Do you think that such words as "chairperson", "spokesman" seem to be too artificial?

No, except I think you meant to write 'spokesperson' as seeming too artificial.

not at all - as long as you remember spokesperson is more commonly used

Sure, spokesperson. Thank you for opinion)

They are not artificial - they are correct as the chairperson of a meeting could be a man or a woman. Similarly the spokesperson for a company could be male or female.

Are you doing a similar analysis of languages like german which have, in effect, three genders in use? Male, female, neutral.

There are a number of languages which apply genders to everything. That is not standard in English. It is not like French or German where things like plates and cats have genders (and not necessarily the same gender in different languages).

English is a comparatively genderless language.

Actually, "chair" is in fairly common usage, with the same meaning as "chairman", "-woman", "-person", but with no gender at all (although every actual physical chair I've ever seen was in fact neuter).

Words matter. So do terms and forms of address. On the other hand, since sex discrimination is usually women wanting to be treated as men's equals, being called "chairman" even if female is that very equality. If they expect "Chairwoman" then they're surrending the equality by using a differnet form of address. As in the military, every officer is "Sir" regardless of sex. Hear "Ma'am" a lot too, and technically that's ok, but "Sir" is technically the proper form. To me, "Ma'am" always emphasized a difference and consequently female officers who prefered that always felt less to me than those that wanted "Sir" and to be "truly" equal.

I don't think that words should matter as much as actual substance when it comes to sex discrimination. Take Madam President for example. Many people want a female US president. This is fine, of course, as long as Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders have an equal chance to fill that role.

Heh, you can also call a person "the chair".

Sorry, Monterey, I missed your post.


Here, move over your chair and we can talk.