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Sexism In Teaching Spanish: Linguistic Discrimination Is Sometimes Unconscious, Aileen Dever

Kentucky Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

The Spanish language is becoming more flexible in creating feminine forms for occupational names that correspond with the already existing masculine terms. However, there has been some resistance among Spaniards with regard to using feminine forms like física to refer to a physicist who is a woman. Similarly, there have been objections to química (chemist, chemistry), música (musician, music), and others because, some say, such terms are ambiguous and confusing with regard to the professions. Do words and the way they are used significantly affect their meaning? The author discusses this question by highlighting linguistic discrimination in Spanish that is …