's our Reader's Comments to Rosalie's
FIRST article Lion/Lioness!
Elaine Bernstein Partnow
Hooray to Rosalie Maggio's article
on sexist language. Rosalie is a friend and a wonderful writer. I am a writer, an author, a public speaker and
an actor (not an authoress or an actress: women were barred from performing a few hundred years back and when once
they were allowed on stage, the subset actress began; most were regarded as no better than prostitutes).www.TheQuotableWoman.com
Kay Cole, kay@mitsi.com
The word I hate the most is suffragette. They were suffragists.
Diana Mara Henry
What a fascinating website! Thanks for sending it. Diana Mara Henry, photojournalist of the women's movement of
the 1970's and 1980's
Mary Orovan mary.orovan@worldnet.att.net
Thanks for alerting me to this. Interesting, I had just talked to Kate Swift on the phone a few days before--she's
doing well at 92? She talked about Maggio, said I should get to know her work, and her. Maggio's work is impressive
and important. How wonderful.--
Mary Ann Rossi, Appleton,
Wi
An excellent article "On Language: You Guys" by Audrey Bilger (Fall, 2002) on the use of "guys"
for both sexes is included in the book Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
(edd. Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler). What does it take to stop this ubiquitous sexist usage?
Elinor Miller Greenberg,
Ed.D. ellie.greenberg@ucdenver.edu
Good reminder….I was once called a majorette…and I never changed that…but I was not really a drum major…hmmm--
Daniela Gioseffi Sept '09
VFA Feminist of the Month
Yes, we poets have been avoiding poetess for years. We all call ourselves poets. No one dares call us a poetess
since the late 60's. It's a big NO-NO. And heroine??? Is it a drug or a woman hero. --
Jean Richards:
Maggio's books are terrific! "Talking
About People" is one dictionary every English user needs. Fabulous! Words are the tools we use to shape our
reality and they can be used to empower and include or exclude and divide us. Let's be sure they are inclusive
and equivalent so that all humankind is included all the time.
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When talking about parents,
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