Language Origin: Language And Society

Language origin: Language and Society

Introduction

1. Origin of the feminist movement 

To begin, we will place briefly how the feminist movement began, in order to understand in a clearer way its influence on society and language. In the 60s, feminism arises as an important political force. The first groups begin to form to free women, and feminist claims enter the field of literary theory and criticism. The two main currents are Anglo -American and French. The main objective of feminist theories has been above all in a political sphere: trying to expose sexist practices to eliminate them, and with the purpose of defense of women. And from there the main problem is observed;Know how to comment on the political sphere with literary criticism.

The fact that in feminism the importance has been put above all in political matters, has caused the woman to be pigeonholed with other oppressed groups . Simone de Beauvoir solved this error by remembering that unlike blacks, women are not a minority .  Next in a brief way we will cite the trajectory of the changes achieved by the feminist movement, which has been divided into four stages, placing the fourth today.

First wave of feminism

It includes from the French Revolution to the second half of the 19th century . I had as the main thing about this wave, to reach equal civil rights, marriage, professionals, and in education.

Important authors of this feminist movement we find authors such as: Mary Wollstonecraft, Olimpia de Gouces, Emilie du Châtelet and Harriet Taylor.

Second wave of feminism

It includes from the second half of the nineteenth century to the second half of the 20th century, (1848-1960). In this second wave, feminists continued to acclaim the equality of civil rights, a review of morals, and universal suffrage.

Third wave of feminism

In the 60s, the appearance of a more open and progressive mentality begins to live in Europe. Everything that involves femininity, published by Betty Friedan in 1963, had a strong impact, collecting the discomfort of women in Europe. The new generations went against the traditional moral model, and later the new feminist movements will begin to appear, in Europe, the United States and Latin America.

Fourth wave of feminism

It arises in the second decade of the 21st century where you start talking about the fourth feminist wave, its main characteristics stand out for being a movement composed of: radical feminism, dissident feminism, eco-feminism, cyberfeminism.

History of feminism in Spain

Feminism has been and is a social movement with greater size in Spain. He arrived with the First Spanish Republic, achieving the first rights as defending education for girls. 

It was more important in the II Spanish Republic with the right to vote among other social rights, in addition to three women among them Campoamor were the first deputies in the Spanish Courts. In 1936 it was the country with more women in government. During these years great changes had been achieved but there was a bad change in the mentality based on contemporary behavior.

With Franco, all the rights achieved were eliminated but in the 60s and 70s, the woman began to have prominence with economic growth with her entry into the labor market. Until the 1978 Constitution it was not possible to recover lost rights. 

Origin of inclusive language in the Castilian language

The feminist critic that begins in the seventies to demand the male traces of the Castilian language. Language is presented as "neutral" while references to men are gathering and omitting women. The feminists indicated "all" to ask where the women were advanced towards an understanding of the language as a genre government technology. This gave rise to exposing both exclusion and moral, biological and legal undervaluation of women. They were demonstrated with evidence, the hierarchizations that the language contains and that is changing when taking as a privileged example of the men. We will highlight Delia Suardíaz, as the first to diagram its problems in 1973. Analyzing the absence of women in various sexist uses of the language.

Does society or language change first?

This is an interesting debate that is taking place in recent years. Some argue that language depends on society, and therefore, if society is macho, the language will also be;others see language as a way to boost society towards change.  From this need to change the language, not always normative forms have emerged to include the female gender. Such as the use of unfolding, the use of [Email Protected], the -e and the -x;or the variation to female in the professions. 

The truth is that for this type of debates, there must be some social change, that change is the one that has occurred over many years and now has its greatest boom, feminism, in this case in Spain, one ofThe most feminist countries internationally, occupying third place. 44% of the Spanish population feel identified with this cause, of which 36% are men and 52% women. The main problems that women have to face according to Spaniards are sexual violence, sexual harassment and physical violence. 46% of Spanish society consider that to eliminate these problems and reach gender equality, you have to do it through classroom education. 

