An interview with Carla Bruni by Lara Marlowe in our Saturday magazine over the weekend described the French First Lady as “songwriter, poetess and singer”. Poetess? A word as ridiculous to me as if she’d also been tagged a singeress or songwriteress. Even the word actress is defunct these days, with gender neutral descriptions expected for gender neutral professions. All this coming from someone who wrote a piece in today’s paper about five “women poets” – which perhaps opens me to the same criticism. So is there still any good reason to collect five “poetesses” together for a piece, or does such an action only serve to reinforce a sense of subcategorisation that is in itself a disservice? Over to you.