Feminists

LWolf

(46,179 posts)

10. Language evolves.

Mon Jan 1, 2018, 01:30 PM

Jan 2018

If we acknowledge that language evolved out of sexist societies, it should be no surprise to find gender bias in language.

It should also be no surprise that we can leave bias behind, and help language evolve into gender-neutrality. We see it happening right now with English; a rough, messy process to replace gender-based pronouns with neutral pronouns. It's not quick, easy, nor clean, but it's sure happening.

It can happen with other languages as well.

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Are the Latin based languages such as Spanish sexist? [View all] Ligyron May 2017 OP

there's some truth to that, but a lot of times it's arbitrary, could be "green vs blue" unblock May 2017 #1

I don't speak any of the Romance languages... JayhawkSD May 2017 #2

I don't speak them well either, lol. Ligyron May 2017 #6

I'm not sure I see where "the feminine is always diminutive, i.e., the lesser." Iggo May 2017 #3

The only truth there, Sailor65x1 May 2017 #4

Yeah, I don't speak any of them well. Ligyron May 2017 #7

Generally linguists refer the language distinction as "gender" rock May 2017 #5

As a teacher of Spanish, I'd say it is sexist. Lifelong Protester May 2017 #8

Not just the latin-based...Eastern European languages (Slavic) have them too whathehell Dec 2017 #9

Language evolves. LWolf Jan 2018 #10

Message auto-removed Name removed Sep 2018 #11