I am not a lady

An open letter

Dear colleague,

I want to make it clear for the second time that I am a woman. I am a female member of the human species. I am NOT a “lady”.

Today was the umpteenth time I saw you use the word “ladies” to refer to your female colleagues. I felt like hitting you on the head but since that might disqualify me from actually being a lady in the 1920s sense of the word, I stopped myself.

Instead, I decided to be helpful. For your reference, here is a guide on the correct usage of the word lady. You may use the word when referring to:

1. Members of English aristocracy
2. Women over 70
3. Women who are doing something crazy, as in “Lady, are you nuts?”
4. As a reprimand, usually preceded by the word “young”: “Young lady, how many times have I told you not to hit your male colleagues?”

I assume you thought it would be more “respectful” in some old-fashioned way to refer to women as “ladies”. But by using this word in a clearly artificial manner, you actually made it quite clear that you don’t quite know how to deal with women colleagues as equals. Why else would you say things like:

• Each team should have 11 players with a minimum of 2 ladies and max of 9 gents
• Opening batting pair should have at least 1 lady
• First over must be bowled by a lady and faced by a lady
• And so on
  

Or perhaps I have misunderstood the whole thing. Maybe this is a costume party cum cricket match. I wonder whether any Bangalore theatre groups carry Victorian-era gowns.

Here’s a thought: If you think calling a woman a woman is too matter-of-fact, maybe you can call us the “XX chromosomed” humans. At least it will be accurate. Then your invitation for cricket would read something like this:

• Each team should have players with a total of 13 X and 9 Y chromosomes
• Opening batting pair must be exclusively X chromosomed
• No Y chromosomes allowed in first over bowling and batting
• Etc.

Yours sincerely,
A woman