Please call female deities 'goddesses.'

[theredrobedwizard]

I'm still waiting for people to call a female educator an 'educatrix.'

I think this definitely qualifies as an Educatrix...

-TRRW

 

[delericho]

Definately in favour of 'goddess' and 'sorceress' here. It's not a big deal, but those examples are just jarring enough to be troublesome.

There is perhaps a stronger motive to stick with 'sorcerer', since it's a class name that will apply to many PCs. Hopefully, 'goddess' will be applied to PCs only very rarely.

 

[DreamChaser]

The real issue with sorceress, goddess, warrioress, actress, etc is that the are based upon a flawed assumption: that the originals were gender marked to begin with. They are not. Actor, doctor, sorcerer, and god do not have anything linguistically masculine implied.

However, culturally they do. Because Western culture (I'm specifying Western because these words originate in these languages not to draft any other distinction) has historically highly male-centric, the assumption became that when one referred to a sorcerer, one referred to a man; thus a distinction was needed to draw attention to a female example.

To demonstrate, we have this riddle:

A man and his son were driving down the road when all of a sudden they were in a terrible accident. Both were admitted to the hospital, the father in a coma and the son, critically injured. They took the boy to the operating room and were prepping him for surgery. then the doctor gets there and says, "I'm sorry. I cannot operate on my own son." How is this possible?

Of course, the doctor in question is the boy's mother, a woman (once called a "lady doctor" a term which I can't imagine anyone arguing ISN'T sexist).

Using sorceress, IMO, helps to sustain this sexist misconception. It does not empower women by giving them a unique word but rather highlights that a woman cannot *really* be a sorcerer. Goddess does the same. Pelor and Bane are gods but Tiamat is not: she's a goddess. If there isn't a qualitative difference between male gods and female gods, why do we need different terms?

That said, I don't think that people who say "sorceress" are sexist, any more than I think everyone who says "gypped" is racist (look it up). Rather, it is just a sign of a basic cultural bias in our language that most of us don't take the time to think about.

I am glad they opted for the general, unmarked term, honestly. I'm glad we only have sorcerer, only warlock, only barbarian and not "amazon" (though both terms would be equally guilty of cultural ignorance and bias).

DC

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are supposedly certain women that act that want to be called "actors," but I've never met one.

I've never met anyone from Mongolia, but I'm pretty sure they exist.

"Actor" is the official term for players of both sexes according to at least one actors' group (SAG or AE, I forget which).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Starting in 3e, the game has shown a preference for female and unbiased pronouns.

3E actually goes off of what the iconic character is for each class, in a somewhat quirky decision. So the paladin references are all female, for instance, while the sorcerer references are all male.

 

[Rechan]

The real issue with sorceress, goddess, warrioress, actress, etc is that the are based upon a flawed assumption: that the originals were gender marked to begin with. They are not. Actor, doctor, sorcerer, and god do not have anything linguistically masculine implied.

This.

I think that intentionally calling attention that a God-ESS is different than a GOD is continuing to perpetuate a separation of the sexes, not the other way around.

Unless of course we also need Warlady, Rangette, Rouge and God-Person.

 

[DM_Blake]

Paladinette? Halflingess? Near as I can tell, God should be gender neutral; thereby applicable to all deities.

I also hate Sorceress, as it's apparently the only class that requires one to differentiate between practitioners of different genders.

Fighteress? Wizardess? Druidette? Barbariatrix?

It's silly and archaic.

-TRRW

You forgot the Warlady, for certainly she is a lady, not a lord.

Edit: Dangit, Rechan, your post at 12:47 pm was not there when I began typing my post that posted at 12:47 pm...

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I second the motion. There are supposedly certain women that act that want to be called "actors," but I've never met one.

I've never met Whoopi Goldberg either....

“Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted this. As a kid, I lived in the projects and you're the people that made me want to be an actor. I'm proud to be an actor and I'm gonna keep on acting.” Whoopi Goldberg

IIRC, Halle Barry in her acceptance of her Screen Actors Guild Award stated that she was proud to be an Actor. (there is no Screen Actresses Guild).

I'm OK either way. The existence of a traditionally used feminine might make gender neutral "god" a little jarring for some, but if I was concerned about that I would be more likely to use "deity".

 

[Doug McCrae]

I agree with Dreamchaser. For a while now I've always referred to my female PCs as sorcerer, actor, superhero or whatever. When you're talking about your job, your abilities, gender should be a non-issue.

I can see Wiccans using goddess as I believe in their religion male and female represent equal but different aspects of the universe, somewhat like Yin and Yang. So perhaps god/goddess might be a special case depending on your metaphysical viewpoint.

OMG!!11! WotC is ramming metaphysical viewpoints down our throats!! Ban 4e!1!. Etc.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I have never seen any piece of writing, ever, that used the term "god" for a female deity. It is jarring and extremely awkward. English is a language which has slightly different nouns for different genders, and there is no getting around this. You can't use the language differently than everyone else on a whim! It is like calling a female monarch a King, or a female child of a monarch a Prince. It is like calling a female adult a Man, or a female child a Boy. It doesn't work, and it just isn't done in the English language (and most other languages do similar, or to a bigger extreme).

You would think that being female is somehow supposed to be demeaning, with the kind of attitude in which you avoid any possible reference to the possible femininity of an individual. I don't like it at all.