A current feminist very present in the media ensures that the woman feels excluded from the so-called “masculine generic”. Some of its promoters (sociologists, jurists,…, seldom filólogas) considered macho this trait of the Spanish language and argue that in an “artificial ” language cultivated”, a fitting designation of Juan Carlos Moreno Cabrera (linguistic Diversity and cultural diversity, 2011), are pronounced duplications as “citizens”, “Spanish and Spanish”, “all and all”, in order to avoid the “invisibility” of women.
To contribute to new reflections on this subject with another point of view, will be the difference between “meaning” and “signifier”.
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The significant “house” (that is to say, the word “house” pronounced or written) makes us think of the image (the meaning) of a building with windows and doors, perhaps also with a fireplace. When deciding the signifier “home” is not expressing significant “window”, “door” and “chimney”; however, all the concepts that they represent come to our mind in the meaning when we hear or read the word “house”. The ideation triggered by the signifier “house” includes these elements because they are in our memory of a house. Therefore, the signifier “house” are a few letters or a few sounds. And the meaning, the idea that we have of a house. The windows and the door are not in the signifier, but in the meaning.
The same thing happens with expressions such as “Workers ‘ Statute” or “Congress of Deputies”. The signifiers of female “workers” and “congresswomen” are not present there, but they activate their meanings. Because, just like when you hear “home,” we think of windows, we know that the labour legislation affects the same way to the workers in the seats also sit the deputies, but neither are mentioned. The contexts shared complete, therefore, the meanings.
For all of this, as they explain the research feminist in the use of language Aguasvivas Catalá and Enriqueta García Pascual (gender Ideology and language, 1995), do not confuse absence with invisibility. That is to say, one must not confuse “absence of the female gender” in the signifier with the “invisibility of women” in the meaning.
Thus, when analyzing the meaning of a word, it should be noted at once its sense (we understand here the meaning as “the meaning more by the context”). Let’s see. The word “cup” is linked to the pot soon in a familiar conversation with a glass container; but with a trophy in the conversation between players, or with the upper part of a tree if you are talking about a group of forest engineers. The context of each case influence in the sense that activates the signifier in our mind.
The linguistic system of the Spanish hosts similar phenomena in some other cases. For example, when the singular represents the plural in the same way that the male represents the feminine. If we talk about “this year has been ahead of time the fall of the leaf”, the signifier “fact sheet” is expressed in the singular, but the mental representation makes us imagine a plurality of sheets. The same thing would happen with a sentence like “it has a lot of fans to the card” (at which no one imagines that they experience such inclination by a single letter).
We are here in the face of what philologists call “automerónimos”. Victoria Escandell, one of the great Spanish specialists in pragmatics (the study of meaning beyond the meaning exact), it compares the case of the generic masculine with examples such as “night” and “day” (Reflections on the gender as a grammatical category, 2018). When we say that someone “took three days to get to you”, in this period happened the night and the day for three dates. The term “night” has not been listed in the signifier, “days”, but that idea is not absent from what is meant when you hear “three days”. Thus, “day” means “night” and “day”, in the same way that “the workers of the company” encompasses the workers and to the workers. In all these cases, one word can encompass its opposite together, or only to itself separately. The context deciphers with ease.
The social dominance male
who understand that the masculine generic “invisibiliza” the women put into play emotional factors legitimate, based on an unjust reality, and projected over the language some of the problems and discriminations that occur in areas unrelated to it. That way, the male dominance in the society is presented as the source of the male predominance in the genres of grammar.
Several languages with the feminine generic (the guajiro, the alfaro, the zaise…) are spoken in communities that are very patriarchal
this Is a translation easy, that drawer seems. However, we have before us “a hypothesis scientifically indemostrable” (María Márquez Guerrero, epistemological Foundations of the debate about sexism in languages, 2016), although it is seen as likely with our eyes of today. But, repeated so many times without discussion, until it becomes difficult to contradict, by the influential pressure general and because those who support it are advocating for a fair fight.
This relation of cause-and-effect (that is to say, that the social dominance male caused the male generic) can be compared to the theory of the two clocks made centuries ago (for another purpose) by the dutchman Arnold Geulincx: Two wall clocks go perfectly. One marks the hours and the other gives the chimes, so that if we look at the one, and we hear of at hand one could think that the first sound to the second.
Said in a more rural: we know that the roosters crowing does not make the sun come up.
If the domain of the male in society was the cause unequivocally the predominance of the male gender in the language, that would have run in all kinds of conditions, in the same way that two and two is four in any kind of problem.
All we can observe, however, that the same tongue will give societies sexist and societies closer to equality. A few languages that are so widespread as the Spanish or the English offer plenty of possibilities in this regard.
on the other hand, if you honour this relationship between the predominance of social male and the use of the generic masculine in the language, the societies that speak languages “inclusive” should be less macho. For example, the language, Hungarian has no gender, which should be deduced that the Hungarian society is more egalitarian than the Spanish society. And the same thing happens with the Turkish, a language with very few words with gender. And with the farsi (or Persian), the language spoken in Iran. If the iranian society has not given rise to a language of male predominance, that would be related to the supposed reality of a society that is less male than the Spanish.
AND the same happens with the quechua, used by a society was polygamous, and where they worked harems (Araceli López Serena. Language use and sexist media).
is Also spoken in some of the languages that have the female as a generic (multiple caribbean, including the guajiro; in addition to the koyra in Mali and the alfaro in Ethiopia), and do not correspond precisely with societies or egalitarian or matriarchal. For example, the zaise or zayse is spoken by 30,000 ethiopian that form a “marked social organization is patriarchal” (Bárbara Marqueta, ‘The concept of genre in linguistic theory’, in the collective work of Some forms of violence. Women, conflict and gender, 2016).
however, other languages with feminine generic, such as the mohawk or mohaqués (now to 3,000 Nakitbahis speakers in the U.S. and Canada), did, in societies with notable features matriarchal.
Two types of doublets
in Addition, if the alleged male dominance of the Spanish language would have responded to an impulse macho or patriarchal, this would have dominated all aspects of the language, and not just a few. The same system that is not activated during centuries “judge” and “judge”, or “correspondent” and “corresponsala”, or “criminal” and “criminala” or “martyr” and “mártira” yes lets “dancer” and “dancer” or “benjamin” and “benjamin”.
AND, in fact, the generic “children” includes boys and girls; but the masculine “sons” does not refer to the daughters-in-law; or “cures” encompasses the nuns. We cannot say “tomorrow come to my sons-in-law” if in the group there are daughters-in-law. Yes, that would be language is not inclusive. And I would have to assert, therefore, “tomorrow, come my sons and my daughters-in-law”; in the same way, a meeting of priests and nuns cannot be defined as “a meeting of priests”. Or an assembly of men and women as “assembly of men”.
If there was any day that guideline macho original and durable, the same male that is imposed on the doublets morphological (that is to say, “the children” to appoint to “children” and “girls”) would have imposed also to the feminine in all of the doublets that they are not morphological but lexical (“bull / cow”, “horse rider / rider”, “lady / gentleman”, “husband / wife”…).
is Not more to say “the person” and not “the man”, or flee uses asymmetric as “my lady” or “my cousin”
That’s not the case, as pointed out by Victoria Escandell, when referring to males or females, or males and females, is lexicalizada. Thus, he adds, the opposition masculine-feminine is neutralized in a few cases, but not in others.
Likewise, those theories we question here should consider more equal the laísmo Spanish (with cleavage “I said” he / she “told” him) that the general usage in English (“I said,” both for her and for him). However, that laísmo equal would be rejected probably by the majority of the speakers.
all these examples we can deduce, if you so wish, that there is a relationship proven cause-and-effect between the society and the language in terms of male dominance.
Pose that relationship as if it were a certain and tenacious is equivalent to view the problem in a plane (the inequality) and put the solution in the other (the grammar).
Hypothesis reverse (false)
Is it true that the woman suffering a discrimination that is unbearable, and that triggers the judgments and prejudices against the generic masculine once it has been erected as a symbol of male domination. The funny thing is that if society discriminated the man (which we only effects a dialectical, because we know that is not the case) a hypothetical (and absurd) organizations masculinistas would also have arguments (or fallacies) to blame the language. That is to say, they could raise their own watches Geulincx.
That vision is equally blurred (although to a different extent) would give rise to hypothetical reasons such as these (which would actually be a few sinrazones):
1. The fact that a single signifier to serve for the generic male and for the male-specific (in the same way that the signifier “day” covers the meaning of the day and of the night) deprives men of a genre of his own and individualized as they do have women. Men should share their gender, but women are not.
Let’s look at this example that collected in the above-mentioned Catalá and Garcia Pascual, according to which John Major was (in a text taken from THE COUNTRY from December 15, 1990) “the first representative man of the United Kingdom at a summit of the community from 11 years ago”.
