The only (non-divisive) way to address the representation of linguistic gender identity is to attempt – albeit not without difficulty – a negotiation between the protection of the common linguistic norm and accommodating the progressive proliferation of identities. This process must begin from a specific point, one for which no general consensus yet exists. There is no grammatical sacrilege in feminizing terms such as sindaco or ministro: in Italian, masculine nouns ending in -o typically take -a in their feminine forms, leaving no structural reason to reject sindaca or ministra. However, inclusive forms such as direttorə and pittorə, autorə and lettorə, rather than challenging their masculine equivalents, risk stalling progress. In classical Latin, the feminine form of pictor (pictrix) did not exist; a woman engaged in painting in ancient Rome had to resort to circumlocutions like pingendi artifex («an artist in the field of painting»). It took centuries to “institutionalize” many feminine forms of professional titles, and we are still far from granting them full social recognition. The current wave of advocacy for a neutral gender risks relegating to obscurity precisely those feminine forms (such as direttrice and pittrice, autrice and lettrice) that we must instead promote – and encourage others to promote – without hesitation.
University of Cagliari, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-0319-9997
Titolo del capitolo
Nel nome del neutro. Problemi e soluzioni
Autori
Massimo Arcangeli
Lingua
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0484-2.04
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Educazione all’uguaglianza di genere ed educazione linguistica
Curatori
Elisabetta Jafrancesco, Ivana Fratter, Ida Tucci
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
164
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0484-2
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0483-5
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0484-2
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0485-9
Collana
Strumenti per la didattica e la ricerca
ISSN della collana
2704-6249
e-ISSN della collana
2704-5870