The University of Barcelona (UB) has published an instruction announcing that it is once again adopting the masculine “as generic” in its normative texts and rejects the masculine/feminine split. The university argues that the masculine as a grammatical gender does not exclude and reserves the duplication for “sensitive grammatical provisions” in which women must be made visible.
In this regard, the UB has said that it has “carried out an instruction following the proposal that extends to the majority of educational systems in the EU and follows the recommendations of the Vives Network of Universities, as well as the Generalitat bodies such as the Parliament of Catalonia”.
Furthermore, he adds that “although we are aware that it is still an open debate, the instruction was endorsed by linguistics experts from the UB. Like all resolutions, a review will be carried out after 6 months to assess any appropriate modifications that need to be introduced.”
Instruction 1/2023 dated July 27 states that “the regulatory effectiveness and legal certainty of regulations, instructions, protocols and other standards” requires clear, concise wording that is understood by everyone given the need to be precise. The text concludes that in the normative provisions it has been decided to adopt the masculine as generic, thus choosing to systematically reject divisions of the masculine and the feminine. The note argues that, from a linguistic point of view, the use of the masculine as “unmarked grammatical gender does not exclude women or non-binary people.
One of the people who opened the story of the need and appropriateness of inclusive language was the recently deceased linguist Carme Junyent. Based on the book Som dones, som lingüistes, som moltes i diem prou (Eumo Editorial), published in 2022 and coordinated by Junyent, the linguist defended that “inclusive language is an ideology” and that “it does not contribute anything to the advancement of equality between men and women.” The linguist and UOC professor Ona Domènech Bagaria participated in a chapter of the book and is in favor of the UB’s instruction on the use of the generic masculine because she assures that it is a grammatical resource that does not exclude. She claims that using the masculine as a generic is not “sexist” and she points out that grammatical gender does not necessarily coincide with sex.
Domènech argues that it is very complicated in our language to be constantly making splits and that “you cannot make” a normative text with inclusive language because “incomprehensible texts” end up being generated, although he points out that defending this does not imply being against grammatical splits. . Domènech declares herself a feminist, but she believes that feminism does not mean “putting the feminine everywhere”
In the case of UB instruction, the institution reserves the “discretionary” split (male and female) in the case of “sensitive” normative provisions when there is an “explicit need” to make the presence of women visible.
