Ask a Manager: My boss talks about “femtors” and “herstory”

[minoanmiss]

[N.B. The whole post is full of amazing things. There's a question about masking and a question about Ph.Ds and that's just two of the others.]



#4: My boss is very enthusiastic about women’s issues, which is great! But she insists on using phrases like “femtor” (for female mentor) and “herstory” instead of “history,” and these drive me nuts. Part of the reason is that the “men” in “mentor” and the “his” in “history” have nothing to do with gender, but it’s also because it seems patronizing in the same way that “girl boss” does. Is there a way I can bring this up?

That would be annoying as hell, and it’s also a quirk of your boss that you probably just need to accept. The exception would be if you have excellent rapport with her and she’s open to pushback in general, in which case you could maybe raise it … but I’m skeptical it’ll have much impact, and you’re almost certainly better off saving your capital for other things.

Comments

[ermingarden]

"Femtor" is especially funny to me, since the original mentor is already a woman – in the Odyssey, the goddess Athena guides and advises Odysseus' son Telemachus while in disguise as a mortal man named Mentor, which is where the English word "mentor" comes from.

[minoanmiss]

Bwee YES