7

Manly women and womanly men:

the effects of gender reversal

Using the opposite Linguistic Gender—feminine for a man, and masculine for a
woman—can be downright wrong. The main reason for my visit to the remote
Swakap in the Sepik area of New Guinea, the only village where the Gala language
is spoken, was to find out whether they really do have different forms for ‘me:
woman’ and ‘me:man’. I travelled with a group of Manambu speakers, and we
spoke Manambu. The two languages—Manambu and Gala—are related (as close as
English and German). The first thing I had to face was the pronouns. Manambu
uses the form wun for ‘me’, no matter what the sex of the speaker. ‘You’ distin-
guishes gender of the addressee—mən ‘you man’ and ñən ‘you woman’. Personal
pronouns in the two languages are similar in form, but not in meaning—Table .
summarizes this.
The form meaning ‘you feminine’ in Manambu is used as ‘me feminine’ in Gala.
My attempts at speaking Gala were met with some derision. As a language learner
with some Manambu language background, I found it difficult to use the Gala form
ñən to refer to myself (I, a woman, speaking): it sounded to me as if I was using
‘you feminine’ for myself. The Gala speakers laughed at me when I referred to
myself as wun—which means ‘me’ in Manambu, but just ‘me masculine’ in Gala—

TABLE .. Personal pronouns in Gala1 compared with Manambu

Gala Manambu
1 person singular masculine wun
wun
1 person singular feminine ñәn
2 person singular masculine mәn mәn
2 person singular feminine yin ñәn
3 person singular masculine kәl, kәr dә
3 person singular feminine ki lә

How Gender Shapes the World. First edition. Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald.

© Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald . First published in  by Oxford University Press.
  Manly women and womanly men

saying that I was trying to pretend I was a man. ‘Gender reversal’ was out of the
question.
Not so for female speakers of Palestinian Arabic in Tire (Israel): a woman
may refer to herself with a masculine form if she is talking about being tired, sad,
unhappy, or nervous, as in ʔana mažru:ħ min illi Sa:r (I hurt.masc.sg from that.
which happened) ‘I am hurt by what happened’. A normal feminine form—expected
to be used by a female speaker—is mažru:ħa (hurt.fem.sg). Switching Linguistic
Genders in self-reference is a mark of something unpleasant. No changes the other
way round have been observed: men always refer to themselves with masculine
Linguistic Gender.2
Gender reversal can serve a different purpose—that of protection, and deception.
Pankhurst (: ) describes how a family of Amharic speakers use pronouns
to address their little daughter—sometimes with the masculine pronoun, and
sometimes the feminine. In Pankhurst’s words,
when applied to children, this blurring of gender identity is used as a strategy to defeat the evil
eye, and other malignant forces conspiring against the life of a child. By referring to the boy as
‘she’ or the girl as ‘he’, people believe they can trick the ‘death-wishers’ and increase the likelihood
of survival.3

We can recall, from §., that in a system of Linguistic Gender one term may be
functionally unmarked. The masculine Linguistic Gender is the unmarked choice in
Hebrew (see example . and discussion there). Female speakers of Hebrew tend to
use masculine forms to refer to themselves and to other women extending this
unmarked usage. As 'Anat, a Hebrew-speaking hairdresser, put it, ‘talking in the
masculine frames the conversation as more general and less personal’.4 Markedness
in Linguistic Gender systems is the topic of §.. We return to an association between
the ‘unmarked masculine’ and sexist language in §...

Changes in Linguistic Gender assignment to humans may reflect role reversals in

traditional jocular relationships—see §.. Gender reversals may be offensive, or
carry overtones of praise—see §.. Or they can imply endearment and solidarity—
see §..

. Reversing Linguistic Genders with jocular effects

Among the traditional Manambu, classificatory sisters-in-law—female ego’s brothers’
wives (kajal)—would taunt and tease each other. For a woman, her brothers’ wives are
intruders and rivals of sorts. They would come from a different clan group from their
husband and his sisters, and are like a foreign element in a family. A conventional way
of jokingly greeting a brother’s wife is by saying:
 . Reversing Linguistic Genders with jocular effects 

