Language as a weapon of mass discrimination

March 9 2017 (17:58 WET)

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) was born in 1713 by initiative of Don Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco y Zúñiga, eighth Marquis of Villena. Throughout its three hundred years of history, a total of 30 directors (men) have governed the destinies of the Academy, which has been integrated by a total of 474 people. Currently, the Institution is composed of 46 academics, of which only 8 are women (17%), but throughout its history only 11 names of women have been known in this reputable entity (2'3%).

The historical exile of women in the RAE and their anecdotal current presence are anachronistic, unfair and excluding of the other half of society that also communicates with words, but the greatest social damage is found in the entrails of the meanings contained in a normative dictionary (DRAE) that perpetuates, against all egalitarian logic, macho and discriminatory turns of other centuries that do not correspond to a social reality where women no longer need marital license to work and where they have full capacity to act and even the same rights as men, at least on paper.

Language is much more than words. Our language is the manifestation of our ideological structure, of our way of understanding and feeling the world, of interpreting reality. Language is a reflection of thought and is the instrument through which we relate and show our way of seeing the world. Not only is reality named, but reality is interpreted. Therefore, language can become a powerful weapon of social discrimination, perpetuating asymmetrical relations between sexes and the historical pattern of male domination, under the consideration of women as object and not subject.

These days, the press has echoed -in an unusual way, being the RAE, very accustomed to gravitating around a parallel universe very far from social reality, at least when it comes to women-, of an initiative with about 80,000 signatures demanding the elimination of the DRAE of some clearly macho meanings. So much has been the controversy that the academics, against all odds, have assumed the commitment to review the definition of "weak sex: set of women", to add a mark of use that will specify that it is an expression "with a derogatory or discriminatory intention". This modification will go in parallel to that of "strong sex: set of men", in which another mark of use will be included, with the warning that whoever says those two words uses them "in an ironic sense."

Spanish is a living language that grows and changes within its social context. The transformations are not dictated from the Academy, they arise spontaneously from society itself.

But the DRAE is a constellation of macho meanings that do not correspond to an egalitarian society.

In the same dictionary, the term "public man: man who has presence and influence in social life" is included and, on the other hand, the meaning of "public woman" is always the same: "prostitute". It is the symbolic negation of the social success of women with a clear message, which does not recognize the capacities and aptitudes of women to excel and be socially influential.

The word "hysteria" is defined, in its first meaning, as "Nervous, chronic disease, more frequent in women than in men, characterized by a great variety of symptoms, mainly functional, and sometimes by convulsive attacks."

The word "muslamen" is defined as "Thighs of a person, especially those of a woman."

A few months ago, the Association of Women Judges of Spain (AMJE) sent a letter to the current management of the Institution requesting the elimination of the meanings related to the female version of certain professions such as prosecutor, shoemaker, doctor, mayor, hairdresser, or judge that reproduce the definition of , "woman of.." , because in the 21st century it is unquestionable that women are fully integrated into the labor market and perform, together with men, all professions or economic activities, in conditions of formal equality.

Such turns, even if they are in a colloquial sense, are untimely and perpetuate sexist stereotypes incompatible with a non-discriminatory society and with education in equality, and contravene the mandate of art. 14 of L 3/ 2007, Organic Law for the effective Equality of Women and Men, which proclaims that "the general criteria of action of the Public Powers will be.... 11. The implementation of a non-sexist language in the administrative field and its promotion in all social, cultural and artistic relations". In addition, and in any case, they are disrespectful to the dignity of working women in this country, who do not need to be "the woman of" to be valued and made visible in all social spheres.

Such meanings can be included in a historical dictionary, but never in a normative dictionary that is an educational tool used by millions of young people in our country, ductile and permeable in values and that is, in addition, the reference for justice when illustrating thousands of judicial resolutions.

But the linguistic discrimination of the DRAE is not a female monopoly, it also affects people of Gypsy ethnicity. In the fifth meaning of the term "Gypsy" is included "trickster", that is: "who with cunning falsehoods and lies tries to deceive someone in a matter". At the end of 2015, and after multiple complaints filed by the State Council of the Gypsy People, the RAE included a note next to the meaning "trickster" in which it reads "used as offensive or discriminatory", which is an improvement, but it is still a patch that oozes discrimination.

The RAE is not an isolated estate of society (of this century), especially since it is an entity that is nourished by important contributions from the public powers. Nor is it immovable in the face of social pressure, as has been seen.

Spanish is a living language that grows and changes within its social context. The transformations are not dictated from the Academy, they arise spontaneously from society itself. People decide the destiny of language and the RAE regulates, not the other way around.

 

Gloria Poyatos Matas, Magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands

Article published in Huffingtonpost.com

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