On Feb 23, 2014, at 8:41 AM, Patrik Fältström <paf@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > "ombudsman" has in Swedish nothing to do with gender of the person > having that role, but if people do feel it has gender connotation, use a > completely different word. This was a common theme in feminist discourse in the previous century in the U.S. as well, but I think the consensus at this point is that "man" really does have a masculine connotation at least in english. We've also seen a trend toward the elimination of the -ess suffix, for example serious female actors are no longer referred to as actresses. So possibly a -or word might be a better choice, if we could come up with one. I vote for "auror": someone who listens, notwithstanding the different meaning in the Harry Potter books.