. ñən wun-a ta:kw-añən

you.fem.sg I-LK+fem.sg wife-fem.sg.NOMINAL.PREDICATE
wun ñən-a la:n-adəwun
I you.fem.sg-LK+fem.sg husband-masc.sg.NOMINAL.PREDICATE
‘You (feminine) are my wife, I (masculine) am your husband (feminine)’ (said
by a woman to a woman)
The first clause in this sentence is fully grammatical—the feminine agreement with
the second person feminine pronoun is correct. The second clause is nonsensical,
from the point of view of Manambu grammar. The Linguistic Gender mismatch here
is as follows. The masculine gender is marked on the predicate of the second clause
(‘I am your husband’), but the agreement on the possessive ‘your’ is feminine. The
‘correct’ way to say ‘I (man) am your husband’ is ñən-a-də la:n-adəwun (you.fem.sg-
LK-masc.sg husband-masc.sg.NOMINAL.PREDICATE). The feminine cross-referencing
here is part of the joke—a woman saying . presents herself as a kind of ‘female
husband’. She is virtually assuming the Social Gender identity of a patrilineal
representative of her brother’s—and her own—clan. By jokingly assuming the
masculine Linguistic Gender and thus flaunting her ‘quasi-male’ Social Gender
identity, she takes the upper hand, and demonstrates her mock-superiority. This is
achieved through an anomalous gender mismatch, unacceptable in any other cir-
cumstances. Such pronouncements are typically accompanied by roars of laughter
from the speaker and the audience (and often followed by further nasty comments,
e.g. ‘I (masculine) will kick your fat stomach’, ‘I (masculine) will come at night and
strangle you’, and so on).
Switching genders in this context is not insulting. It is, rather, a way of manipu-
lating one’s Social Gender identity reflected in anomalous gender use. Traditional
women in the villages pride themselves on being able to produce elaborate ‘brother’s
sister to brother’s wife’ jokes: this is gradually becoming a mark of proficiency in
cultural knowledge (which is nowadays on the wane).5 Culturally permitted ‘gender
switch’ is reminiscent of the Naven ritual described by Bateson () for the closely
related Iatmul. The ritual involved cross-dressing and mock Social Gender switch
(we have no record of how this used to correlate with the use of Linguistic Gender;
the ritual is hardly performed at present).6
The female version of Naven was described by Hauser-Schäublin (: , :
–). Naven used to be performed whenever a male or a female child would
undertake a gender-specific task for the first time. During the all-women Naven
ceremony, women would dress as men, and imitate aggressive and proud male
behaviour. As Hauser-Schäublin (: ) puts it, ‘Naven rites celebrate . . . sociocul-
tural achievements’, and ‘their transvestite aspects involve women structurally identi-
fying themselves with their husbands’. We know nothing about the use of Linguistic
Gender in such rituals. Their existence confirms the cultural appropriateness of mock
  Manly women and womanly men

Social Gender shifts in order to emphasize the person’s Social Gender identity, and
patrilineal allegiance. Manambu joking relationships point towards a similar principle.
In Machiguenga, a Peruvian Arawak language, the non-masculine Linguistic
Gender covers females and inanimates. It can be used by men in jocular reference
to a ‘third man’, as a ‘part of typical male joking behaviour in which men feminise
one another with sexual, and especially homosexual, comments and jokes’ (Shepard
: ). In . the verb is marked for feminine gender, and there is a feminine
pronoun. This can be part of a funny story told by men about another man who is
either not present, or who is within earshot but not participating actively in the
conversation. A personal pronoun iro can be added.
. tata-ka iro o-ogo-ge-t-ak-a
what-INDEF she fem-know/thinking-DISTRIBUTIVE-EPENTHETIC-PERFECTIVE-REALIS
‘What in the world is she thinking?’ (referring to something funny the man did)
Glenn Shepard (p.c.) comments that ‘the function of the feminine seems to be to
actively exclude them from the conversation and make them the “object” of the joke
or anecdote. They emphasize the “O” on each feminine pronominal marker, in fact
emphasis on the first syllable of every word in the phrase with a sort of downward
tone with vocal cry, the way women talk to young children to scold them.’ Jocular
switches of Linguistic Gender make people laugh, because they draw attention to
something out of the ordinary and essentially grotesque.

. Offence and praise in Linguistic Gender reversals

In the day-to-day Manambu, changing the Linguistic Gender of humans means
trouble. The Linguistic Gender of inanimates or non-humans depends on their size
and shape (as we saw in §.). If a woman is referred to with masculine Linguistic
Gender, and a man with feminine Linguistic Gender, they are downgraded to the
level of inanimate things. In casual conversations (but hardly ever at open meetings),
a smallish fat woman-like man can be referred to with the feminine Linguistic
Gender. But kə-ø numa-ø du (this-fem.sg big-fem.sg man) ‘this fat round man’
(smallish) can only be said behind the man’s back: this is very rude and offensive.7
A man who displays wrong social behaviour can also be referred to as ‘woman’—but
again, behind his back, not to cause trouble. Someone who stayed in his wife’s village
rather than taking her away, and thus breached the normal patrilocal practices, was
described to me as:
. kə-ø ta:kw la:n-ad
this-fem.sg woman husband-masc.SG.NOMINAL.PREDICATE
‘This (feminine) woman is (masculine) a husband’
Here, the masculine Linguistic Gender is used to mark agreement with a feminine
referent (instead of feminine Linguistic Gender). This mismatch makes speakers
 . Offence and praise in Linguistic Gender reversals 

laugh—it emphasizes the grotesqueness of the culturally inappropriate situation of

