I think both kinda sound equally weird because we for a lot of words like astronaut, the astronaut is already assumed to be male unless otherwise indicated. So male astronauts or man astronauts both sound clunky and kinda weird, and the weirdness translates over when you start indicating the astronaut is a woman by saying “woman astronaut” or “female astronaut.”
The English language, and historical baggage just kinda fucked us on this one. We used to add ‘ess’ to the ends of words to indicate gender, but that was dropped outside of the use of waitress or actress for the most part. Not sure why that stopped, but I’m sure it’s interesting and I’m going to go look it up later.
I think both kinda sound equally weird because we for a lot of words like astronaut, the astronaut is already assumed to be male unless otherwise indicated. So male astronauts or man astronauts both sound clunky and kinda weird, and the weirdness translates over when you start indicating the astronaut is a woman by saying “woman astronaut” or “female astronaut.”
The English language, and historical baggage just kinda fucked us on this one. We used to add ‘ess’ to the ends of words to indicate gender, but that was dropped outside of the use of waitress or actress for the most part. Not sure why that stopped, but I’m sure it’s interesting and I’m going to go look it up later.