The term “man” in there, because the male is not sufficient in itself to identify a man, if the context implies that it includes women (as was the case clearly in that case, as in those days it was general knowledge that Margaret Thatcher had preceded Major).
If this news was the deletion of the term “man”, Major would be “the first representative of the United Kingdom at a summit of the community from 11 years ago”, which would be false (since it was not the first time that the United Kingdom was represented there). Thus, the need to add “male” to show that the generic masculine includes objectively to the women.
2. on the other hand, the generic masculine excludes supposedly the women of the shares meliorativas (those that usually pretend to visibility), but also of the pejorative: Let’s look at this statement: “you Have entered a few thieves and they took everything”. Following the theories of a part of feminism, with this assertion excludes the possibility of a thieves; although it is unknown the authorship of the robbery. A language system built to benefit the men would have prevented that. And in a hypothetical situation of inferiority and social male, this grammar could have been used to reinforce (absurdly) of their claims.
The context changes the meaning
In any case, in the debate about inclusive language, they tend to analyse words in isolation, such as in a laboratory. And the language can only be understood in its use, in its particular application.
As we have seen, before the word “house” we build our meaning from the context that we know (and by that we imagine the window). The context, in effect, governed the meaning of what we express.
Imagine you, attentive reader, or careful reader, who reads this prayer:
“Hernández is a representative of Spain in the UN and a star of diplomacy”.
Have you thought about a man or a woman? Certainly in a man, because that is what is projected to the context shared. But there is no brand of male gender in that sentence (on the contrary, there were more words in the feminine). If his knowledge of reality he would know that “Hernandez” is a woman, despite the predominance of diplomats, men, the interpretation would have been the opposite even with the same sentence.
Then, we can think if would not be better to act upon the reality that on the language. When the reality changes, the context will alter the meaning of the words without the need to alter its signifier, in the same way that the term “drive” maintains its lyrics but it has changed with time, the mental representation that causes it (from the cars pulled by the power of the horses to horse power pulling now of the car).
therefore, to observe the alleged sexism of the language is not able to analyze the signifiers and the meanings in the absence of the context that gives them meaning.
But before this problem we also share the proposal formulated by the already mentioned Catalá and Garcia Pascual: That women feel they own the generic, rather than opt out of them.
There are precedents. For example, a woman may receive a “tribute” because women have appropriated that word so that no one remembers that within that word is the root home (“man”, in the language of origin). In the same way, women have “heritage” and “parental rights”; because throughout the years they have appropriated these terms of root male (pater) rather than feel excluded from them, as they have done to turn the gay men with the word “marriage” (from mater), who also have appropriate venturosamente.
If we said (taking an example that provides Escandell) “Margarita won the square professor”, that would imply that they could only be women. But if Daisy wins the square of a professor, at that time invades happily the scope of the generic masculine. Appropriates it.
If women take the generic “workers” or “miners”, or “cops”, or “diplomacy”, because the context activates such ideation, will be taking over the meanings and the sense of the speech, to allow the signifiers in their residual role of mere “accidents of grammar” (María Ángeles Calero, Sexism, linguistic, 1999), carriers of concepts that are changing without altering the word that names it.
All this does not prevent (and the language allows it) that you use formulas such as “ladies and gentlemen”, “friends” if you want to who is speaking. They were already in the Mio Cid (XII century): “Exien what to see mugieres and men, burgeses and burgesas by the finiestras are”.
A moderate duplication —especially in the “language cultivated”, in the action language concrete— will legitimately today as a symbol that is shared in that fight for equality; provided that this does not involve considering macho to those who use the generic masculine, believe it equally inclusive.
it’s Not more to avoid male “generic abusive” (an expression of Maria Marquez) and say “the person” instead of “the man”, or flee uses asymmetric as “my lady” or “my cousin” (since they are not used “my lord” or “my relative”); or avoid the compliment to call it “macho” to an achievement in sports, among other tips valid that usually originates from filólogas feminists.
With this same system of language (the system is one thing, and uses are another) can build a more just society if we apply ourselves to do this, if we banished the male violence, the wage gap, or the advertisement sexist, if we apply an education equal, or if we correct the treatment of women in video games, among many other issues.
When all those problems are resolved (hopefully soon), and the equality is complete, grammatical gender, you will lose probably all the importance that is now given to it. The reality will have changed the contexts; the contexts have been transformed by the sense, and the generic male will become a mere convention because they have been assaulted by women, as is the case with “tribute” or “heritage”.
When that time comes, perhaps no one cares whether the grammar. But in the meantime, it is understandable that the generic masculine to keep paying for the broken dishes.
