Linguistics and Gender

“Please introduce yourself with your name, year, major, and gender preferred pronoun.” If you have heard this at any meeting or event on campus, you are probably aware of the different gender preferred pronouns that exist in the English language. After discussing gender specific pronouns with a friend, we started delving into the intersection of linguistics and gender.

Before exploring other languages, I wanted to discuss gender in English. The current English that we speak has lost many gender undertones that it held before the feminist movement. Therefore, a gender-neutral modification of English seems feasible and in many ways is being sought out today.

The case with English is not applicable to all languages though. When we started to explore Spanish, we realized the integrated role gender plays in the Spanish language. It is so active, that there have been campaigns against the traditional use of masculine/feminine gender in hope that the language does not further the subordination of women.

In Spanish, feminine nouns are distinguished by changing the ending –o to –a [ex: maestro, maestro -> teacher (m), teacher (f)]. Additionally, the article preceding the word shifts from feminine [la, las] to masculine [el, los].  The Spanish language is complex, so I am going to only focus on a few examples activists have brought to attention.

1. The use of the masculine gender article [el or los] in order to refer to mixed groups. For example, when referring to a girl and boy respectively, you would say la niña and el niño. If you wanted to refer to a group of both genders, you say los niños.

2. Words that may not have a direct feminine/masculine counterpart. For example, the word for policeman is el policía. If we were to say la policía, we would be referring to the police force. The only way you can describe a singular police officer who is a woman is by saying something like la mujer policía.

3. Feminine versions of a word deem less value than their masculine counterparts. For example, la secretaria is a secretary, and has a female article. El secretario, the masculine counterpart, is usually used in high-rank positions such as el secretario general instead of male secretary.

What I find most interesting about these examples is how the structure of a language such as Spanish can influence the gender norms of a culture. What does it mean for secretary to inherently be a feminine noun? Does that have any implications on how society views a man who wants to become a secretary? This is also applicable to the example of the word police. If the feminine counterpart for police, a noun that is inherently masculine, does not define a woman police officer, what implication does that have on society? Or does it not affect society in any way?

In languages such as English, we can manipulate the language to become more gender neutral. Spanish, however, assigns gender to not only nouns describing occupations and people, but also objects. Box [la caja] is assigned a feminine article where as climate [el clima] is assigned a masculine one. Can a language with such integrated roots in gender be manipulated in order to become gender neutral?