Feminism meets gender in France

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The French are funny about gender. A masculine word is traditionally used - if need be - to embrace the femi­nine. Un medecin, for instance, could be a female as well as a male doctor. Con­versely, some feminine nouns could also handle distinctly masculine subjects: for example, sa majeste (his or her majesty), une personne (whether man or woman), une vedette (a film star of either sex), or une sours (a male or female mouse).

Some nouns, such as journaliste, can vary the gender according to the scrib­bler's sex: le or la journaliste. A few, such as boulanger/boulangere (baker) or in­stiruteur/institutrice (primary-school teacher), have masculine and feminine forms. But there is no feminine one for such grander equivalents in a lycee (a senior high school), who remain profes­seurs whether female or not. A female president can become une presidente, but a female ambassador remains mad­ame l'ambassadeur: l'ambassadrice would usually be an ambassador's wife. In strict linguistic par­lance, a government min­ister who happens to be a woman is still madame le ministre, though most now ask to be called mad­ame la ministre.

How confusing - even to French people. And how annoying to a grow­ing number of women, not just feminists, now in­creasingly in high places. Lionel Jospin, France's So­cialist prime minister, who happens to be married to a philosopher with femi­nist leanings, has decided to press the feminists' cause. In March he said that feminised job descriptions should be used wherever in common use, even though not yet in the official dictionary; and he told a government commission responsible for dreaming up and vetting new words to study the practice in other French-speaking countries.

But France's two education minis­ters, a man and a wotnan, have decided not to wait for the commission's report, due out in December. All women's job ti­tles should, they declare, be linguistically feminised. A female member of parlia­ment should henceforth be a deputee (with that extra e at the end); a female lawyer becomes une avocate (also with a final e); professions ending in -eur will normally finish with -rice, as in une in­spectrice (an inspector) or may take -euse, as in une chercheuse (a researcher).

The almost all-male Academie Francaise, offi­cial guardian of the French language's purity for 253 years, is splutter­ing. The rank of minister does not, say its ageing im­mortals, "confer the right to modify the use of the French language". Mau­rice Druon, 80, "perpetual secretary" of the 40-mem­ber august body, is threat­eningto take the matter to the Constitutional Court.

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