Jenice Armstrong: 'Lady' is a minefield

THE TERM "LADY" is loaded.

There are way too many expectations wrapped around what a lady is supposed to be and how a lady behaves. We'd be better off using it less. Besides the term coming off at times as patronizing, not many young women, it seems, aspire even to be "ladylike" these days, unless you're referring to Lady Gaga.

And the term "lady" has been getting people into hot water lately. Remember the brouhaha last month, when Sen. Arlen Specter told the tea-party poster girl, Rep. Michele Bachmann, "to act like a lady"?

For every woman who has ever had the same thing said to her - and who hasn't? - it made for a pause-worthy moment as in "oh-no-he-didn't." (Insert eye roll here.)

"Act like a lady" is old-school shorthand for "sit down, fold your hands in your lap and be quiet." Specter, who later apologized, probably didn't mean to come across quite so avuncular, but that's what happened.

The latest to stumble over calling someone lady was Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr., who, during an appearance on Stephen Colbert's show this week, committed the sin of describing a possible senatorial opponent as "young lady."

Maybe he had a momentary memory lapse and forgot that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is four years his senior. Ford was in the midst of explaining his flip-flop on gay marriage when he said, "The young lady I'm looking about running against, Senator Gillibrand, who I know and like, she flipped on this . . . "

Who knows whether he misspoke or was delivering a subtle jab? But in some corners, Ford's uber-courteous referencing of Gillibrand smacked of condescension. Maybe people are reading too much into it, but what if Gillibrand at some point flipped the script, as they say, and called him out as a young man or a young fellow?

These run-ins with the term lady are reminiscent of the time in 2009 when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., asked Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, as he was testifying on Capitol Hill about New Orleans' levee system, to refer to her as "senator" as opposed to "ma'am."

"It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title. I'd appreciate it," she said.

It's a whole new world out here, and the English language hasn't quite adjusted itself to the new order of things.

Until it does, we're better served by opting for gender-neutral references that don't necessarily call attention to a person's sex or the manner of how a woman might present herself. That leaves a whole range of options from referring to someone as "Miss (insert surname here)" to "Hey, you." Old habits die hard, though. No matter how old I get, nothing's going to stop my mother from getting that icy tone and referring to me as "young lady" when she's annoyed with me.

I'll take it from her - but nobody else.

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.