In short: the reasons for distrusting inclusive language are, among others, functionalist. “The dog is man's best friend” works well. On the other hand, “the dog and the bitch are the best friend of man and woman” is a disaster.
We have grown up feeling included – I speak from my own experience – in formulas as passengers, citizens, friends, children, readers, Barcelonans. But, for some time now, the masculine generic (which includes the feminine) has jumped to the side of what is morally proscribed. If you disagree, you are sexist and discriminating. It is difficult to find speeches that deviate from current orthodoxy, and it is beginning to be more than usual in official documents. This is the case even though splitting words with different generic endings all the time in a speech, in a statement, in an address turns what someone says or writes into an endless nonsense. You choke. The conversation is unnecessarily fluid and cumbersome.
Among the most extravagant things about our country is the crazy imposition of inclusive language from above. One feels like a victim of demagogy, of an imposed political correctness and of verbal hypocrisy. I bring the confusion to these lines today in memory of Carme Junyent, who died on Sunday. This Catalan linguist made this topic her personal trademark. She never held her tongue and she referred to unnecessary duplication as a “comedy that has to end.” It goes without saying that Junyent struck again and again when she explained the obvious: that gender is one thing and sex another, and that there are many uses that can be changed that affect the lexicon, not the grammar.
That's just how language works. What confusion: one fine day and in a laudable attempt to correct decades of neglect of women in the language, someone decided to assume the theory of English, when ours are Romance languages and not Germanic. English has no gender, so they have to mark it. But Spanish and Catalan, yes. Portuguese and Italian also have genders, all Romanesque, and as far as we know our neighbors have not thought of getting into the inclusive garden.
The mess that has been organized here has ended up getting out of hand and ridiculing the feminist movement. We will agree that language has marginalized women for years and that it must change in some aspects to adapt to new situations and social roles. But there are red lines beyond which it falls into the grotesque and stupidity. It is about making visible and correcting inequalities, not twisting the grammar.
