I wanna start out by saying I hope everyone had a Happy New Years. Mine was pretty good. My wife and I actually were able to stay awake for the first time and many years.
Two days before New Years, we got the first good snow of the year. Every year it snows I try as hard as I can to make a snowman. Normally I am not successful. I have the hardest time getting the snow to stick and make balls big enough to make the bottom and middle parts. This year the snow was wet enough and I was able to construct it.
The day after New Years we got another substantial amount of snow. That night my wife said, “Your Snowman is still there. You should build a Snowwoman to go with it.” This really bothered me and made me give the response of, “why can’t they just be Snowpeople?”
We as people grew up calling snowmen just that. We also called firemen, mailmen, and policemen the exact same thing. As time has gone by and more women have joined those careers those terms have become politically incorrect and we have started referring to them as fire fighters, mail carriers, and just police. Will snowmen ever just be snow people or snow figures? I truly don’t now if that language will change. What would happen to the classic song like Frosty the Snowman?
I really never thought about snowpeeps. That could be an easy replacement for snowman in the song, because of being the same amount of syllables.
I try hard to be intentional about nongendered terms like fire fighter, letter carrier, police officer, chairperson or just chair, even staffing a table instead of manning it. So easy to say "snowman" partly because it's familiar and partly because it comes easily off the tongue, being just one additional syllable. Snowpeeps?