Le poids du mot genre dans les revendications de « l’écriture inclusive »

Abstract

For gender studies, concord with masculine gender refl ects sexism. This paper defi nes the signifi cation of the French word genre as a formal category, with a marking function in sentences, which has nothing to do with sex. Grammatical gender in language is arbitrary and artifi cial, as many historical examples can demonstrate, except among the prototypical group of animated and sexed beings. As the nomenclature of genders « masculin vs féminin » (masculine vs feminine gender) is the consequence of this prototypical categorization, it should be given up in linguistics, on behalf of the use of gender conceived as purely grammatical, opposing « marked vs unmarked » gender.