Man oh man, job titles can be tough territory!

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is making a reasonable accommodation to the fact that women are doing nearly every job in the military. Or, he’s a zealot trying to force thought control by altering the language. Take your pick. You’ll hear from people on both sides. What is fact is this: Mabus has ordered the service, including the Marine Corps, to review all job or rank titles with the aim of removing “man” as a descriptor syllable. Yeoman, midshipman, hospitalman, fireman — they all will go.

What would replace them? We don’t know yet, but “specialist” will likely become the second of two- or three-word titles. Fire control specialist, for instance. NavyTimes reports the service uses some 20 job titles with “man” as the last syllable. So there’s work to do.

This sort of change has been going on for decades. Publications, government documents, even religious texts have been on a march toward gender-neutrality since the 1970s, roughly since Gloria Steinem became a household name. Civilization hasn’t collapsed. Gender neutrality has resulted in some tortured constructions, but on the whole, it’s hard to argue with the fact that when the “man” designation came into the language hundreds or thousands of years ago, the words meant literally males. Civilization advances, and language evolves with it.

A few of the old constructions will linger for a long time. Actor and actress. Waiter and waitress.

I think a lot of people hold that, regardless of the gender of a particular fire responder, using the term fireman for either a man or a woman doesn’t necessarily confer any meaning than simple reference for a person who fights fires. On the other hand, many of the alternates work just as well while retaining the spirit of the word. Who would argue against being called a firefighter?

I’ve been trying to imagine some of the terms the Navy will have to come up with. Many of them don’t work — for men or women.

Seaperson? How about sailor, and don’t they use that already? Sailor is more inclusive of rivers, bays, inlets, straits and gulfs.

Midshipper? That sounds like a trucking company operating in the central states. I’m stumped on this one.

Airperson? Sounds like an oxygen technician. Flyer would sound better. Or pilot fixed wing and pilot helo. The rest of the jobs aloft don’t have a problem — flight engineer, navigator, bombardier.

Luckily for the Marine Corps, the names of military ranks don’t require the application gender neutrality. The Marine Corps’ private, private first class, lance corporal, sergeant, gunnery sergeant and so forth right up to commandant are all genderless words. The Navy has a problem at the bottom ranks with seaman recruit, seaman apprentice and seaman. After that it’s general neutral right up to fleet admiral.

It’s funny how English words don’t work in a gender-flexible way without sounding ridiculous. I couldn’t think of a job title that has female syllables and that a man might do. But colleague Meredith Somers came up with one. Midwife. What would you call a man who assists in human births? No, I don’t mean an obstetrician, which is gender neutral. We decided we wouldn’t call such a person a midhusband.  Which brought up the idea of animal husbandry. If a female veterinarian did farm work, impregnating cattle and making sure they were born properly, you wouldn’t say she was performing animal wifery.

Meredith and I were joined by WFED reporter Nicole Ogrysko. She wondered about the legislative branch.

In the House, 84 members are women. I did a random check. Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Alma Adams (D-N.C.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and Kay Granger (R-Texas) all refer to themselves as congresswomen. Ditto for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

I found Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who refers to herself as congressman.

In the formality of institutions like the House, they use mister and madam as honorifics, when they’re not openly insulting one another. President George W. Bush opened his 2007 State of the Union address, “I have the high privilege and distinct honor of my own, as the first President to begin the State of the Union message with these words: ‘Madam Speaker.'”

Meredith, Nicole and I wondered what words would be used in the White House if Hillary Clinton were to be elected. Madam President? Mrs. President? There’s no precedent.

Maybe the Navy is over-exerting on this. The vast majority of jobs in the world don’t have gender connotation, at least not in their words. Meredith threw out the word nurse. But nurses can of course be men or women. At one time they were nearly all women;  for a while we heard “male nurse.”

But teacher, editor, broadcaster, taxi driver, nuclear physicist, doctor, senator, president, general — they all lack gender specificity.

Words matter a lot.  But how the Navy, or any organization, treats people matters a lot more.

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