From first lady to first woman president?
If Hillary Clinton returns to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, will she be the first female president of the United States 鈥� or the first woman 辫谤别蝉颈诲别苍迟?听
A traditional school of thought prefers female, since it is indisputably an adjective, whereas woman is 鈥� well, not quite. (More on that below.) 鈥淎 woman can be anything 鈥� except an adjective鈥� is how captured this view last fall.聽
Those espousing this view aren鈥檛 all curmudgeons. The influential Associated Press stylebook, for instance, generally moves with the times. But it says, 鈥淸U]se female as an adjective, not woman.鈥�
A couple of years ago railed against adjectival woman: 鈥� 鈥榃oman鈥� is not an acceptable adjective, any more than 鈥榣ady鈥� once was.鈥� And the certifiably non-fogy , came down several years ago on the side of female rather than adjectival woman.
But female can refer to any species 鈥� even a tree 鈥� whereas only a human can be a woman. (The same case can be made for man over male, but it鈥檚 not 1789 anymore and the United States is not about to elect a man president for the first time.)
And female, as a noun, has more than a whiff of putdown: It鈥檚 鈥渘ow regarded as a mildly contemptuous equivalent for woman,鈥� to quote the dictionary the Monitor uses. During the 19th century, some writers used female as a noun to avoid making a judgment whether someone was a proper 鈥渓ady鈥� or merely a 鈥渨oman.鈥�
Woman is widely though not universally listed in dictionaries as an adjective.聽
(whose illustration of the plural noun form of the word, I can鈥檛 resist observing, is 鈥淲e need more women in government鈥�) notes that woman as an adjective can be used only before a noun. That is, you wouldn鈥檛 say, 鈥淭he senior senator from Massachusetts is woman.鈥澛�
No native speaker needs to be told this. But it suggests another way to parse the 鈥渨oman鈥� in 鈥渨oman senator鈥�: as an attributive noun 鈥� a noun modifying another noun. That鈥檚 still preferable to 鈥渇emale senator,鈥� to my mind.
Linguists refer to 鈥渕arked鈥� and 鈥渦nmarked鈥� forms. The 鈥渦nmarked鈥� form is the 鈥渄efault setting.鈥� The unmarked nurse is presumed to be a woman; so a man in the job needs, or let鈥檚 say often gets, a gender marker: hence, male nurse.
The unmarked doctor is still, at some level, assumed to be male 鈥� ditto lawyer, senator, and yes, president, even as the professional demographics evolve. Careful writers consider whether adding modifiers helps their readers or merely advertises their own preconceptions about what a senator, for instance, ought to look like. When the Guardian writer complained about there being 鈥渢oo many 鈥榳omen bosses,鈥� 鈥� she was complaining about the term, not the fact of women rising into leadership roles.
Man has its uses as an attributive noun, too 鈥� as in or the Middle Eastern attire commonly referred to in English as a . But the attributive woman is likely to continue to be used more often in the years ahead 鈥� as our default settings continue to change.聽
