By Carmen Chang,
Introduction
“You can be a feminist without destroying the language.
But you can hardly avoid a sexist use of language without being a feminist”.
Aguas Vivas Catalá and Enriqueta García Pascual
The main objective of this research work is to identify a reflection axis or a problem that allows a more detailed analysis of the gender issue in relation to language. This work arises from the theme “Language and gender” proposed in the framework of the Hispanic and Roman Linguistics Seminar and is entitled “Can a language be sexist”?
Before we get fully into the work, we believe it is relevant to distinguish and clarify the meaning of certain terms. Some key terms that need to be specified before carrying out research are feminism and machismo, but there are also hembrismo and masculinism and it is important that they are well defined from the beginning. According to the RAE (Real Academia Española, 2020), feminism is the fight for equal rights between women and men; while machismo is an attitude of arrogance on the part of men towards women. This definition seems a little vague, but if we look at the meaning of arrogant according to the RAE is “who abuses its power”. Is it logical then to equate feminism and machismo as opposing terms, understanding the first as a struggle for equality and the second as an attitude of arrogance? It would be necessary to investigate the meaning of these and related terms, such as hembrismo and masculinism.
The RAE has not yet included these concepts in its dictionary, but these neologisms are valid despite being recent terms that will probably end up being included in the SAR dictionary, as they are used very frequently. According to El País, who in its article “The trap of the word ‘hembrismo’” refers to both terms, hembrismo would be “a sexual discrimination, of dominant character, adopted by women” (El neologismo español actual, 2005) and masculinism would be the fight against discrimination against men. To conclude this section of definitions, it is also appropriate to define the term sexism, whose meaning is according to the RAE is “the discrimination of people on the basis of sex”.
If we take into account the latter definition, there are hypotheses and positions that differ as to whether language can be considered sexist or not. For example, the linguist and writer Álex Grijelmo (2018) in his article “Language is not sexist, but its use”, argues that: “The Spanish language suffers from accusations understandable from the point of view of feminism, but perhaps unjust” and adds the following :
“[… ] We cannot equate protest against the abuse of feminism in this or that word and the struggle against the mistreatment, harassment, discrimination, concealment or wages suffered by women. Thus, positioning oneself in the defence of language means, in practice, confronting the feminist cause. [… ] What does the integrity of the language matter if it is a fair fight? Therefore, one can understand and share that current of feminism that forces words to achieve a general awareness that in turn manages to change the situation; […] The habitual use of the axe against the langue has led many well-meaning people to consider it as a system built by the male, and therefore masculine; and therefore, sexist and discriminatory. This casts a shadow of rejection on this cultural heritage, a complex machine when it is analysed and simple when it is used; a language that, paradoxically, we call ‘maternal’”.
He continues, “And that in Spain has not been distributed a government circular that, as happened in France last November, condemns inclusive language in the documents of the Administration; nor has the Spanish Academy criticized, which did the French, the female bending of the names of professions and trades. Quite the opposite, actually. But who knows if many teenagers interested in philology, psycholinguistics or the philosophy of language will not have deviated from their vocation when they encounter these complaints. If language is discredited, everything associated with it is discredited. They accuse the Spanish language of machismo, yes, but the same system that has not given duplications as ‘corresponsal’ and ‘corresponsala’ has welcomed without problem ‘guardián’ and ‘guardiana’ or ‘capitán’ and ‘capitana’, or ‘bailarín’ and ‘bailarina’. Those with a background in philology know that these language decisions are due to historical or etymological reasons, sometimes even random, but not sexist”.
In the same sense, José Luis Martín Yuste (2001) in El Trujamán, Revista Diaria de Traducción del Centro Virtual Cervantes, in his article “No language is sexist, all are potentially discriminatory” mentions that: “Language, by its conventional character, can remedy the discriminatory whiff that permeates some of its uses; but do not forget that whiff is always extrinsic to it and not constitutive of its internal being”.
On the opposite side, Jorge E. Lemus (2001) , linguist, hispanist, anthropologist and translator, formulates a different proposal:
“[…] Languages have been accused of sexism by various groups who consider that women have been made invisible in history by synthetic language and that their condition of social disadvantage against men is perpetuated through language. These statements can be translated for purposes of analysis into a hypothesis which I call the Sexist Language Hypothesis or HIS. The HIS classifies societies as more or less sexist depending on the degree of sexism contained in the language they speak, if we assume that language is a reflection of the state of women in that society. Below I propose a version of what HIS might be: HIS: The greater the use of inclusive male terminology in language, the greater the degree of discrimination against women in society”.
According to the previous author, linguistic sexism is a reflection of sexism in other domains, besides language, as in the cultural, economic, political spheres, social, etc. and elaborates these analysis purposes as a way to facilitate the study and investigation of this phenomenon.
For methodological reasons, we have focused particularly on the case of the Spanish language, but we have also included some concrete examples of other languages.
References
- Feminismo. Real Academia Española. Available here
- Machismo. Real Academia Española. Available here
- Prepotente. Real Academia Española. Available here
- La trampa de la palabra “hembrismo”. EL PAÍS. Available here
- Sexismo. Real Academia Española. Available here
- Ninguna lengua es sexista, todas son potencialmente discriminatorias. Centro Virtual Cervantes. Available here
- Sexismo en el lenguaje: mitos y realidades. ResearchGate. Available here
- No es sexista la lengua, sino su uso. EL PAÍS. Available here
- El sexismo que ocultan las palabras. LA VANGUARDIA. Available here
- Le sexisme dans le langage. Notes sur l’italien et le français. Università degli studi di Torino. Available here
- Héctor Velis-Meza. Cómo el machismo contaminó el lenguaje: Historias de palabras que perdieron su inocencia. Ediciones Cerro Huelén. Santiago de Chile. 2020
