so, am I a bloggeress?

There's a guy called Oliver Kamm who writes a weekly column in The Times called The Pedant - for obvious reasons this is one of my favourite bits of the Saturday paper :)

Usually I just read his column and nod enthusiastically, but this time he got me thinking, as he's picked a rather thorny issue - he's talking about the rather quaint and outdated word "authoress", and a bit more generally about the change in English usage in the last half century or so - the tendency to avoid gender-specific terminology so as not to offend.

I found myself wondering - how come "authoress" in English would bug me (and I know it would, just as it bugs me when I hear people talk about "a lady doctor") whilst in Hebrew it doesn't bug me that the word that would be used to describe me if I ever get round to finishing that novel would be gender-specific. But then I answered myself that of course it wouldn't bug me in Hebrew because in Hebrew that is normal - every noun has a gender, there is no gender-neutral form, so there's nothing unusual about the fact that the words for author are either masculine or feminine. Whereas in English most nouns are not gender-specific, so when you add "ess" at the end of a noun, the effect is that you are stressing the gender - and the question then is: why stress it? why mention it at all? is it relevant? does it matter if a book was written by a man or a woman? or if we go back to my other example of what seems to me quaint British usage - "lady doctor" - does it matter if the doctor is male or female?

At which point I argue back with myself and say, well, actually sometimes it can matter.

In the case of the doctor, it actually matters to me sometimes as a woman that I see a woman doctor and not a man - it rather depends on what the problem is and how embarrassed I might feel, as a woman, discussing it with a man. This was actually the reason that when my husband and I moved here we registered with a doctors' surgery that is not the nearest to us, because the closest one has only male doctors.

In the case of the author it doesn't matter to me personally, but I can imagine there might be women who prefer to read novels written by women; or men who prefer to read novels written by men. I can't see any reason to hold that against them.

So yes, gender can sometimes be relevant, it can be a useful piece of information. But here's the thing - you only get that information if it's a woman, not if it's a man. And I think that's why it can be annoying - it can feel like we women are being singled out, and it can feel like we're being singled out as being of less value. This might not be the intention, but because of the long history of women being belittled, regarded as less intelligent, less "up to the job" in certain areas (like medicine, or - amazingly - like writing!!!) - and when I say "history" that's not to say that these prejudices have totally disappeared off the face of the earth - because of this, we have good reason to assume that when we're being singled out, it's for the purpose of belittling us, as if to say: hahaha, isn't it funny that a woman, with her fluffy feminine brain, is playing at being a doctor...

Oliver Kamm ends his column with this:

An "authoress" is a writer of trifles, not a female writer. If used at all, it should denote writers such as Barbara Cartland or Judith Krantz, not Jane Austen and George Eliot.

And I think that sums up what the problem is with this kind of terminology - that's the kind of thing it implies, a kind of ditzy femininity, all pink fluffiness and not much serious thought. That's why it's offensive.

I needed to think this through, because I feel that sometimes the avoidance of gender-specific terminology can get a bit over the top. There's all of that chaos we get into with saying "he or she" because some people aren't comfortable with the use of "he" as a non-gender-specific pronoun. There's all that stuff about saying "person" instead of "man" because some people aren't happy with the use of the word "man" to signify mankind in general. So I don't want to just go with the flow - I needed to work out for myself whether or not I agree that the term "authoress" had better go on the scrapheap.

But yes, speaking as a writer who happens to be female - let's leave the "ess" ending to animals (e.g. lioness), royalty (princesses) and nobility (e.g. duchess). It's annoying and patronising when it's used for an occupation.

Equality for women in the workplace - not quite as straightforward as some would like to think

There's been quite a bit in the papers here recently on the subject of women's equality in the workplace, including this interesting article in the Times a few days ago. As far as I understand, it all started when Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said that "improved" maternity leave legislation is actually making employers more hesitant about employing women.

Is that really surprising?

I think the campaign for women's equality started with good intentions but has been spoiled by a gradual erosion of common sense. There have been some issues that were certainly worth fighting for, and I'm very glad I live in a time and place where women have the right to vote, the right to own property and manage their own bank accounts, etc. And the principle of equal pay at work sounds good too, but...

When the government intervenes and says to the employer: you have to keep your employee on if she gets pregnant, and you have to give her 39 weeks' paid maternity leave - sorry, but how is that fair and equal? How is the employer supposed to fund these extra wages, when he still has to pay someone else at the same time to do the work that he's paying his female employee not to do? How are small businesses supposed to survive under such conditions?

It's putting employers in an impossible situation. The law says they're not allowed to prefer men to women when they're choosing staff. That sounds good - surely they should just hire whoever is best for the job. But the issue of paid maternity leave changes the arithmetic and we no longer have a level playing field. If an employer knows that when he hires a woman of childbearing age he risks having to pay extra every time she has a baby - well, it's going to make very clear economic sense to hire a man instead; unless he could pay the woman less, but oh no, we want equal pay.

It seems to me we've been trying to do what the Brits call having your cake and eating it. We demand to be treated equally, loudly asserting that of course we are just as capable as men are of doing the job (if not better in some cases). Treat us as you treat your male employees, we demand. But treat us differently when we have babies.

Sorry, but why on earth should they?

I'm not sure I have a solution, except that I'd like the legislation to get a bit more common sense mixed into it. I'd like to see a clear distinction made between sexual discrimination - treating someone differently just because she is a woman - and reasonable discrimination, which in fact is what people do all the time, applying common sense to choices they have to make. When I want to buy something I make choices about which shop to go to, when I need a plumber I make a choice about which one to call. If someone needs to hire staff, they make choices. If their choices are based on criteria that are relevant to the job, there shouldn't be a law telling them they're not allowed to. If the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work - which it is, as if I were suddenly to get pregnant and have a baby my performance can suddenly plummet from excellent to non-existent for a while and at that time my boss would be obliged by law to keep paying me (and guess what, even if you're not planning to have a baby, these don't always go according to plan) - now where was I? yes, if the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work, then my potential employer should be allowed to take that into consideration. He should be allowed to decide that he prefers a man for the job; or an older woman. He should be allowed to say: I'd like to take you on, but I'll pay you a bit less than I would pay a man, because I'm risking additional costs and inconvenience in case you get pregnant. He should be allowed to say these things without worrying about employment tribunals.

I'd like to see employment tribunals concerning themselves with real discrimination and real ill-treatment of employees by their employers. I'd like to see employers free to make reasonable choices that make sense. Equal pay for equal work - yes, that's an excellent principle, that is fair. But can we women guarantee that we will give our employers equal work? No, we can't. There is a small biological difference that we can't ignore.

And why should employers have to pay us when we take maternity leave? If the government thinks we should get paid, let the government fund such payment out of our taxes. I know there are countries where the government pays women to stay at home and look after their babies - I'd love to see that here. Being a mother is one of the most important jobs that exist, and as these days most households require more than one income to survive, I'd like to see the government recognise that and provide financial support for mothers who stay at home to perform this crucial job.

But demanding that employers cover it? Of course it puts them off hiring women. Employers are normally in the business of making a profit, they do their sums and if they don't do their sums they'll go under.

Or am I missing something?