Brookline is considering a measure that would replace “selectman” and “selectmen” with “selectwoman” and “selectwomen” as part of its bylaws, Universal Hub reports.
The idea apparently would be that even male members of the board would be “selectwomen” to drive home the point that if women shouldn’t mind being called “—- men” then men shouldn’t mind being called “—– women.”
*Apologies to Councilor Baker for choosing his name for the headline, but seniority does have its privileges and Baker was among the aldermen who opposed the change to city council.
A silly proposal in Brookline. But let’s get serious… ALL titles for public office should be gender-neutral.
For what it’s worth, 240 of Brookline’s precinct-elected Town Meeting members will have a voice in the debate.
(Yes, Brookline’s legislative body is comprised of more than 240 people, who are elected by precinct, with 15 members elected from each of the town’s 16 precincts. Newton’s legislative body is comprised of 24 people.)
Apples and oranges, Tom. Brookline has a five member board of selectmen, which is a much more comparable parallel body to our city council. Town meeting is an entirely different process.
@Greg: Brookline’s Town Meeting members are responsible for passing a balanced annual town budget and enacting all town bylaws. Newton’s City Council members essentially have the same two responsibilities.
Given that the question on the table relates to town bylaws, how is what I wrote a “false comparison”?
@Tom: Town Meetings typically happen just twice a year. They mostly vote up or down on proposed changes to zoning, bylaws, budgets etc. But all the hard deliberative work, public hearings, etc that happens year-round by our 24 member city council is done by the five town selectmen or other small committees (zoning boards, planning boards, etc.)
I’m familiar with the system because Needham has a Town Meeting form of government (and I used to publish the Brookline TAB among others). Both systems have their plus and minuses. But it is inaccurate to compare the year round work done by the Newton’s city council to a twice a year town meeting process.
@Greg: Just to clarify, are you saying that precinct-elected Town Meeting members have no meaningful/valuable role in the proposed bylaw change at issue?
No Tom, I’m saying that a Town Meeting form of government is in no way similar to the strong mayor/city council system that exists under our current charter or our new charter. Not even close.
Tom– I’m unclear what advantage you’re suggesting there is in having gender based titles addressed through Town Meeting. It shouldn’t take 240 people to fix this issue.
I also agree with Greg, you’re comparing apples to oranges. I say this despite having a nephew, Gideon Striar, who is a Town Meeting member in Plymouth, and [at 18] one of the youngest elected officials in the state. I’m very proud of my nephew. It is however difficult to draw direct comparisons between the way Town and City governments function.
I lived in a small town outside 128 when I was married, and it was indeed very different. There we had direct town meetings, none of this elected representative stuff. My ex and I were once the deciding votes on an issue – something I’m unlikely to ever achieve in a Newton election.
Fantastic. Go Brookline!
Whoever is behind this doesn’t understand English very well, though the mistake is a common one. English doesn’t engender most of its nouns, mostly just sex-specific ones, so we conflate gender (in grammar, a property of words) with s*x (noun: a property of people).
The situation when an engendered word is used in a non-sex-specific way is the common gender. And in English that typically uses the same words as the masculine form. So a woman can be an alderman or a selectman. That is common gender, not masculine gender, use. The feminine gender, however, is always sex-denotative, so a man cannot be an alderwoman. That’s just how the language works. Changing “alderman” to “councilor” was thus technically unnecessary.
@Fred – we fought this battle in the 60s and 70s. Assuming that male is the normative and female the exception has consequences in real life – there have been plenty of studies showing that giving a masculine ending to a word, people make the assumption that it refers to a male (even if that assumption is subconscious). That’s why we fought so hard for language changes like “flight attendant” instead of “steward/stewardess”, “mail carrier” instead of “mail man”, etc., andso many of us are happy that writing styles such as AP now use non-gendered words (i.e., actor no matter the sex/gender of the person on stage).
You see these assumptions made in places as fundamental as Biblical translation – Hebrew had no non-gendered pronouns, so every place the “normative male” gets used is translated as if the referent were male in virtually all translations.
“And in English that typically uses the same words as the masculine form.”
And that’s the problem. Men are not the default human.
Greg’s header for this thread was perfect. When we debated changing the name I literally said “I introduce myself as Alderman Emily Norton. How about if I introduced my colleague Alderwoman Rick Lipof?” And everyone laughed. And I said “See you laugh – but why is that funny?”
As for the Brookline plan, it’s stupid – and I don’t use that word often or lightly. All titles should be gender neutral. It’s 2017, for crying out loud.
The state outlines six forms of government from which a city/town can decide to adopt. Brookline has a representative town meeting form of government, Cambridge has a city manager/city council form of government. Newton has what is referred to as a strong mayoral form of government. The form of government is set out in the charter.
Greatness is measured in deeds not titles
The Board of Selectmen is the administrative branch of town government. The Town meeting is the legislative branch of town government.
It’s funny Ms Norton because it shows how out of touch you are with what most people want and expect government to do. It is funny in a, you know, nervous-kind of nauseous laugh type of way because any of us with any sense of reality know that this is the type of thing that pushes those on the fence to vote for Donald Trump or stay home and not vote at all. So thank you Ms. Norton. Thanks for the laughs.
Coming from a family of 8 kids, in a blue collar household, you could call me whatever you’d like, just don’t call me, late to dinner.
@Elmo: Happy to be bringing joy into your life!
Ha ha Brookline.
It should just be Select Board and selectwoman, selectman.