On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Cynthia Gonsalves wrote:
> Actually, I thought it was cool that a woman could be First Lord of the
> Admiralty. Since it's a job, and not an inherited title, I guess it
> didn't bother me too much. Also, in the 6th book, did you notice that
> one of the past Andermani emperors (died childless, and the succession
> goes in the male line) was succeeded by his sister who had herself
> legally declared a man to avert a war between her male cousins? Turned
> out to be one of the best "emperors" the Andermani have had.
>
> A rose is just a rose by any other name...
Did not read the book, however, this reminds me of the term "e-girl"
(24th century slang for police officer) from Samuel Delany's _Triton_.
Originally, it was "enforcement officer", but because 90% of them were
women, they started calling them "enforcement girls", or "e-girls". The
interesting part was that when gender proportion in the field changed,
they were still called "e-girls", including the male ones.
I would be kind of nice, I think, if there were a title like First Lady
of Admiralty, which whould stay the same for both women and men in that
position.
Marina
"Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society
happens to be selling at the time."
Naomi Wolf
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