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It’s fascinating how languages evolve overtime, directly reflecting major social and cultural changes. The most recent phenomenon that has caught my attention is the word “actress” in English becoming outdated, and often replaced by “actor” as people are starting to question more the relevance of feminizing a work title. This stood out for me since French feminists are leaning more towards the opposite, i.e. feminizing job titles. Let’s take a look as to why this might be.
As mentioned in my past post about the “Académie française,” until recently some professions did not have a feminine equivalent. French is a very gendered language, where all nouns have a gender and adjectives agree with the gender of the noun they modify. However, some professions have only a masculine form, no feminine equivalent, and coincidentally, these professions are the ones that historically have been male dominated and taken more seriously in terms of prestige.
For example, “ministre” (minister), “écrivain” (writer), “auteur” (author), “médecin” (doctor), “professeur” (professor), “ingénieur” (engineer), “chef” (chief) and many others do not have feminine forms, or only recently started to have them. One of the reasons is that the Académie française had purposefully opposed the feminization of these professions for centuries. In 19th century, they stated that “the work of writer doesn’t suit to women.” Even as recently as of 2002, they released an official statement on this position, however they attributed the reason being that …”the ear doesn’t like these words!” — which is conveniently subjective and easily bias.
Although the Académie has finally accepted to feminize job titles as of 2019, many high-profile, vocally sexist men still refuse to use them, which often results in linguistic nonsense. The most recent example occurred just last week, when the second woman in history, Elizabeth Borne was appointed as the new French Prime Minister. Eric Zemmour, the infamously sexist and racist commentator, refused to use the feminine title when asked about the new Prime Minister. He said “le nouveau Premier ministre” which creates a great deal of linguistic confusion in French since all the adjectives are in the masculine form.
When asked the reason he didn’t want to say “la nouvelle Première ministre,” he replied, “it’s ugly.” (c’est moche). Zemmour’s reaction to the feminine presence in a position of power and his efforts to exclude her from it is all too telling. You can see it in the video.
“Auteur” (feminine form of author) is another job title that has regularly sparked heated debates. What is particularly interesting is that this noun used to have a feminine equivalent, “autrice” from the Latin “auctrix.” The first attempt to eliminate it was made in the 4th century by Latin grammarians, however its popular use continued. In the 17th century, it was the Académie who were responsible for its definitive erasure. However, at the end of the 20th century, the use of “autrice” reappeared amongst linguists and was finally reintroduced in one dictionary in 1996.
French masculine nouns or adjectives ending in “-eur” have four options for the feminine form:
1) “-euse” ( For example: “chanteuse” – female singer)
2) “-rice” ( For example: “actrice” – female actor)
3) “-eure” (For example: “majeure” – major)
4) “-esse” (For example: “doctoresse” – female doctor)
So, the feminine version of “auteur” could be “auteure” “auteuse” “autrice” or “autoresse,” however “autrice” seems to make the most sense with respect to its Latin roots and past use. Some people are reluctant to using the feminized form, so they often use “auteure” since we can not hear the difference in French, due to the last “e” being silent. You could say some are silently protesting. This is also why more and more people tend to use “autrice” to make a direct, often feminist, statement, which is why feminized job titles have become so important in French.
I will mention more words created by French feminists in a future post, so if you are interested, stay tuned!