I was discussing amongst friends the recent Golden Globe and SAG awards when I realized something interesting that I hadn't previously paid much attention to. When I was younger, I took acting classes after school and our director/teacher always told us that in his room there was no such thing as a female actress or male actor, only a non-gendered actor. Why is it then, that men and women are evaluated in different categories (particularly in the workplace)? When you think about it, gender marked jobs have had interesting effects on society as it was, as it is, and as it will be.
As a feminist and strong supporter of equality in general, I see two sides of gendering job titles.
1. In gendering position titles, there's the residue of the times in the past when women had to make themselves seem as prominent as possible just to simply be acknowledged and nowhere to the level of the recognition of men. In some ways, we still do. Gendering position titles is a statement of: "I'm a women and I'm doing this job just as well as a man can...did I mention I was a woman?" It's comparable to a situation in which "you throw like a girl" is colloquially turned on its head, taken literally, and only said of someone when the "girl" mentioned is Mo'Ne Davis.
2. On the other hand, while it's great that we're acknowledging the ability of women to be just as great as men (or as I like to put it: men to be just as great as women...maybe. Just kidding!), there has to be the obvious downside of gendering position titles: it makes it easier for sexism to exist in the workplace and fly under the radar. When does waiter vs. waitress, actor vs. actress, etc., become overall harmful to the feminist movement? Or more than that, when does it promote sexism in general (i.e. maybe the tendency to specify that someone is a male nurse rather than just saying nurse)?
After years of this being debated, some gender-based job titles are falling out of fashion. Steward/stewardess became flight attendant, barman/barmaid became bartender, and there's still a push towards making a mailman more widely referred to as a post worker or letter carrier. But, on the flip side, due to gender stereotyping and the rise in attention that it has garnered, there are some titles that we have tied to gender that weren't originally, like male nurse, female judge, or male model.
Imagine an Academy Awards ceremony where Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, and Cicely Tyson were all nominated in the same category? It would be weird, but not necessarily wrong if we're talking about people who do the same job with the same level of consistent excellence. This situation could allow women or men to be overshadowed, but in some ways each gender is already overshadowed (albeit women are overshadowed more than men). By evaluating women in a separate category, it makes sure that women get the recognition they deserve, but does it alienate them from the idea that they are equal to men? Does calling a man that is a nurse a "male nurse" give him recognition for doing a job that is predominantly female, or does it alienate him? Or is it both?
