A Rose by Any Other Name

For the past twenty years, or more, political correctness has infiltrated speech, and terms once simple have now become awkward landmines. Titles like chairman, mailman, fireman, steward or stewardess have now become chairperson, mail carrier, firefighter, or flight attendant. All of this has presumably been done to reflect the entry of women into almost every job and thereby their equality in the workplace, and to avoid sexism. 

In Spanish it's not just the terms that have been changed, it's the grammar. I'm sure most who have studied Spanish have learned that everything has gender, and that when there is a group of something with different genders, such as people, the group is referred to in the masculine. Yes, it's sexist because it gives primacy to the masculine gender, but it's also an attempt to simplify language. And political correctness here can lead to chunky phrases that detract from the message the speaker is trying to convey. Granted that that is expected from politicians, for example, it's still awful. There have been politicians in history that have said nothing but said it using beautiful language. Even that has been lost now. Snippets like "todos los hombres y mujeres" (all the men and women), are total overkill. Or "ellos y ellas" instead of the grammatically correct "ellos". ("They" in Spanish takes gender.) Substituting the first for "toda la gente" (all the people) would have been enough to avoid sexism. The good thing is, in Spanish you can take a word, change the ending, and thereby change the gender. Such as "doctor", add -a and you get "doctora", the feminine version. There are pitfalls, however. You cannot change "mailman" into "mailwoman" following that rule, because "cartera", which would have been the feminine version, already has a meaning. It means pocketbook or bag. So, you can have a sentence like "El cartero puso la mano en su cartera." You had better translate that as "The mailman put his hand in his bag." 

Personally, I wouldn't mind being called by the old titles, such as chairman. Once it was only a man's world, but now it's everybody's. There used to be only masculine jobs, but it has since been proved any qualified person can do them. But simply changing the names of professions does not prove the equality of women in the workplace. That would come about by hiring those who can do the job well and paying them the same as the men who are our co-workers. Changing the name of a position to gender-neutral shows nothing more than lip service. Political correctness is too easy to follow. And very deceptive sometimes. Because out of maybe twenty chairpersons you only have three women. Or six out of twenty mail carriers. Equality isn't simply in the name, it's in the actions.