Social Gender switch: a man shows patterns of social behaviour associated with a
woman. The man is a kind of ‘female husband’—in fact, someone who has failed to
live up to his Social Gender status. We can recall, from §.., that a man’s house, no
matter how small in size, cannot be referred to with feminine Linguistic Gender—this
is potentially demeaning.
A woman who is too boisterous, large in size, and also imposing and ‘too big for
her boots’ can be called kə-də numa-də ta:kw (this-masc.sg big-masc.sg woman) ‘this
(unusually) big, boisterous, or bossy woman’. This is derogatory, and is not some-
thing one would say to that woman’s face. A woman is classified by her size, as if she
were downgraded to the status of an inanimate referent, reflecting behaviour
inappropriate for her Social Gender.
On another occasion, kə-də numa-də ta:kw (this-masc.sg big-masc.sg woman)
‘this (unusually) big, boisterous or bossy woman’ was said of a woman who sported
an unusually extensive knowledge of totemic names which is traditionally the
domain of a male. In terms of her Social Gender status, she behaved inappropriately;
hence negative connotations of applying the masculine Linguistic Gender to her.
Once again, classifying a human being by their size is demeaning: this implies
bringing a human down to the level of a mere object.
In a number of Berber languages from the Middle Atlas area of Morocco, referring
to a woman with a masculine Linguistic Gender form is equally offensive. In Aït
Mguild and Aït Wirra dialects, the form marked for feminine derivational Linguistic
Gender, tamttutt, means ‘woman’. The masculine form, amettu, denotes a woman
̍̍ ̍̍ ̍̍
with man-like manners and has derogatory overtones of French femme hommasse
‘overly masculine woman’.8
In many proverbs from across the world assembled by Schipper () a woman
who is taller than her partner, or who displays male-type behaviour, is looked down
upon. In Schipper’s (: ) words,

an Ashanti proverb presents the problem as follows, ‘When a tall woman carries palm nuts,
birds eat them off her head’. A tall woman who proudly carries nuts in a bowl on her head is
presented as one who is showing off, and she is warned that she will be punished for it. The
explanation given is that such ‘male’ behaviour is condemned in a woman. The proverb is
warningly quoted to girls who display what society considers to be male traits, and the palm
nuts are a metaphor for ‘the male world’: as long as men are alive and around, a woman is not
supposed to crack nuts. The proverb reminds women to refrain from getting involved in
designated male roles.

The title of Schipper’s book, Never marry a woman with big feet, reflects that same
attitude: women with big man-like feet are physically and socially inappropriate.
An example of how treating a woman as if she were a man may have a demeaning
effect comes from one incident of the male initiation applied to a woman, in the Iatmul
  Manly women and womanly men

village of Palimbei, from the same Sepik region as Manambu (Hauser-Schäublin :
–). A girl who had inadvertently seen men blowing long flutes in a fenced-off
enclosure (something a woman is not allowed to see) was gang-raped, and then
subjected to scarification and a shortened version of male initiation. The initiation
was meant as a severe punishment for a ‘crime’ and stigmatization: the girl felt
degraded and shamed, despite the fact that she had gained what was considered
important ritual knowledge. It was as if she’d lost her appropriate Social Gender status.
The girl never recovered from that experience and soon died.
Changing Linguistic Gender for humans can have overtones of praise, and soli-
darity. The masculine Linguistic Gender in Lokono Arawak has connotations of
something good for animates, inanimates, and also humans (as we can recall from
§..). A man from the speaker’s tribe would normally be referred to with masculine
Linguistic Gender. But if he is despised, the gender will switch to feminine. Males of a
different tribe are referred to with the feminine Linguistic Gender. If one is friends
with them, they become ‘masculine’ in their Linguistic Gender.9
An Amharic-speaking man can address another man with a feminine pronoun ‘as
a term of insult, to belittle’ him (Wołk : ). Such ‘derogatory’ connotations
come about when an elderly person can address a male youngster as ‘feminine’. One
can refer to a male enemy with a feminine pronoun, to show one’s superiority. Hoben
(: ) mentions how the second person singular masculine pronoun antɛ can
be replaced with the corresponding feminine pronoun anci, ‘if the speaker wishes to
insult a male’. This form was used ‘to refer to the rebel groups as a put down’, and
also to express social distance—‘in the context of an older man using the feminine to
address a younger boy’ (Pankhurst : ). The form anci can also be used ‘in a
humorously belittling sense for the smallest in a group of friends or for the clown of a
group’ (Hoben : ).
Addressing women as if they were men has an opposite effect. To use a masculine
pronoun addressing a woman in Amharic means praising her—the implication being
that a woman is acting ‘like a man’ and is thus ‘promoted’ to a manly status
(Pankhurst : ). In Figuig, a North Berber language from Morocco, taməttut
̍̍
‘woman’ can be made masculine (by removing feminine derivational gender mark-
ing). The resulting masculine form, aməttu, means ‘a courageous or a corpulent
̍̍
woman’. This implies approbation (in contrast to the examples from other Berber
languages where the overtones of a ‘masculine woman’ are distinctly pejorative).10
In a few South American languages, reversing Linguistic Gender is a mark of
higher Social Gender status. Jarawara is an Arawá language from southern Amazonia
(with two genders, masculine and feminine). A woman can be referred to with
masculine gender if she is particularly important in the society, or close to the
speaker. A narrator referred to his wife as ‘he’, as ‘a mark of affinity and of respect’
towards her (Dixon : ).
 . Linguistic Gender reversal: endearment and solidarity 

