"Father Brown"

[Barbara Need]

>I don't mind either Father or Padre or Papa or Pop for a male religious
>figure, whatever the religion--but my feminist hackles rise when a female
>is addressed by one of these terms!  Mother or Madre won't do either. We
>will indeed need a gender-neutral address form, as Joanne suggests.

This does not bother me at all. The title describes the profession.

In a book by Patridcia Wrede called _Calling on Dragons_, the King of
the Dragons dies and there will be a contest for the new King. Our
heroine (a princess who volunteered to belong to a dragon) assumes
that if her dragon, a female, wins, she will become Queen. The dragon
says, no, why? Queen is another job entirely.

I have a inherited position in a story with the title Lord, and the
hereditary holder of that title is ALWAYS a woman, and is addressed
as Lady.

Barbara