Returning to the theme of language, in the daily field, there are many opinions regarding changing language to respond to the changes that are being experienced. For this work, a series of questions have been asked to different people of different ages. The answer is as follows in the event that it was a man: "If you are in a room where there are a total of 20 people, of which 16 are women and the rest men, do you see that instead of saying" all "were"All" and "all" or even "all"?"The youngest and most close to feminism said the majority are women and it would be necessary to say" all ", other young people said they seemed good to use the unfolding since there are people of both genres. While those older men defended that "all" should be said, because the masculine has always been used, with this they refer to the generic male. 

Faced with this question, young women and more related to feminism defended that it was fair to use the female because the generic masculine can become an oppressor, while others on the same ages responded that it did not imply any problem that the generic use, the generic, theunfolding or female. Those older ones said that it is fine to try to include women but that there are other much more important aspects to focus such as gender violence or salary gap. 

With this we observe how it has influenced society and above all in the mentality of people, although much considers these issues about sexism in the language as something unnecessary of treating or exaggerated. In the case of the SAR, it rejects many of these forms, although little by little it includes some variations, especially in the professional field such as Judge, Edila or Coronela. But the institution’s opinion about inclusive language is clear, forms such as "Todxs", "[Email Protected]"Or" Todes ";in turn defends the generic male, which covers the female too.

Even so, the academy is not considered macho and states that grammar cannot be confused with machismo. This is the situation regarding linguist sexism in Spain, but what do you think in other countries regarding this issue?

Argentina

Society in Argentina, as in most Latin American countries we find a lot of machismo and a population with a very closed mind in several aspects, either homosexuality, sex, freedom of expression and, ultimately, equality betweenpeople.

This is going to be reflected in the language used by the inhabitants, and we wantedin the area where they speak, in its people and in their culture.

Comparison between Spanish and Argentina society, in general machismo is everywhere. But making a comparison from what I have lived and experienced by being a citizen of both countries, Argentine society is much more macho, and in smaller places, normally peoples and neighborhoods this is aggravated. In any case, the inclusive language if it has arrived in Argentina, many demonstrations are made in the main provinces to have this problem in accounts. Although the majority of the population thinks that more important issues should be discussed in terms of women’s freedom and their privileges, such as free abortion, which has been during these very important years in Argentina. Then and to finish I will put examples in both Spanish in Latin America and Spain that are considered macho: 

• All as generic use to say all.
• The use of students to refer to both students and students.
• Parents, which contains the mother and father in case of a heterosexual couple, without taking into account the female part of the whole.
• Also the word members that do not have feminine.
• In Argentina the second last name is not used, that is, the maternal last name.
• In general when talking about a set of people only the male is used. Although now the use of female is being carried out when most people are women.
• You use a lot to refer to them or them, a group of people but neutrally without any gender.

We are going to have an anecdote with an president of Argentina, when she entered the position a senator replied "thank you president". She did not like it and asked to be called president, the man replied that it was correct to use the masculine as such to refer to a woman president, but she saw him as a macho act, for my part I have been investigating and theWord President was hosted in the SAR since 1803, the use of "the president" is fine but they see more correct president.

Italy

Italian society is plagued by macho behaviors, it is clear that there is inequality between man and woman and this is reflected in the high rate of femicides;In turn, the feminist struggle does not have the same relevance as in Spain, there is not so much talk about it. As soon as you leave a big city, it shows much more, it is a machismo that is often internalized, most of the time someone has a macho behavior (whether male or female), it does it unconsciously, almost by custom.

According to my experience in Italy, I believe that the roles of man and woman are separated, and even inadvertently, women are usually considered inferior (more incapable). This in my opinion can be seen very well in young people, in their way of behaving, they see their contemporaries as a boy or girl, and as a result they behave in one way or another;Instead of being the same.

In the Italian language, with respect to gender, we can find issues similar to those found in the Spanish -speaking community. The Italian, like Spanish, comes from Latin, and has, like Spanish, male and female genres.