Among the Tariana and their Tucanoan neighbours from the Vaupés River
Basin in Brazilian Amazonia, women were the erstwhile owners of the magic
Yurupary flutes but lost them and cannot even look at them any more. Nowadays,
women are denied access to the magic powers associated with the flute; any word
that sounds similar to the flute’s name used to be a ‘secret’ from women (we return
to the anti-women taboo register, and the status of women among the Tariana, in
Chapter ). But a particularly respected and important woman is promoted to an
honorary ‘manhood’. A woman in Tariana is normally referred to with feminine
gender, on the verb, or the pronoun duha ‘she’ or a classifier for females (‑ma). The
Woman-Creator or a particularly powerful woman is consistently talked about as diha
‘he’ and requires a human classifier (-ite), just as any man would. So was a particularly
knowledgeable woman (the mother of my major consultants). A common English
expression man up! meaning ‘get your act together in such a way as a real man would’—
especially if applied to a woman—would be an uncanny analogy here. ‘Man’ in the
Tariana lore epitomizes strength and prowess, while women are to blame for many
mishaps, past and present. We turn to this again in §.. This is very different from
Linguistic Gender switches in Manambu which are derogatory in essence: they reflect
behaviour inappropriate for one’s Social Gender.

. Linguistic Gender reversal: endearment and solidarity

Overtones of Linguistic Gender reversal may differ depending on the context. Using
a feminine pronoun to a man in colloquial Amharic does not always imply an insult.
Second person feminine pronouns are widely employed by men to address other
men, as a term of rapprochement, or endearment (Wołk : –, Pankhurst
). According to Hoben (: ), in Addis Ababa, but not in the countryside,
male friends may address each other as anci ‘you singular feminine’, to express
affection.11 This reminds us of how feminine Linguistic Gender assignment to
lower animates and inanimates may have overtones of endearment and diminution
(as we saw for Oromo, in §..). The masculine pronoun can also be used between
women as a mark of ‘attachment and closeness’ (Pankhurst : ).
In Arabic, a feminine noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb form can be used to a boy,
and a masculine one to a girl. So, one can say, in Arabic, wēn ruħti yā,ʼ binti ‘Where
did you go, little girl?’ to a boy, and inta žuʔān ‘Are you (masculine) hungry
(masculine)?’ to a girl.12
In Russian, a woman can be affectionately addressed with a form marked for
masculine gender: the author, a woman, has often been addressed as moj horoshij ‘my
good one-masculine-singular’ or moj malenjkij ‘my little one-masculine singular’ by
older native speakers of the language (all of them women). A younger woman can
address a group of women as Rebjata ‘Guys!’ (using a masculine Linguistic Gender
  Manly women and womanly men

form). This is a mark of camaraderie, similar to girl-only groups addressing each

other as Hey, guys! in the USA.13
In Modern Hebrew, a man can address close female friends, relatives, associates,
and partners with masculine pronouns, and verbal and adjectival forms, as a sign of
affection, intimacy, and solidarity. Close female friends and relatives can do the same
to each other, with similar effect. Tobin (: –) describes Linguistic Gender
reversal in a family of native Hebrew speakers, with two non-identical twin daughters
½ years of age: one twin is ‘bigger’ and the other one is ‘smaller’. The smaller twin is
the one who most frequently uses the masculine Linguistic Gender forms to refer to
herself; others also use the masculine Linguistic Gender to talk to her. In one
example, the smaller twin talks about herself as if she were a boy, asking her
grandmother to take care of her rather than of her bigger sister:
. ki hi gdolah ve-ani katan
because she big.fem.sg and-I small.masc.sg
‘Because she is big (feminine) and I am small (masculine)’
The twins were once sent to their room as a punishment. They both reversed
genders while talking to each other as a sign of solidarity, as they negotiated their
uncomfortable situation:
.a rotseh lesaxek?
want.masc.sg to.play
‘Ya wanna play?’
.b lo, aval tixtov mixtav le-aba ve-tivakesh slixa
no but write.IMPV.masc.sg letter to-daddy and-ask.IMPV.masc.sg sorry
‘No, but write a letter to Daddy and apologize’
The father was telling the smaller twin what she was like as a baby using feminine
forms. He switched to the masculine form when he tells her that she had to stay in the
hospital alone to become stronger before they could take her home:
. ki hayita tsarix lehithazek ktsat
because you.were.masc.sg necessary.masc.sg to.become.strong little
‘Because you had to become a little stronger’
Masculine Linguistic Gender marks solidarity, intimacy, and protection. Feminine
Linguistic Gender is not used this way.
The neuter Linguistic Gender in Bulgarian includes inanimates. But it may have
overtones of joking endearment if applied to humans. In colloquial Bulgarian a neuter
gender form can be used to refer to a man or to a woman, marking condescension
or endearment. A young teacher (daskal, masculine) can be addressed as daskalče
(neuter) by an older and a wealthier man. A woman behaving in a silly way can be
addressed as prosto (simple+neuter gender) ‘dear silly one’.14
 . Linguistic Gender reversal: endearment and solidarity 

