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Words are important, also to promote gender equality

The power of words in the debate on gender inclusiveness

by Giovanna Prina*.

26 July 2024

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Words are important. They give body and meaning to our thoughts and allow us to transfer our ideas.

Words are closely connected to our culture and represent it.

In recent years, we have increasingly witnessed debates and discussions on the use of words and how our language can influence our evolution and change the way we see things. Gender differences and inclusivity, for example, are often addressed by placing a great deal of emphasis on the form and use of words.

On the words to be used in the gender differences one could say, simplifying, that there are two 'schools of thought': one - more driven and determined in assessing how words are used - calls for the modification of terms or ways of writing to favour the affirmation of values and concepts; the other - more sceptical and reluctant to transform the way we express ourselves - argues strongly that substance is more important than form.

Sometimes I find it difficult to decide which school to join, especially because in some cases they both become intransigent and their rigidity scares me a little.

But there was one recent event that really struck me and allowed me to focus on a point that I think is important.

The University of Trento experiment

The University of Trento rewrote its internal rules of procedure a few months ago and decided to put all the names of roles and careers in the feminine. An introductory note to the document emphasises that the 'over-extended feminine' was used, so that feminine terms also apply to roles held by men.

Whether male or female, the people working in the university will have a female-dominated role. They will be 'the president, the rector, the secretary, the committee members, the professors, the candidate, ..., regardless of gender'.

The university's choice to use only feminine terms to denote positions stems from a desire to provoke; to signal attention to the power of words; to highlight the perspective of those who remain excluded from the over-extended use of the male gender.

And the provocation has certainly been received: there have been numerous negative reactions and criticisms of this choice, starting with interviews in newspapers and ending up on social media.

Criticism

Most people who have criticised the choice refer to our grammar and the technical rules of language, which only provide for the over-extended masculine used as a neuter, and not the over-extended feminine. And this point of view is not wrong.

Some have argued that highlighting the perspective of those who remain excluded from the use of the masculine gender is unhelpful, because there is absolutely no evidence that it is a trauma for women to see their charge declined to the masculine. They are used to and have managed well over time this masculine neutrality. It can also be this.

I don't really know how to take a position. But in following the comments on the news, it was the word 'perspective' that struck me and made me think.

Perhaps it is not the female perspective that needs to be emphasised, as women have probably really trained and accustomed themselves over time to managing their own evolution, regardless of the male names of their assigned roles.

It is on the male perspective that it is necessary to focus, and to lend a hand to those men who perceive a possible reduction in the value of their role if they hear it declined in the feminine and feel somehow discriminated against.

Male disorientation

A friend of mine - a university professor - told me that she had run a lesson to her students of both sexes using only the feminine. The reactions of the male students were bewildered and concerned and, at the end of the lecture, there was some complaint about the language used, which made them feel excluded and less important.

If being qualified as a female makes a student feel less important, when will this student really be ready to feel a female student as an equal?

In companies, we often use acronyms taken from the Anglo-Saxon world to qualify roles and thus mask potential difference, but what would happen if we spoke only feminine in a meeting? With both men and women present, who would feel uncomfortable or belittled?

Is the initiative of the University of Trento made for the female perspective or can it teach something to the male perspective?

Women have come a long way and still are, working to remove stereotypes and preconceptions that for years have directed the passions and careers of girls and young women.

We must continue to do this. And we must do so by involving men, who have grown up on a path also facilitated by the structure of our grammar and language. For through the language that has unconsciously favoured them, they have acquired a sense of 'vested rights' over trades and professions that women have never had. While this has led women to develop the ability to focus on change, in some men it has reduced the flexibility needed to change a way of thinking that is sometimes not just grammatical.

Words define our thoughts: if a feminine profession or phrase seems to transfer less value, we will always think that women are worth less.

Not only at work, but in schools, family life and everyday relationships.

*Partner bbsette - Consulting, Training and Professional Games.