Comment by mahmud | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mahmud | Hacker News Reader

OT:

"Why do we always refer to female public figures by their first name, and male ones by their last?"

I heard/read that question somewhere, and it stuck with me, can't stop seeing it. And this is a fine example of that.

Google results:

"Clinton email scandal" 41M results.

"Hillary email scandal" 48M results.

Yes, I do realize hers is a special case, and it's necessary to use her first name to disambiguate wrt to Bill. But the phenomenon exists. Just some thing to keep in mind.

[Edit:

"In the tennis commentary, women athletes were called by only their first names 52.7% of the time, while men were referred to by only their first names 7.8% of the time."

http://www.la84.org/gender-stereotyping-in-televised-sports/

]

To be fair, there was another famous Clinton that could make this confusing. I've never heard of Condoleezza Rice, Sarah Palin or Angela Merkel being called by just their first name, although I admit that I don't often hear them being called by just their last name either (maybe except Merkel).

Condoleezza Rice was often referred to as "Condi" in the media. I think a lot of it has to do with information theory: there are two famous Clintons, several famous Rices, and hundreds of famous Sarahs.

I stand corrected on that one, I'd personally only ever heard of her referred to by her full name, but that's just my own ignorance.

And that might be a German peculiarity.

Co-workers who have known each other for longer than they have known their spouses address each other as Herr Schulze and Frau Schmidt.

Because in general, women are less common, so we can use their common name without people wondering which person we're referring to?

I realize that's a weak justification, but it does make some difference... And 41M vs. 48M does not require a very strong justification.

Of course sometimes the issue is that people use first names in order to intentionally avoid showing respect, but that happens to "dubya" and "jeb" and many other public men as well.

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