A somewhat different kind of Linguistic Gender reversal has been described for the
Iroquoian languages Mohawk, Oneida, and Onondaga. A woman can be referred to
with either the special feminine, or the neuter form. The feminine form is also used in
the meaning of ‘people in general, and when sex is not specified. The neuter form
covers animals.’15 The differences between the two ways of talking about a woman
are subtle. The choice of the prefix in Oneida correlates with what the woman is like:
a small and graceful woman will be referred to as ‘feminine’, and a large and
aggressive one would be treated as ‘neuter’. According to Bonvillain (: –),
the feminine pronouns and agreement prefixes (ye-/ya-) in Mohawk are used for
‘female human beings who are regarded in some prestigeful or respectful way by the
speaker’, or ‘for whom the speaker has the feeling of affection or closeness’. The
alternative, the ‘neuter’ (ka-/wa-), is used otherwise. In Bonvillain’s words, ‘it may or
may not reflect a momentary or general negative feeling on the part of the speaker
toward the female who is spoken about. Some speakers feel that . . . a girl or a woman
who is awkward or aggressive may more readily fall into this category, whereas one
who is graceful and quiet may tend to be classed in the other way.’16
The two ways of referring to women vary across Mohawk communities. Some
people employ the feminine-indefinite form as a mark of endearment, when talking
about ‘gentler’ speakers, and the ‘neuter’ form for ‘someone who is really rough’. The
feminine form ie-ksa'tí:io ‘she is pretty’ would be used for someone ‘a bit more
ladylike’, and the neuter form ka-ksa'tí:io ‘she is pretty’ would be preferred for someone
attractive the man would ‘like to go out with’ (but perhaps not to marry). Some
comment that a neuter form ‘would be used for someone you don’t respect: an animal
or a stranger’. And indeed, these forms are common for non-Mohawk women.
A neuter form may imply that the speaker does not like the woman. In general,
feminine-indefinite forms may signal endearment toward family members, and neuter
forms may signal familiarity among close friends. The feminine-indefinite forms mark
respect, but the neuter forms are the ones used to talk about people one does not know
well. The history, and reconstruction, of Northern Iroquoian languages and Mohawk
shows that the erstwhile indefinite pronoun and prefix on verbs came to be used to
refer to women as a sign of respect—reflected in some of the current usage. The
feminine-neuter is the result of reinterpretation of the third person category once the
new masculine was introduced.17
Once again, a word of warning. In Mithun’s words (: ), the feminine-
indefinite category ‘did not emerge from a view of women as quintessential or
prototypical human beings’, nor did the ‘feminine-neuter’ category ‘develop from a
view of women as akin to animals’. Mithun (: ) reports that ‘speakers are
usually surprised when it is brought to their attention. Some are horrified to realize
that they are using the same forms for women and animals. They report that they
never thought about it, and that “No one notices”.’ We return to the status of
‘women’ in Iroquoian languages in §..18
  Manly women and womanly men

Reversal in self-reference may serve as marker of gender identity, for transgender

and transsexual people. We can recall, from §., how the title of the autobiography
of Brigitte Martel, a transsexual male who became female, captured the change of her
Natural and Social Gender from male to female: Né homme, comment je suis devenue
femme—‘Born (masculine) a man, how I became (feminine) woman’. We return to
men’s and women’s speech and transgender practices in §..

. Men as women, women as men: a summary

of Linguistic Gender reversals
Changing Linguistic Gender of inanimates may highlight their physical features,
mark endearment or value. Changing Linguistic Gender of humans reflects changing
Social Gender relationships. When Linguistic Genders are reversed in jocular con-
texts in Machiguenga and Manambu, the grotesque effect of it makes people laugh.
Reversing genders may result in mortal offence, or in ‘promoting’ a woman to a
higher manly status. Addressing a woman as if she were a man may signal affection
or solidarity. Addressing a man as if he were a woman may be a sign of endearment.
Or it may imply dragging him down to a ‘woman’s’ level. Linguistic Gender reversal
can have an opposite effect in the same language: addressing men as women in
Amharic may sound insulting in one context, and endearing in another (depending
on the relative age of people and their relationships). We can recall, from earlier in
this chapter, that women speakers of Palestinian Arabic refer to themselves as ‘men’
if there is something wrong with them—changing Linguistic Genders implies an
unusual and an uncomfortable state of affairs.
Linguistic Gender reversals highlight positive and negative associations with men
and women as social constructs. Here, Linguistic Gender reflects the stereotypes of
Social Gender entombed in the language. Tables . and . summarize examples
discussed so far.
Idiomatic expressions reflect attitudes to Social Genders and their comparative
value. English drama queen or old wife when mockingly applied to a non-manly man
have a similar pejorative and insulting effect as do gender switches in Manambu,
Amharic, and Lokono in Table .. Saying ‘man up!’ to a woman urges a woman to
act in a manly way and to be as good as a man—similar to Lokono, Amharic, Figuig,

