kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

"Women" versus "female"

I must make one short apology here. Chris Heard calls me out on my use of “women bibliobloggers,” which he notes should be “female bibliobloggers” as “women” is not an adjective. Well, Dictionary.com (oh, holy of holy resources) does have it listed as one, but it is not exactly a ringing endorsement for its usage: “13. of women; womanly. 14. female: a woman plumber.” Normally on matters such as the evolution of language, I might be a little more liberal in accepting the vernacular usage (in this case, “woman plumber” or “woman biblioblogger”), but I can see the inherent gender bias in this convention. For instance, one wouldn’t say “man dancer” (before anyone accuses me of anything there, my mother-in-law was a ballet teacher for many years and that is why it came to mind).

At any rate, my apologies, particularly since the post has gotten so much attention.

On the more controversial issue of Jim’s exegetical work (Jim’s response to Michael Westmoreland-White’s comment has brought literally hundreds of people to that post), I am still going to let that go to others. It’s finals week, anyway.

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4 Comments by Patrick George McCullough  /  June 7, 2007  /  Posted in: english grammar, gender bias
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  • Nancy

    Geeky librarian comment: MEDLINE, the grandmomma of all bibliographic databases, uses the controlled vocabulary term “female” to tag articles that are about biological processes, like an article about the biology of breast cancer. “Women”, however, is the tag used for articles that are about “Human adult females as cultural, psychological, sociological, political, and economic entities.”

    Though it sounds grammatically awkward, personally I’d rather be thought of as a “woman blogger” than a “female blogger!”

  • Jim Getz

    Just to cloud the waters a bit: from what I understand, in gender studies “female” doesn’t necessarily equal “woman.” The latter refers to plumbing while the former refers to societal conceptions. The two often are often — though not always —- equivalent. For example, I have a woman friend who insists on being addressed with masculine pronouns.

    In the context of a blog however, probably “female” works better because all that blogs entail are societal constructions of self. Hence, it is possible to be a man who is a female blogger or vis-a-versa. But, it’s harder to make this stick in the “real world.”

  • Michael Westmoreland-White

    This shows why I should not write comments while in an irritable mood. I had no intention of starting something. Sigh.

  • Patrick George McCullough

    Thanks for the comments, Nancy and Jim. Those are both helpful. And Jim, I was actually thinking about the same thing. Perhaps what both of you are saying challenges traditional English grammatical rules: the complexities of gender and sexuality, along with all the cultural baggage associated with those concepts, point out the limitations of the English language here.

    And Michael… c’est la vie. Oh well. It looks like it’s died down.