Cabrio , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Fireman and policeman in English are also not offensive because they aren’t referring to gender or sex.

Human - Group
Humans - Collective Individuals
Man - Individual
Men - Collective Individuals (Non-sexed)

Not to be conflated with

Men - Collective (Sex Male)
Women - Collective (Sex Female)
Wo - Female, men - collective individuals (non-sexed).

Keep in mind these are all traditional definitions and were constructed before sex and gender were determined to be separate and before intersex was a classification.

We now often conflate those in common English with human and man and person being interchangeable. As man (individual) with man (sex). And many others conflate sex and gender.

Firefighters - Group
Fireman - Firefighting Individual
Firemen - Firefighting Collective (Non-sexed)

Police - Group
Policeman - Policing Individual
Policemen - Policing Collective (Non-sexed)

The arguments for removing gender from professions is based on the misapprehension that the professions were ever related to gender and as a result mass illiteracy has made it an “issue”.