TABLE .. Treating ‘men’ as ‘women’: masculine to feminine Linguistic Gender

reversal

Masculine to feminine reversal Language examples discussed

pejorative and insulting Manambu, Amharic, Lokono
endearment and solidarity Amharic, Arabic, and Marathi baby talk
 . Attitudes to Social Genders through Linguistic Gender reversals 

TABLE .. Treating ‘women’ as ‘men’: feminine to masculine Linguistic Gender

reversal
Feminine to masculine reversal
pejorative: downgrading a woman as if she
were too bossy and ‘too big for her boots’
adding value: ‘promoting’ a woman to male
status
endearment and solidarity
Language examples discussed
Manambu; Aït Mguild, Aït Wirra (North
Berber)
Lokono, Amharic, Figuig, Jarawara, Tariana
Arabic and Marathi baby talk, Russian,
Modern Hebrew

Jarawara, and Tariana in Table .. We now turn to further ways of expressing
attitudes to Social Genders through the use of Linguistic Genders.

. Attitudes to Social Genders through Linguistic Gender reversals

Social Gender stereotypes associated with Natural Gender can be seen through the
use of pronouns marked for Linguistic Gender in English. Traditional grammarians
insist that the choice of gender-sensitive third person singular pronouns is based
on Natural Gender: ‘she’ for women, ‘he’ for men, and ‘it’ for inanimates. However,
in many varieties of English the situation is not that straightforward. ‘She’ can have
overtones of ‘smallness’ (in agreement with the principles we saw in Chapter ): a bee
was referred to as ‘she’ as early as John Lily’s Euphues (). In the following
modern conversation, an ant was referred to as he—emphasizing the speaker’s
empathy with the insect who is referred to as if it was a human.19
. Speaker A: Ah there’s an ant
Speaker B: Well catch it
Speaker A: Well put him outside/ let him go on to—/ Look he’s on the toaster /
Now put him outside nicely . . . / he may be someone else’s ant you
know
In some varieties of Australian English, ‘she’ can be used to refer to unruly objects for
which one has antipathy (Wales : ):
. She’s an absolute bastard, this truck.
In the English poetic tradition, ‘ “masculine”-marked words were grouped according
to supposedly “manly” attributes (mostly positive) and “feminine”-marked words
according to “womanly” attributes (some positive, many negative): such as strong,
active, aggressive, powerful, clever, big fierce, giving (“manly”); versus weak, timid,
passive, loving, soft, helpful, beautiful, small, moral, receptive (“womanly”)’ (Wales
  Manly women and womanly men

: ). This constellation of semantic features of Natural and Social Genders as
reflected in Linguistic Gender usage can be conceived as a kind of ‘sexist symbolism’.20
Mathiot (b) conducted a comprehensive study of sex roles of men and women
(that is, their Social Gender) as revealed through Linguistic Gender reference, to see
how the images of males and females can be reflected in the use of personal pronouns
in English. The use of the pronouns he and she observed with inanimate referents in
American English was found to correlate with a number of stereotyped features—
part of the inherent image and role image American men and women have of
themselves, and of each other.
The semantic opposition BEAUTIFUL versus UGLY manifests men’s conception of
women’s versus men’s appearance; and the semantic opposition manifesting men’s
conception of women’s and men’s achievement potential is INCOMPETENT versus
COMPETENT. Thus a beautiful flower is referred to as ‘she’, and an ugly cactus as
‘he’.21 A car referred to as a prized possession is ‘she’. An unruly storm is also ‘she’;
and so is the troublesome refrigerator.
In contrast, the inherent image and role image American women have of them-
selves and of men can be formulated in one semantic opposition: MATURE versus
INFANTILE (Mathiot b: ). A chair which has lost its leg is a ‘he’, and so is a
typewriter that would not work. Table . summarizes features that consistently
came about in men talking about women and about themselves, and women talking
about men and themselves.
English spoken in Tasmania (described by Pawley ) has certain rules govern-
ing the choice of pronouns he and she with non-human referents. When the sex of a
higher animal is not known, the animal is referred to as ‘he’. He is used with plants
or parts of living plants, and any item of goods or portable property (other than
vehicles) that is viewed as trade goods rather than a personal possession. As Pawley
(: ; ) puts it, ‘using “she” for nouns referring to portable goods (not
vehicles) is a marker of “attachment”, or something one manipulates’. For instance, a
soccer ball has been kicked into a tree. Player, shaking the branch, says: ‘She’s stuck.
Come down, you bitch!’.

