International Women’s Day (IWD) is rolling around again and while like last year, I won’t be teaching a specific lesson relating to it, as a language teacher I am naturally drawn to pondering language-related issues – and there are quite a few of those related to gender, that’s for sure! A few things I have seen and read lately have got me thinking.
The first thing that happened was that I read this article about some responses to the French dictionary Le Robert’s decision to include the gender-neutral pronoun ‘iel’ (a combination of the French pronouns ‘il’ (he) and ‘elle’ (she) that corresponds to the singular “they” in English). It turns out some people really don’t like ‘iel’…
Following on from that, I stumbled upon a meme going around the internet. It says: “When a man tries to tell you that “guys” is a gender-neutral term and includes women, ask him how many guys he’s dated* and see if he still thinks that.” *Well, actually the word in the original wasn’t dated, but I’ve paraphrased.
Taken together, these things have inspired me to write about something that is sometimes referred to as ‘gender-fair language’ or ‘GFL’. GFL aims to reduce gender stereotyping and discrimination, and uses two main strategies.
One of these strategies is called ‘feminization’. It’s basically the active, conscious decision to use feminine-marked words to make the presence of women and girls in a group, or even just the possibility of women or girls in the group, visible and recognised. An example of this would be making sure to always use “he or she” instead of just “he” in sentences where the person referred to could be either gender, such as “As the teacher prepares the lesson, he or she should always keep the learner in mind.”
This is easy to do in most languages, but it can lead to what the author Anne Fadiman in her book Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader refers to as the “His/Her problem” : long, rather clunky and inelegant sentences. Like Fadiman, I don’t believe that writers who just use “he” are all misogynists, but that this use of language reflects and reinforces a societal blind spot.
English, however, does have a way around this, and it uses the second of the GFL strategies, which is called ‘neutralisation’. This is the idea that we can – and should – replace masculine-marked words e.g. ‘fireman’, ‘policeman’ with gender-neutral versions e.g. ‘fire-fighter’, ‘police officer’.
So if we want to apply this strategy to the phrase “he or she”, in English we have the option of the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. In the plural, English ‘they’ is gender-neutral, and nobody seems to blink twice at that. However, in many languages, there are feminine and masculine variants for the third person plural and the default for mixed-gender groups is the masculine – hence the uproar from certain parties in France over the suggestion of introducing ‘iel’ that was one of my inspirations for this blog.
What is sometimes seen as more controversial in English, and even harder for speakers of other languages to understand, is the use of ‘they’ as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, for example in the sentence “The student should be told what they will learn in the lesson.” It’s a topic that lots of people who are passionate about language (like me) tend to have strong opinions about, because if you think about it, using a word that is generally thought of as plural with a singular verb might seem odd – and some people will tell you it “breaks the rules”. Yet actually, it’s been around as a perfectly normal option since at least the 14th century. There are many situations where it’s the best choice – if a transgender or non-binary person prefers it, it’s a question of respect, but I also prefer it more generally because, as a woman, it doesn’t actively exclude me.
And there are so many other words that do. Masculine-marked words for jobs, like the example fireman above, are fading from use gradually but surely – you would be unlikely to see them in any modern English coursebook, for example – but there are other masculine-marked words which are maybe more subtle but that I consider quite insidious. As I mentioned above, there’s “guys” to refer to a mixed gender group. Am I a “guy”? A friend of mine, who is an expert on diversity and inclusive teaching materials, introduced me to the neologism “folx” which I rather like as it is designed especially to explicitly signal the inclusion of groups commonly marginalized, not just women but also, actively and more specifically including women of colour, transgender women, disabled women and non-binary or gender non-conforming people.
Why does this matter, perhaps you are wondering? Am I being overly sensitive? In the grand scheme of things, is this the right battle to choose, is this really the hill I should choose to die on? Well, I am a language teacher, and I believe language matters. It shapes how we view ourselves, how we view the world, and what options we believe we have. In a world where more girls than boys are denied the right to an education – 16 million girls worldwide will never enter a classroom – then every little thing to help girls and women see themselves as full and equal members of society is surely worth doing?
To help you perhaps understand what I mean, let me leave you with one final example that I am sure you will recognise. Think back to 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped from the lunar module onto the moon for the very first time. The whole world was watching as he uttered the now famous phrase, “One small step for man … one giant leap for mankind.” Now, if you are a man, imagine how you might have felt if he had instead said “One small step for woman … one giant leap for womankind. "Do you still feel part of this great endeavour, or do you, on some level, feel excluded? Does it still inspire you to grow up to become an astronaut?
I’m sure Neil didn’t mean to exclude me. He was making a beautiful statement about a great scientific step forward. However, this example does show that language has the power to exclude. But there is hope; the power to exclude implies the power to include as well. Languages can, do, and should change over time, and I believe one of those changes must be towards gender-inclusivity. Don’t cut half the world out of how you speak, or you risk cutting half the world out of the wonderous possibilities their future has to offer.