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Gendered language
Mar. 6th, 2008 01:52 pmI'm translating a collection of lesbian short stories from Spanish into English, and in the story I was working on today, a rewritten Little Red Riding Hood, there is a whole part about lumberjacks, and why couldn't it be a female lumberjack, etc.
Because in spanish "leñador" is a male lumberjack and "leñadora" is a female lumberjack, but in English we don't have such easy gender-switches on many words.
Rather than woodsman and woodswoman, though, what I did was use "lumberjill". I think it works with the tone of the story, which is about rewriting certain sexist tropes, etc.
(In the sex positive community, "jilling off" is often used for female masturbation instead of the masculine "jacking off".)
But just wanted to ask what y'all think of this neologism in this instance?
Because in spanish "leñador" is a male lumberjack and "leñadora" is a female lumberjack, but in English we don't have such easy gender-switches on many words.
Rather than woodsman and woodswoman, though, what I did was use "lumberjill". I think it works with the tone of the story, which is about rewriting certain sexist tropes, etc.
(In the sex positive community, "jilling off" is often used for female masturbation instead of the masculine "jacking off".)
But just wanted to ask what y'all think of this neologism in this instance?
