hey ladies
As a woman, am I alone in not appreciating being called a lady?
The topic came up when I was camping with a bunch of women recently. A little boy and his mother came into our campsite because the kid wanted to show us the toad he had found. We humoured him as he timidly showed us the toad and, afterwards, his mother instructed him to "say goodnight to the ladies", to which I cringed. If we had been a bunch of guys sitting around a campsite, would she have said "say goodnight to the gentlemen?". Probably not. That said, when I raised the point, not many of the others felt strongly about it.
I have the same adverse reaction when male athletes are called men by the commentators while the female athletes are often referred to as ladies. The inequality inherent in the use of the word lady is at the heart of my dislike for the term. If men are men, then why are women ladies? According to Wikipedia:
Advocates of non-sexist language recommend not using the word at all, whereas others permit its parallel use in the same circumstances in which a man would be called a gentleman or lord (for example, titling washrooms Men and Ladies would be considered sexist, but using either Men and Women or Ladies and Gentlemen would be acceptable; as is landlady as the parallel of landlord, or Lady Mayoress for Lord Mayor.)
The same way the word gentlemen evokes men wearing tuxedos, lady conjures up this type of image in my mind:
And in this regard, I don't consider myself a lady. Elegant and demure are two words I've never heard used to describe me. I think that this disconnect contributes to my aversion - someone calling me a lady feels as weird and absurd as someone referring to me as a kiwi.
And, having given it some more thought, I also dislike the term because I associated it with meat-markets, which I also dislike. "Hey ladies", said in a pseudo-suave tone, is a phrase I've grown to associate with clubs and other venues where men think it appropriate to interrupt a girls night out with awkward conversation or really bad/sleezy dance moves. Ugh.
