Can actors be female?

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So it was like this scene in Breaking Bad:


criminal lawyer

Of course a woman can be an actor. Nowadays, regardless of race and gender, you can become literally anyone!

Of course females can act. That wasn't the question. The question is what you call a female who acts. Can you say "actor" or do you have to say "actress"?

I'd say "actor" works fine. "Waiter" however doesn't work well for females bringing out the food at restaurants. You have to say "server" to be gender neutral.

In Polish, we ALWAYS specify if the representative of some profession we are talking about, is male or female and hence we ALWAYS know if that person who uses the term for a representative of said job is telling us about a man or a woman who perfoms it. For example:

Aktor - a male actor. Aktorka - a female actor - an actress.
Kucharz - a male cook. Kucharka - a female cook.
Lekarz - a male doctor. Lekarka - a female doctor.
Prawnik - a male lawyer. Prawniczka - a female lawyer.
Policjant - a male police officer. Policjantka - a female police officer.

You always specify who you are referring to - a man or a woman. For example my first cousin is a "policjant" (male police officer) but if he was a woman, we would call him - her - then - a "policjantka" (female police officer).

And so on, and so on...

There are though, many examples of such jobs, the name of which has only one (typically masculine) form and some more conservative Poles claim that their female counterparts sound just weird and artificial. For example "psycholog" - a psychologist - has only a masculine form but some Polish folks claim a female psychologist should be called in Polish not "pani psycholog" - literally "Mrs. psychologist" as we call such a lady, but "psycholożka" which is its made up, female equivalent. The other people claim in turn it would sound weird and unnatural. There are many such examples but those refer almost exclusively to the masculine names of professions, not having their female counterparts (in the language, of course). Actually, the only feminine names of jobs I can think of now - ones that aren't represented in our language in their respective masculine version - are "prostytutka" - a prostitute (in case of a man/boy who is a sex worker we just add such a person is a "male prostitute" then) and "przedszkolanka" - a kindergarten teacher and in this very case, it's really, really difficult to come up with its masculine version that doesn't sound dumb, weird nor artificial. But it's all just the matter of being used to some language forms - for example, I know that before the Second World War, the Polish word "studentka" (a female college/university student) used to be considered a weird and artificially created one - now I don't know what other word I could use to describe a female student.

And, one thing more - as for the "baby oil" that does sound like it was made from actual babies, we Poles, just say literally "the oil for babies" And "horse thieves" are "thieves of horses" here

It's impossible to please everyone sometimes cuz anything could be politically incorrect or offensive or just wrong to some group. It's the Rule 34 of the universe. If you can do it or say it, someone out there finds it bad.

It's not PC in this context to to use the word Actor before the word Actress. Saying Actor 1st implies that the male actors are superior to female actors but saying Actress 1st implies that the female actors are superior to male actors.

I'm suddenly thinking of the scene from Family Guy where Brian is trying to apologize for tweeting a racist joke & everyone is getting offended over his greeting. He shoulda just shut the hell up & gave up instead of having a meltdown with them

Last edited by nick007 on 10 Jul 2022, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Meanwhile, a hoarse thief is just one who caught a cold while laying low in a ditch.

Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster are both...both lesbians, and thespians!

A long time ago women weren't allowed to act at all, even when the plays at the time female characters. They were normally played by young men dressed up like women.

It's so weird that people think nurses can't be male. Being a nurse is a very challenging and stressful occupation, and a lot of people think women aren't as equipped to handle high amounts of stress, which is why they think women can't be professional chefs but it's perfectly acceptable for them to be cooking in a household kitchen. If they think at all.