TABLE .. Meanings of ‘she’ vs ‘he’ in American English (Mathiot b)22

Men’s conception of men and women Women’s conception of
men and women
men women men women
ugly beautiful
competent incompetent
infantile mature
brave a challenge to, or a reward for, men
good-natured men’s prized possessions
 . Attitudes to Social Genders through Linguistic Gender reversals 

The negative connotations of feminine Linguistic Gender surface in many deriv-

ational forms belonging to feminine Linguistic Gender with feminine Natural Gen-
der reference. As Baron (: –) puts it,

feminine English nouns tend to acquire negative connotations at a much faster rate than
masculine or neuter ones, creating semantic imbalances in originally parallel masculine/
feminine pairs like fox—vixen and governor—governess. Efforts on the part of feminists and
usage critics to eliminate feminine nouns like authoress in favour of unmarked equivalents on
the grounds that the marked terms are demeaning have been only partially successful.

Many feminine derivations in ‑ette in English have a negative feel about them; some,
like suffragette, were created as somewhat derogatory in the first place (as we recall
from §..). The word spin-ster originally meant ‘a woman (or, rarely, a man) who
spins’ (Oxford English Dictionary). In the seventeenth century, it came to be used as
‘the proper legal title of one still unmarried’ (presumably by association of women with
the needle-trade). In the eighteenth century, spinster acquired the pejorative meaning
it has today, of ‘a woman still unmarried; especially one beyond the usual age for
marriage, an old maid’. In their feminist dictionary, Kramarae and Treichler (:
–) further add to the description of spinster: ‘Like most terms connected with
women, it became a euphemism for mistress, or prostitute’, a ‘figure of fun and ridicule
to those men who see themselves as essential to a woman’s existence’.23
Deprecatory overtones of ‘femininity’ appear in further English expressions such
as female logic, old wives’ tale, old woman. In his letter to his friend James Hogg on 
March , Lord Byron referred depreciatingly to his fellow poets Coleridge and
Southey as ‘mere old wives’.24 One can say He is a drama queen about a particularly
fussy man. He is an old woman was once used to refer to a now deceased linguist who
was incapable of fulfilling his editorial responsibilities and was worrying about every
minute detail of a task he was not up to. This is reminiscent of the deprecatory use of
feminine Linguistic Gender in Manambu (in §.), when talking about a man who is
not up to the standards of the Social Gender expectations in the society. Unlike
Manambu, English does not have a corresponding masculine equivalent: saying *She
is a drama king or *She is an old man is not idiomatic.
English is not unique in having negative overtones ascribed to derivational forms of
feminine Linguistic Gender. The general term for ‘dean’ in Russian is dekan (masculine
Linguistic Gender). Feminine derivations—dekanša, or dekanixa—have distinctly
pejorative overtones. The general term for postgraduate student is masculine aspirant.
Zemskaya, Kitajgorodskaja, and Rozanova (: ) cite Saratov as a city where the
corresponding feminine form aspirantka is perceived as slighting (this overtone is
absent from the standard language).25 The female version of poet ‘poet’, poètessa, did
not have slighting overtones in the nineteenth century. However, in the s Anna
Akhmatova, one of the greatest Russian poets, told Yuri Aikhenvald that she should be
referred to as a ‘poet’, and not downgraded to a mere ‘poètessa’.26
  Manly women and womanly men

Many professions in Brazilian Portuguese have a generic masculine term and a

feminine counterpart, with no negative feelings about them. A male teacher (from
kindergarten to university) is professor, and the female one is professor-a, a male
judge is juiz, and a female judge is juiz-a; a male lawyer is advogado, and a female is
advogad-a. A male president is presidente. On the surface of it, the female form
president-a refers either to a president’s wife, or to a woman who ‘presides’. However,
in common usage presidenta ‘female president’ used to have strong overtones of a
bossy and merciless lady—as big for her boots as a masculine woman among the
Manambu. Things changed drastically when Dilma Rousseff was elected the first
female president of Brazil. A special law of the Brazilian government passed on
 April  ‘determined an obligatory usage of gender inflexion for professions
and degrees’, leaving no option but to use the term presidenta for the female
president.27 This is one way in which Linguistic Gender reflects social changes and
can be sensitive to language planning: we return to changes in anaphoric and
derivational gender as targets in the struggle against ‘sexist’ language in §..
Words of the masculine Linguistic Gender and masculine pronouns can have
generic senses and be used as a functionally unmarked option. This is what we turn
to now.

. ‘Women’ as a subtype of ‘men’? The overtones

of masculine generics
Traditional practice in English was to employ the masculine Linguistic Gender
pronoun he or man when no Linguistic Gender specification was intended, e.g.
Man is mortal. The use of the masculine pronoun he in English for generic referents
and those whose Natural Gender is not known has been a controversial issue for
some time. Until recently, he in English was generally used as a term for human
reference and also as one subordinate term, for male reference (see the discussion in
Alpher ). The meanings of quite a few nouns in English show a bias: high-status
occupational terms such as lawyer, physician, or scientist are traditionally referred to
by the masculine pronoun he even in the contexts where Natural Gender (or sex) is
irrelevant or not known. In contrast, a nurse, a primary schoolteacher, or a secretary
would be more likely to be a woman, and referred to as she. The Social Gender
stereotypes are encroaching upon the use of Linguistic Gender.
During recent years, it has become the custom that the generic unmarked pronoun
‘they’ should be generally used, to avoid what was perceived as linguistic sexism. (We
return to the story of ‘he’ and ‘man’ in the context of language planning and social
change in Chapter .) A similar concern applies to the use of ‘man’ as a generic term
in modern English: Baron (: ) offers a history of attempts to get rid of ‘man’
as a generic term seen as a reflection of Social Gender-based male dominance:
 . ‘Women’ as a subtype of ‘men’? 

