Language

A Quick Note About How We Talk About Men and Women

We don’t even notice what we are doing

Photo by on

I remember when my city elected its first “woman mayor.” We never once talked about all the times we elected a “man mayor.”

The word “woman” is a noun, not an adjective, but we often use it as an adjective in a way we never do for men. I bristle each time I hear it.

I bristle a lot, honestly.

Why do we talk about “career women” but not “career men”? A career woman is apparently a special kind of woman. She has a career! Wow! Who knew we could manage that?

Likewise, we have the famous “family man.” Have you ever heard of a “family woman”? I haven’t. All women are assumed to be family women. That’s not the default assumption for men.

What happens if a family man and a career woman — let’s say she’s a woman engineer and he’s a man doctor — get together? Does that imply she’s the primary breadwinner and he’s the primary caregiver of their children?

Hell no. Of course not. If you say he’s a family man, that just means he has a family. There’s no reason to automatically assume he does anything more than provide monetary support for his spouse and kids. He can be a family man just fine without…