I'm probably the only one watching this... but I was amused during the Senate Confirmation Hearing for Hillary Rodham Clinton that Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, referred to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) as 'the gentlelady speaking before me'. It was marvelous when he was interrupted, corrected, and then, somewhat embarrassed, apologized and corrected himself. All though its depressing that common courtesy of referring to female Senators by their titles wasn't respected, at least he didn't get away with it. Hurray!
(Though I always have to fight the urge to punch people who want to call me a lady, much less a 'gentlelady'. We're about two centuries past that, no?)
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What is the female equivalent of "gentleman" by which one can respectfully refer to a group of women with whom one is not acquainted?
"Gentlemen, your table is ready." "Females, your table is ready." I am just honestly confused why a term that inherently is supposed to denote respect is considered disrespectful. Obviously when a specific style is appropriate then it should be used, but that doesn't apply to every day situations.
As far as the "table ready" example goes, I'm not sure what the appropriate word would be. I guess the host/hostess would have to just come up and say, "Your table is ready," and forgo a label all together.
As far as Barbara Boxer goes...well, if I were a Senator, I'd want to be referred to as "Senator," rather than "gentlelady"- which is diminishing as hell in that situation.
"Ladies and gentlemen" - does that strike you as sexist?
I think that the root of the discomfort with "lady" is that people can and do use it in a condescending way, whereas they don't do that with "gentleman", and so there just develops a reaction against the word, rather than taking into account that it is indeed supposed to be a title of respect. I don't like the idea that misogynists can simply erase the acceptability of a word by bending it to their purposes.
I also just don't like creating a void in language. It seems sexist to me that there should be a way of respectfully referring to a group of men, but not of referring to a group of women.
You make a great point. And no, for a mixed crowd of men and women, I don't think I'd find "ladies and gentlemen" to be condescending. A lot of it is context, I think.
It's funny how (some of us) want to reclaim words like "bitch" and "cunt," but not "lady."
I'm with doubleb on this one. Although she may not have liked the term, I think it would be unfair to imply that it was said with anything but respect, particularly considering they regularly refer to the male senators as "the gentleman from XXX". I don't feel that ladies does not have the same connotation of respect as gentleman, although, yes, it can be bent to be disrespectful, just as calling a group of rowdy boys "gentleman" is not a compliment.
As a teacher, I can assure you that the word "gentlemen" is used condescendingly all the time. As in "Gentlemeeeeen..." (raise eyebrows here) "...Do you reaalllly think that is the correct way to hold those scissors?" or, "Geeeeeentlemen, is thaaat how we wear our paaants?"
BTW, I think the least bloggable story of the day is how a senator slipped up by replacing one respectful term with another, slightly less appropriate respectful term. Rational people may critique, but they also make allowances for the intentions of others.
"Ladies" doesn't have the same connotation of respect as "gentlemen" does, which is why I'd suggest not using it. I'd prefer "miss" or "ma'am" more, even though they imply marital status and age, because they at least imply the kind of formality that people expect from an employee speaking to a customer.
"Ladies and gentlemen" is less annoying because by listing them together shows some kind of equality in address.
"Ladies" is a term used by men who have figured out that "girls" is bad, but don't know why.
although it IS kinda fun to say "gentlewomen and ladymen..." good for the Senate! seems like there is so much wrong with that word. might as well go ahead with "pink-fluffy-female-creature-who-is-to-be-paid-no-mind," if you wanna use something like "gentlelady."
It is common practice in the governmental houses to use formalized (yea, ceremonial) language along the lines of "The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri." This was a somewhat clumsy adaptation of the formal speech pattern. The grammatically correct version would have been simply "the lady speaking before me" but as other have noted, the word "lady" has itself accreted connotations of diminution. If anything, he was trying to avoid sounding dismissive.