the word Worker

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Yo,

Like most people, i try my best not to think in a sexist or descrminatory way however, when you hear the word 'Worker' does it convey an image of a male worker?

It does with me, i dont know why. social conditioning i guess.

when i think of workers i think of groups of men, its wierd. that is despite knowing women are as much workers as men are within the working class.

So what do you peeps think? Although i realise it not to be true, do you think women dont identify with being a worker, because it has an inherintly masculine tone?

I would be very interested on hearing your opinions.

thank you

[VermontLeft]

Its only sexist if you let it be.

I know that when i think of workers I think of women and men, but then of course im a working woman so I guess it makes sense...

I dont think theres anything about the word itself. I mean it doesnt have "man" in it or anything like that, but like with most of our culture it comes from a sexist society and so it representes sexist values.

Thats never gonna change because of the word though. people are only going to start thinking of worker in neutral terms when they start thinking of PEOPLE in neutral terms!

language change follows social change not the other wayround. I think the best thing we can do for female workers is to try and talk with them and tream them like human beings. they are alomst always more oppressed than male workers and so they are probably more willing to hear revolutionary ideas.

the liberation of women is a part of the liberation of society. there can be no classless society until there is a genderless one as well!!

[Punk Rocker]

Dude it's been drilled into all our heads, its all cool. When we hear worker we think of a guy, we cant help that, its what you do that matters.

[Monty Cantsin]

When I think of a worker…I think of both male and female, unless I think of an old archetype of a steel worker so something like that. But that just a reflection of participation rates in dangerous jobs and so forth.

So I don’t think the concept of worker is inherently sexist or anything…as VermontLeft said though language is a reflection of society.

[Amusing Scrotum]

I have to admit, the word "Worker" summons up the image of Soviet era propaganda in my mind.

Not just that, but often the image is that of the "Soviet Woman" with bulging muscles and huge shoulders. Indeed, you could mistake her for a "Pro-Wrestler".

As for whether "Worker" as a term is sexist, I doubt it.

50 years ago when less women worked, then you'd probably have been right about a "Worker" almost always meaning a Man - and as Monty Cantsin said, probably a "steel worker".

Today, with more an more women entering the workplace, I think the image the term "summons up" will change. Indeed, I suspect that if you asked most people to say what image came into their heads when they heard the term "Worker", a lot of them would describe a young female working in Debenhams or something.

Words reflect reality, and with a changing "reality", the meaning of a word changes too.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I tend to see the term as gender neutral, although I didn't always. I work in a bar where I am often the only male on shift, so "work" to me is a time spent infemale company.

There are still terms that conjour up images of men or women. In the guardian on Saturday was an article on discrimination; it turns out that women were only half as likely to get asked for an interview in an engineer's job as a man. What is just as interesting is that men were four times less likely to get an interview as a secratary. In both cases experience and training was equal, with the only difference being a msculine or feminine name.

I think that work is now accepted (at least where I am) as something undertaken by both sexes. In fact it is the preserve of the upper-middle class onwards that only one partner be required to work in more cases than not. It appears that the requirement to live in capitalism is in some way disintergrating some of the gender boundaries, although it is of course placing other up to compensate.