Il genere tra grammatica e società : Strategie di contrasto agli usi sessisti della lingua

This essay seeks to examine some sexist and discriminatory linguistic uses related to nominal gender – i.e. to the gender as noun category – and some linguistic strategies against them. In particular, I will focus on two types of linguistic counter strategies: feminisation and neutralisation. I will argue that these two strategies are based on different political ideas, and, as far as the replacement of over-extended masculine, neutralisation is to be preferred especially in the institutional communication and in normative texts. Instead, as far as the use of singular names with single referents, everyone should choose the gender by which they want to be called.