Linguistic Sexism: Can we make
gendered languages more inclusive?
Author: Kelsey Briggs
To speakers of many romance languages, “gendering” nouns is
an unconscious exercise that is ingrained in daily communication. In Spanish,
all nouns and pronouns are ascribed either a feminine “la” or masculine “el”,
similarly in French, Italian, and Portuguese. Assigning a gender to words like
“la fresa” (strawberry in Spanish) or “le lion” (lion in French) is so second
nature that it becomes easy to forget to question why every object, and more
importantly, every person described in that language must be classified as
either male or female. A rising debate in the linguistic world is how to
address queerness and gender neutrality in languages characterized by gender
binaries.
Some Spanish speakers choose to use the ‘’@’’ symbol in
writing to be more gender inclusive (e.g.: tod@s instead of todos or todas),
but there still remains confusion about how to verbally pronounce gender
neutral or queer pronouns. Others propose to create an entirely new third
gender pronoun, similar to “zie”, “xe”, or “they” in English. Incorporating
gender neutrality into languages founded upon a system of gender binaries would
be a challenge, but is certainly not impossible.
In Germany, for example, gendered pronouns are transforming
to be more arbitrary and inclusive. Many
propose getting rid of gendered articles entirely, and now in Low German both
men and women are referred to as “de” instead of the previous “der” and “die”.
The state justice ministry is pushing for citizens to adhere to “’gender-neutral’
formulations in their paperwork” as well.[i]
While many linguists argue that it is difficult and cumbersome to change the
grammatical structures of a language through human will, we see modifications in
languages occur all the time. This is especially so with the introduction of
new words and concepts that are adopted across languages due to the technology
boom and globalization. Convincing an entire population to actively change the
way they speak and in turn conceptualize gender, however, could be a more
lengthy and arduous process.
A study in 2012 led by psychologist Jennifer
Prewitt-Freilino compared languages with global gender inequality, showing that
“those who read in gendered languages responded with higher
levels of sexism to a questionnaire they took after the study.” Gendered
languages showed the highest rates of gender inequality. Interestingly enough,
however, languages with no gender ascribed to nouns or pronouns didn’t rank as
well on the gender equality scale as predicted. Prewitt-Freilino said speakers
of gender neutral languages, like Persian, are actually likely to assume male
characters when the gender is up to the speaker’s discretion. Natural gender languages,
such as English (in which gender is assigned to pronouns but not nouns), fell
somewhere in the middle.[ii] The study thus showed significant variability among
languages and gender equality. Based on these results, incorporating gender
neutral pronouns into gendered or natural gender languages may not contribute
to actively reducing sexist tendencies. However, recognition of non-binary
identities remains a crucial issue in many societies, particularly in the
interest of individual identities.
[i]
Oltermann, Philip. “Germans try to get their tongues around gender-neutral language”.
The Guardian. Mar. 24 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/germans-get-tongues-around-gender-neutral-language
[ii]
Pappas, Stephanie. “Gendered Grammar Linked to Global Sexism”. Live Science.
Feb. 21, 2012. http://www.livescience.com/18574-gendered-grammar-sex-inequality.html