Debates have emerged regarding the use of genres in the professional field, this comes from the patriarchal society that persisted until recently, in which women and men had specific professions that exceptionally could leave.

An example of this problem in Italy would be the acceptance of the feminine of "Sindaco/A" (mayor);This change many people have reacted with rejection, claiming that it sounds bad, but in turn many years ago the male form of “casalinga /o” has been accepted (housewife).

It is curious as some defenders in the only masculine form, use the Latin language as support, stating that it makes no sense that for a word that in Latin would have only masculine, a form in female is accepted (as is the case of "Sindaco",of Latin Sindacus). This way of thinking is a bit foolish if he looks at her from the conception of the language as changing, as a moving entity.

On the other hand others deny that there is such discrimination against women. This conflict, as already appreciated is very similar to the one in the Spanish language, but it seems that in Spain it has acquired a much greater importance than in the Italian language. There are therefore the same debates about the typical “students” or the use of non -phonic characters such as “Ragazz*” asterisks, instead of ragazzi/e, this is very similar to the use that is being tried to implement in Spain with the@.

France

The French language is very sexist, as in all the languages that come from Latin the word man in French would be "homme" is masculine however in French we find the neutral genre for the word son "Enfant", "Parents" for parents or parents or"Tout Le Monde" for all. The same thing happens that in the Spanish the feminine of several professions has an opposite and degrading meaning:

• A Courtisan / UNE Courtisane a courtier, a prostitute.
• An entraîneur/ une entaîneuse a coach, a coach for them would be a prostitute.
• A Professionnel/ UNE Professionnelle A professional, a sex professional.
• A professor /UNE PROFESSSEURE (recently added the word teacher in French when there was only a professor for both genres.)

More and more Humain is heard instead of homme to refer to person, human, man. Referring to the human species without gender. Society is changing more than language, in the professional and daily field, in those tasks that were normally related to women. More and more we find information on the Internet and pages encouraging society to change the language and fight for language feminization. Over the years the language has been changing especially in the professions, but the mentality remains as macho as before.

Poland

The Polish belongs to the Slavic languages, which are a set of languages belonging to the Indo -European linguistic family compared to Spanish, these languages are not so sexist. In the Polish we find many neutral cases for example the word son is neutral or the word all is neutral and we find a separate word to name the parents. In Polish the word "man" Homo sapiens is neutral, however that does not happen in Latin languages.

Although the language linguistically is not macho we find a very macho society, men like women. All Polish professions have female gender, there are two chances of using the female form using the female or using male adding "lady" in front. The two are accepted by the Polish Academy. But that does not happen with the masculine, not all female professions such as babysitter or cleaner have a male gender:

• Pani Prezydent (president woman)
• Pani bother (Ambassador woman)
• Pani patron (pattern woman)

Talking about sexism in Polish with women from different parts of Poland and different age categories, most replied saying that for the professions they prefer to use the male gender instead of saying it in female, they say that they feel more powerful and intelligent. They believe that we should not complicate our lives, adding feminine forms.

When looking for information about sexism in Slavic languages, in this case in Polish.  In Poland, we see that language is not the reflection of society, linguistically the language is not macho but society does, both men and women.

conclusion

Language is not the reflection of society, in some countries such as Poland, we have a neutral and inclusive language but the country itself is macho, they have the possibility to change for example all professions to female but people do not see it well and continueusing the masculine. Obviously there are many exceptions.

Then we have a non -inclusive language in Spain, but society if it wants to change language, is one of the most feminist countries, but still has a lot left for everyone to accept that inclusive language

In Argentina, politics and society are limited in terms of women’s rights, and normally these issues are not important there, because there are obviously many points to improve in women’s conditions. Therefore, inclusive language will not be given so much importance.

In general it is clear that to move forward, society has to change, we think it has to start from something small such as basic rights, to lead and improve in something more concrete, which in this case would be inclusive language.

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