This is how members of the Costa Rican Academy of Language described, during a round table, the use of the so-called “inclusive language”, which the UN describes as “the way of expressing oneself orally and in writing without discriminating against a sex, social gender or identity of gender in particular and without perpetuating gender stereotypes”.
According to the international organization, “given that language is one of the key factors that determine cultural and social attitudes, using gender-inclusive language is an extremely important way to promote gender equality and combat gender prejudice” .
The INE says that the use of language fosters all thought processes, and in that sense creates one’s own reality. “In the use of language we reproduce biases and stereotypes that have systematically excluded, minimized or devalued various groups, which is why the use of inclusive language is crucial,” he concludes.
The use of inclusive language in different areas has generated great controversy. It is one of the issues that are debated in today’s society. From politicians to brands, everyone analyzes the issue carefully to face their communication strategy in the most appropriate way.
There have been extreme cases such as the prohibition of inclusive language in schools in the City of Buenos Aires, dictated by the head of government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
It must be understood that grammatical gender does not necessarily correspond to gender. Those who insist on confusing the categories of language with categories of the material world lead to contradictions that reach the point of absurdity, according to Costa Rican linguists, who agree that gender allows agreement between nouns and other complementary elements.
Noun classes are not limited to masculine and feminine in all languages. In the case of Chinese or Bribri, words are categorized according to their shape (either flat, long or round). Others use the categories animate-inanimate or rational-irrational. In those cases, the unmarked form is used to encompass both. In some African languages there are five different genders.
Gender should not be confused with words referring to men and women. In our language there are two types of gender: the formal, which is based on the form of words, and the semantic, based on the sex of the human being or animal. The masculine noun is used to designate mixed groups or people of both sexes indistinctly, this is called the unmarked term of the opposition.
In the Spanish language, the category of number, with the singular-plural opposition, the singular is used as an unmarked term, and in the category of time, the present indicative serves to refer to both the past and the future, since it does not have a time mark. weather.
“Some people think that the Spanish language can be described as macho because it uses the masculine as an unmarked term. If this were so, then it would also have to be qualified as singularist and presentist” argue the Ticos linguists.
What is clear is that inclusive language is complicated and in some cases even absurd, they say.
Despite the fact that the masculine works in Spanish as an unmarked term to refer to both men and women, those who defend inclusive language have sought various ways to adapt the language, sometimes successfully and others falling into impractical and unsustainable solutions.
Some of these resources are to replace the last letter with the @ symbol in concordant nouns and elements, which is incompatible with the spoken language. Using the masculine form followed by (as) is pronounceable but is not compatible with oral language. Another is to repeat all the words that contain generic morphology, which leads to tedious redundancy. Neither of these proposals is viable.
Costa Rican linguists agreed that society must work on the lexicon, which is the part of the language where machismo is reflected. The use of words with denigrating connotations such as “bitches” to refer to bad players, bachelor and spinster, among others, should be avoided.
In order to make women visible in the language, it is necessary to promote a change in the nomenclature of government organizations and institutions, such as: Pediatric Hospital, instead of Children’s Hospital; o National Council of Public Universities, instead of the National Council of Rectors, among others.