Ramblings en Voyage: The feminization, or not, of la langue française.
Why do people think that the French are arrogant? Oh, maybe because they have an entire institution solely dedicated to the protection and promotion of the French language. You really, really can't make this stuff up. Unless you're Cardinal Richileu in 1634. Which is when he did exactly that.
This prestigious French academy is dedicated to preserving the prestige of French as a language used by the highest among all societies, as a language of romance and art and creation. The academy's officers are called the Immortals, which I find quite drôle because most of them are so old when they are initiated that their mortality is proved quite quickly upon membership in this elite clan, and they establish the official and complicated rules regarding things such as the appropriate articles and prepositions of nouns and verbs, the correct utilization of tenses in different contexts, and the correct formation of different sentence structures. They preserve and protect the French language, and come out with new and updated dictionaries that inform the French and everyone else how the most beautiful language in the world should be correctly spoken and written.
They also have a reputation for being rigid and stern in their treatment of any potential change that could come to their precious product. And the most recently launched complaint against this institution is its sexism.
In the French language, every noun has its own gender. A notebook → un cahier. Masculine. A person → une personne. Feminine. And so on. Generally, for nouns that could describe either a man or a woman have small changes that indicate the difference. A male actor→ un acteur. A woman → une actrice. There is some consistency in the adjustments for gender of certain nouns. Generally, certain endings have a complementary feminine ending that replaces the male terminaison in the masculine version of the word.
However, there are some exceptions. And here rises question of sexism embedded within the French language.
There is no french word for a female doctor. Un médecin — and for a female doctor, we say une femme médecin. A woman doctor. There is no modification on the word médecin that allows it to belong to women, because to add an -e to the end as is standard French fashion to feminize a word would only change it to la médecine, which is medicine as a discipline, not a person.
Continuing on that note, the French word for leader also has no feminine form. Le chef — not la, the feminine article. And for the leader of the country? Le président. And although there are suggested feminine forms for this term, the one I've encountered most frequently in my readings has been Madame le président. So not exactly the same as having a feminine noun.
This leads us to the question of whether there is an inherent sexism embodied by the French language, and if so, whether that should be changed. What role should l'Académie Française play in this issue?
It isn't so simple either that one can just say to simply add the female version to words that are missing them. For practical reasons, like with the case of médecine which would mean something completely different from the profession, but also for symbolic ones. There are feminists who demand that the masculine version of the word be abandoned, but there are also those who believe that a separate term for women empowers them and sets them apart from other men.
I have a few thoughts on this, and I'll begin with those on the role of the Academy.
The official stance of the Academy so far has been to state that it will not take a stance on the feminization of the French language it wishes to respond instead to the natural progression of society. In other words, it will wait to see how the language develops as society changes, and then adjust the official rules of the language according. In other other words, they are avoiding addressing the issue because they are trying to avoid the reality that they will be met with criticism no matter what they do.
While this is meant to insulate the academy from criticism, it instead makes it seem weak, and unconcerned with the inquality in the French language.
As I stated before, the official role of the French academy is to protect and promote the French language. Protector means that l'Académie Française must take an active role of leadership and lead the French people and guide the language.
As an earnest student of the French language, I believe that part of the charm of the French language is its difficulty to master — that’s what makes it so alluring. The knowledge that to master it would be to be perfect an art form.
Rules are natural, and they are good, so long as they protect and strengthen the language and its utility. The Academy should certainly not shy away from making rules just for fear that they will provoke a negative reaction. The academy has a duty to act as a leader, and not a follower. It should step carefully only when considering what kind of rules they want to enforce, because what they choose gives name to the global reputation of the French language.
I believe that there is a solution that is true to the original intention of feminism that can be implemented without the burden of future miscommunications.
Feminism is not about the differentiation between the two sexes, but rather the parity of the two. It would be closer to mission therefore to decide on one word that is equally applied to the two, and change simply the article. That the feminine forms of careers exist reinforces the idea that women need to be addressed differently from men, that their role in the same profession needs to be named differently simply because they are women. A female doctor isn't first and foremost a doctor — she's a woman. A femme doctor.
This is not to disagree with the notion that women shouldn't feel empowered to be women, and that a female doctor might not think of herself as, first and foremost, a female doctor. This is simply to take back the power that the label of woman first and achievement second has held over women for as long as societal roles have existed, this is how I see all that changing.
There would no longer be any differentiation between the male and female versions. This would be a universal and consistently enforced rule. Every profession would be treated universally, the gender coming second to the career.
Maybe this is a slippery slope, to a French language that is completely ungendered. As a student who struggles every day to remember the arbitrary genders of random nouns, I can't say that that seems a terrible outcome to me. But on va voir. Perhaps we'll just have to see how society progresses.
For more of my random ramblings in this beautiful city, read my other Ramblings en Voyage! Fondly with love, bread, and love of bread — Juliann.
