Inclusive language

The Inguruak Journal, in its commitment to making the work of women and non-binary people in the scientific field more visible, offers its authors a series of ten recommendations to make their contributions more inclusive. This Decalogue, whose options are completely valid and appear in the grammar of Spanish, serves as a first step to highlight the role of these groups in their respective fields of study without making the male figure the preferred one.

As Ana Sánchez Isidoro points out in her course ‘MD Inclusive Language’ and as stipulated in the ‘Notes for equality’ of the University of Alicante, we at Inguruak advise you to consult and follow, as far as possible, the recommendations indicated below:

1.- Avoid the use of the generic masculine whenever we talk about more people apart from the masculine ones.

2.- Make all people visible in our texts, without excluding anyone or being in greater or lesser numbers.

3.- Use all types of splitting to include all people in our writing, without overusing them or making our texts difficult to understand. Alternate the order of appearance of the masculine and feminine forms in the split forms.

4.- Include slashes or hyphens to add feminine or masculine endings to gendered words, only in short documents, forms or e-mails.

5.- It is recommended that the use of -@, -x and -e should only be used in colloquial texts with a very specific purpose.

6.- Change the wording of sentences using the great linguistic variety that exists in the Spanish language, such as the different types of nouns (collective, epicene, common), passive sentences, omission of the subject or words without gender charge (every, minority, etc.).

7.- Use feminine nouns for positions and professions held by women: ministers, conductresses, architects, programmers... and which fall within the norm (remember that certain professions have the same word for the feminine and masculine).

8.- Pay attention to images and/or audiovisual messages (advertising, among others) that are not in accordance with the use of inclusive language and that, consequently, contribute to the construction of stereotypes of women or men.

9.- Be consistent in the use of egalitarian language throughout the discourse. The text should reflect non-sexist language in all its parts, including and naming all the people to whom it is addressed and referred to.

10.- To know that there are more options than the binary (masculine and feminine marking) to make all people visible in the discourse.

Below, we attach works and manuals to deepen the work of scientific production with a gender perspective, which may be useful and of interest: