The official guardians of the French language on Thursday ended centuries of male linguistic dominance by allowing feminine words for all professions.
The notoriously conservative Academie Francaise, which polices the language and has long resisted change, said there was now “no obstacle in principle” to the wholesale feminization of job titles.
French women doctors could soon be referred to as docteures and teachers as professeures in its official dictionary, which lists presidente as the wife of a head of state rather than a female leader of a nation.
Despite more than half a century of feminism, the language of French working life has remained resolutely male.
Most jobs titles are automatically masculine, apart from a few notable exceptions such as nurse and child-minder.
The male-dominated Academie had previously fiercely opposed change, branding attempts at “inclusive writing” in government documents as an “aberration” that put French “in mortal danger.”
It found a powerful ally in French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a sometime novelist who has called for a clampdown on bids to make French more female-friendly.
He said last year that the “masculine [form] is a neutral form which should be used for terms liable to apply to women,” but in a historic about-turn on Thursday the male-dominated Academie, whose mostly elderly members wear an ornate uniform and sword, approved a report advocating change compiled by three of its four active female members.
One, novelist Dominique Bona, had pointedly complained that it was no accident that the masculine was “chosen as the dominant gender” in French.
The “Immortals,” as they are known, had been expected to cogitate for at least a week on the vexed issue, but instead waved the report through by “a large majority” in a matter of hours.
“The Academie considers that all developments in the language aimed at recognizing the place women have in society today can be envisaged,” it said.
It also opened the door to a more organic usage by saying that it “did not wish to dictate the rules by which titles should be feminized,” saying it would be an “insurmountable task.”
It said the debate about the use of the -eure ending in docteure, for example, “does not constitute a threat to the structure of the language as long as the final ‘e’ is not pronounced.”
Writer and academy member Frederic Vitoux, who heads the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language, said before the decision that he believed the reform would pass.
“For some professions it is simple,” Vitoux said.
“We have never had to asked ourselves should we be able to say ‘actress,’ but for others professions there are objective difficulties, because they cause confusion or don’t work with the root of the word,” he said.
“How, for example, can we say a female doctor [medecin] without confusing it with medecine [the science of medicine]?” Vitoux asked.
However, French speakers in neighboring Belgium and Switzerland have long found ways around the problems.
The official language body in French-speaking Canada ruled on the issue in 1979, urging feminization wherever possible. A female doctor there can be called une medecin or une docteure.
Although the French have feminized professions informally for years, the end of the long official block comes as attempts to bring gender-neutral “inclusive writing” to state documents has sparked impassioned debate.
As it stands, a mixed-gender group of readers, for example, will always be masculine as long as there is one man in the room.
Campaigners for “inclusive writing” — who believe the language is implicitly sexist — say in these situations the French word for readers, lecteurs, should be written as lecteur.rice.s.
However, inserting full stops into words has horrified the purists, and been sent up by others as complicated and confusing.
In 2015, the French High Council for Equality Between Women and Men issued a guide urging public bodies to use feminine forms for jobs such as “firefighter” and “author” where applicable.
Some critics such as philosopher Raphael Enthoven object to what they see as France’s prescriptive approach to the language, which is spoken by about 275 million people worldwide.
They say usage should be allowed to evolve naturally over time.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the