It was in 1987 that the linguist Alma Sabatini was entrusted with the presidency of the Council of Ministers and the National Commission for Equality and Equal Opportunities to develop “Recommendations for non-sexist use of the Italian language”. More recently, the Accademia della Crusca has entered the game, participating in the Gender and Language project and establishing Guidance on the use of gender in administrative language, together with Prof. Cecilia Robustelli, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and a great expert in this field. Grammatically, there seems to be no doubt: professions must follow the same rules (complicated, for God’s sake) as other nouns, which in Italian are inflected in masculine and feminine. Consequently minister and minister, deputy and deputy, senator and senator. In the plural, it would be better not to use only the overly extended masculine gender, but to speak deputies and deputies-women. “Sounds healthy, doesn’t it? Yesterday, Wednesday, July 27, 2022, the Senate rejected an amendment calling for gender equality in institutional language.
The regulation amendment was proposed by Senator Alessandra Majorino (5 Star Movement) to adopt more inclusive language in Senate written institutional communications. It called for the President’s Council to establish “general criteria so that in institutional communication and in the activities of the administration” respect for gender differences in language is ensured through the adoption of formulas and terminologies that provide for the presence of both sexes through relative morphological differences, or avoiding the use of one sex in defining functions. and roles, in accordance with the principle of equality between men and women”. No asterisks or seam, if the amendment was passed, in Senate documents. formulas such as “senators and senators present” were to simply be used, not just “senators present”.. Again, this seems to be a matter of common sense as well as equality.
Instead of, the proposal received 152 votes in favour, 60 against and 16 abstentions while it required an absolute majority to pass, so 161 votes in favour.. The Fratelli D’Italia, among other things, demanded a secret ballot granted by Casellati, President of the Senate, who usually signs himself “President of the Senate”, even using the masculine article, since “President”, like all names derived from the present participle, is not inflected. “I know that there are women who prefer to be called “president”, “secretary”, but they can still do it,” Majorino said.
The problem, in fact, is that from time immemorial certain professions (considered more prestigious, as a rule: no one creates problems for waiters and waitresses) were in the hands of men and for this reason they were always and only used for men. so much so that now femininity “sounds strange” or seems demeaning. “Professions and functions that for many years were exclusively male dominance,” writes Cecilia Robustelli in Guidance on the use of gender in administrative language, “instead, today men and women dress indifferently, and even if we are very far from a society that gives equal opportunities to both sexes, it seems quite right that the language we usually use should also express this new reality.” The Senate, on the other hand, will go in a different direction for now, perhaps because today, when we talk about gender, inclusion and equality, the ideological polarization is such that even Italian grammar no longer carries weight. The problem is, as explained by linguist Vera Geno, author of the book The only women in an interview for Exibart, “Every word we use is an act of individual identity (telling others who we are), an act of collective identity (identifying the ‘tribe’ we belong to) and an indication of our vision of the world (we human beings conceptualize the world” . reality that surrounds us through words)”. The Senate once again decided to ignore the identity of women.
Source: Elle