In the case of “actress,” there are those who, bearing no unwell will towards girls who act, lament the decline of a wonderfully good and useful word, concise and chic. But to redress insult and imbalance, language typically stumbles into much less-than-sleek territory. If the “ess” suffix is objectionable to ladies who act, it’s their name. And if its demise results in a real leveling of the playing area — Hollywood is hardly immune to the gender gap in pay — all the higher. The work itself is at the coronary heart of up to date objections to that name — matters of professional respect and equality.
As Zoe Wanamaker told the BBC in 2005, an awareness arose among the appearing neighborhood within the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Britain, of the need to repudiate the term’s stigma. “The name ‘actress’ seemed to have this connotation of being a prostitute,” … Read More