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Woman? Female? What is she?
Riddle me this, my copy editing friends. Why is Hillary Clinton a woman candidate, and not a female candidate? Aren't Barack Obama and John McCain and Mike Huckabee male candidates? (Nobody says "man candidate." It just sounds wrong -- but I think "woman candidate" does, too.) Using this logic, it seems to me that Clinton is a female candidate, or a woman running for president. Or, you know, just a presidential candidate.
The female/woman thing comes up in many other instances, but it's been everywhere this political season. Help me make sense of it.
The female/woman thing comes up in many other instances, but it's been everywhere this political season. Help me make sense of it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kevin on -
Hey Erica..at the paper I work for we actually started off using "woman". But Soon after we ran it someone brought it up at our copy desk meeting. We decided to switch it to "female". We changed it because when we talk about McCain or Obama we us "male" instead of "man". We also ran it across our city editor and she didn't seem have a preference as long as it made sense.
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Permalink Reply by Martha Spizziri on -
I agree -- and "woman candidate" somehow sounds slightly derogatory, kind of like "the Democrat congress." I guess it conjures up someone saying with disdain, "Oh, it's that woman candidate."
Maybe we should just start calling the male candidates "mandidates."
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Permalink Reply by Erica Smith on -
I couldn't agree more with you two! So why do I keep seeing woman president?
With support from a base of blue-collar, laid-off steelworkers, senior women who want to see a woman president, and other lunch-bucket residents of this hard-scrabble state, Hil...
Johnson doubtless did not have a woman candidate in mind, but Hillary Clinton clearly followed the spirit of his gu...
Clinton's chance at becoming the nation's first woman president could depend on support by many superdelegates at the Democratic c...
Someone has to help me change the world ...
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Permalink Reply by Fiona Cullinan on -
Endemic media sexism? Goes against the NUJ's Code of Conduct is all I can say.
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