Tag: gender
Addressing the Gender Bias in French
French speakers have long been engaged in a debate over the language’s gender inclusivity—or rather its lack thereof. While some progress has been made toward feminizing the language (such as the 2012 move to remove the word mademoiselle from all official government communications, instead opting for the more neutral madame), other measures have been met with hostility from those...
Congress Rules Set to Become Gender Inclusive
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rules Committee chair James P. McGovern (D-MA) have unveiled the rules for the 117th Congress, including changes to the Standing Rules (Section 2, subsection e), which “modernize the use of pronouns, familial relationship terminology, and other references to gender in order to be inclusive of all Members, Delegates, Resident Commissioners, employees of the House,...
‘Vague’ Language of Male Researchers Wins More Grants
A new study in Nature has found that grant reviewers favor vague and broad terminology used more often by men, despite the fact that proposals using those terms don’t produce better research. The study found that despite the use of blinded review for grants, gender discrimination against female applications takes place. The researchers studied grants submitted to the Gates...
Germans Resist Gender Modifications
On March 6, more
than seventy high-profile Germans, including linguists, teachers, journalists,
lawyers, and writers, published a letter and an accompanying petition that
condemned new linguistic practices which attempt to address implicit gender
connotations in language.
The letter
decried linguistic practices it sees as producing “a wealth of ridiculous
language structures” that “cannot be sustained consistently.”
It was written
in part as a response to the German...
French Genders Get Political
The French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, has banned “inclusive writing” in official texts, clamping down on attempts to make the French language more female-friendly. Moves to end the linguistic dominance of the masculine over the feminine have caused outrage in France, as reported last month (“French in ‘Mortal Danger’ of Gender Neutrality,” Nov. 17).
At the heart of the debate is...