When did actresses stop being actresses and start being actors?
I was listening to Fresh Air Weekend on NPR yesterday, and there was an interview with a female who recently appeared in a new movie. (She wasn’t very interesting, and I promptly forgot her name.)
What was striking to me is that both Terry Gross (the interviewer) and the entertainer used the term “actor”, not ‘actress’.
Did this change take place out of feminism or political correctness?
‘Actress’ isn’t demeaning, at least to me – it is helpfully descriptive (female actor).
When did actresses start being referred to as actors?
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Quite a long while ago now, actually.
Around the time that stewardesses became flight attendants, waitresses became servers, hostesses became hosts, and everybody forgot that there ever was such a thing as an aviatrix or an editrix.
Yup.. it’s been long since these changes are in place but I agree with OP about having distinctive term is helpful for the listener.
It became the norm when there was no good answer to the question, “what difference does it make”?
The Oscars and the Emmys still differentiate. The Grammy’s don’t.
As a lifelong admirer of acting, acting by professionals of any gender, I applaud the change and incorporated the language longer Ago than I can recall.
Because having different terms for both genders is kinda silly and not particularly useful. Why is a male pilot an aviator and a female one an aviatrix? Why not just call both pilots? Why widows and widowers? Why not just widows? Why isn’t a female guitar player a guitaress? Because that would be dumb. Likewise it’s dumb to call a female thespian an actress.
Around the time when it became clear that having -tress at the end of your job title entitled you to ⅔ the wages for that position.
^^ has it changed after removing that?
I don’t know when, but I still hear actress at times. I use it still, is it really very politically incorrect now? If I say “she was a great actress,” how is it very different than saying, “she was a great actor?” I’m still use “she.” I still identifying the gender in that case. Stewardess as a different connotation than flight attendant. The word was completely changed. They did rename all flight attendants stewards. They easily could have chosen the male word in that case as well, but they chose not to. Why not?
It’s not politically incorrect, just pointless.
Sorry for all my typos above.
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