Category talk:Businessmen

This category is a little sexist. Anyone object to renaming it Category:Business owners? Or have a better idea? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 23:33, December 15, 2017 (UTC)
 * "Business owner" might be misleading, since these might not all own their own businesses. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 23:49, December 15, 2017 (UTC)


 * "Man" is, or at least used to be, a gender-neutral term, meaning "person" or "human", at least in Old English, where a male human was a "wer man" (the "wer" survives in "werewolf") and a female human was a "wif man" (now "wife" and "woman"). "Man" survives in a gender-neutral sense in "mankind", "businessman", etc. Isn't etymology fun? :) So, on a linguistic basis, I think using "man" as a gender-neutral term is fine, especially in the old-fashioned sense appropriate here. A lot of efforts to replace it have felt awkward and unnecessary when the meaning could simply have been reverted. I've given up avoiding it in my own writing. Of course, its usage is now very politicized, so it's a losing effort, and I want the wiki to display fairness and gender equality regardless.


 * My main issue with the category name is that it's too broad and vague: "businessmen" encompasses all men in business, which could be anyone in any trade, a shop, or mercantile area. Looking at some random examples, the Businessmen category can often be removed and replaced or left with Shopkeepers, Merchants, and more specific professions. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:10, December 16, 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, I too want a more specific category&mdash;this one is way too broad. Looking at our list of occupations, I think Category:Tavern owners is too specific (and easily confused with Category:Barkeeps), so this is a difficult category to formalize. I don't have a realistic solution, because it would probably be something like this huge list. For your amusement, you might want to peruse this list of occupations which includes jobs like "nob thatcher", "phrenologist", and even the "muffin man"! :-D &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 14:27, December 16, 2017 (UTC)