Practical guide for the use of non-gendered language in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese

Abstract

In many languages, the grammatical masculine is considered neutral, while the feminine form is marked with a suffix to express female gender, therefore positioning women as a variation of the masculine (Criado, 2019), as can be seen in the English words “steward” and “stewardess”, for instance. In other instances, the masculine form of the word encompasses women, as in “guys” in English or “todos” in Spanish, which is used even if there is a majority of females in a group.