Perhaps most troublesome to linguists, feminists and usage critics alike has been the use of the
word man itself, in phrases such as the man in the street and compounds like mankind and
chairman. Some authorities argue that man, at first a word in which both genders were
combined, now refers primarily to males, while others claim that the neutral sense of man is
not dead and that the word still retains the primary meaning ‘human being’. In any case, one
must admit that in actual use it is often unclear whether man refers to people in general or to
men only.

Masculine forms used as generics may be seen as inherently sexist—for some, they
automatically reflect the assumption that the male of the species represents the
species itself. The male interpretation of referents is hard to avoid if we use the
generic masculine ‘he’ (as McConnell-Ginet :  puts it). The generic ‘he’ and
‘man’ reduce the ‘visibility’ of women. Susan Sontag (: ) offers a stronger
statement: ‘grammar, the ultimate arena of sexist brainwashing, conceals the very
existence of women—except in special situations.’ Many sources on English indir-
ectly confirm the view. Samuel Johnson, in his  classic dictionary of English,
defines ‘man’ as a ‘human being, not a woman, not a boy’; a woman is ‘the female of
the human race’. The  Webster dictionary defines ‘man’ as ‘mankind, the human
race, the whole species of human beings’, while woman is ‘the female of the human
race, grown to adult years’.28
It may appear that the issue of the generic masculine pronoun does not arise in
languages with pervasive agreement gender. In Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Spanish,
French, Manambu, and many other languages a pronoun used to refer to a person, or
an entity, will be strictly chosen by its Linguistic Gender. A turnip in German (die
Rübe) is feminine, and will have to be referred to as ‘she’. A man (der Mensch) is
masculine, and a woman (die Frau) is feminine: they will be referred to as ‘he’ and
‘she’ respectively. We saw in §.. that a girl (das Mädchen) is neuter, and is often
referred to as es ‘it’; however, grown up girls may be talked about as sie ‘she’. But
the generic term for humans is either the same as ‘man’ (German Mensch, French
homme) or is masculine, in its Linguistic Gender (as in Russian čelovek). Vinogradov
(: ) stressed the idea of a ‘general human being’ expressed through masculine
forms in Russian.
Experimental studies point towards sexist overtones of masculine generic in
German.29 Masculine terms der Leser ‘reader’, der Student ‘student’, der Bewerber
‘applicant’ tend to be interpreted by speakers as predominantly referring to ‘man’.
This was shown in an experiment conducted by Braun, Sczesny, and Stahlberg
(). To avoid a choice between plural forms like Studenten ‘masculine students’
and Studentinnen ‘female students’, ‘feminized’ generics were introduced—similar in
form to feminine plurals but with the capital letter I, e.g. StudentInnen, subsuming
male and female students. Feminized generics with capital letter I (visible only in
written language) were perceived by speakers as being more inclusive of women than
male generics. Other studies yielded different results. Nissen () shows that
  Manly women and womanly men

generic masculine forms in Spanish did show a sexist bias in , but not in .
During the span of ten years, the visibility of women in social life has increased
significantly—and as a consequence, generic terms have grown to be more inclusive
of women. The interpretation of generics can be linked to recent social changes (we
return to this in Chapter ). The generic masculine seen as an inherently ‘sexist’
reflection of Social Gender stereotypes makes Linguistic Gender reference a phe-
nomenon ripe for linguistic reforms. But do languages with a generic feminine ‘she’
and the feminine Linguistic Gender as an unmarked choice reflect a better world?

. Markedness, status, and power in Linguistic Gender choice

Speakers—and linguists—of many European languages are acutely aware of a con-
nection between the usage of form with male Natural Gender reference, and male
dominance—viewed as ‘sexist’ language. The linguistic phenomenon—functional
unmarkedness of masculine Linguistic Gender in its many forms—is associated
with male dominance in the sphere of Social Gender: we can recall, from §., that
the masculine, or the feminine, gender can be an unmarked choice. This is the case
in many Indo-European and Semitic languages—so much so that all speakers of
Modern Hebrew have no qualms about using second singular masculine pronoun to
refer to people in general (men and women—as we will see in §..). At the same
time, language reforms aimed at restoring the balance between the use of masculine
and feminine forms reflect the intertwined societal perception of Natural Gender,
Linguistic Gender, and Social Gender (we return to this in §.). In other words,
lack of markedness—or having the masculine form as a default choice—is viewed as
the epitome of Social Gender status, and power.
In a few languages of the world, the feminine Linguistic Gender is functionally
unmarked. That is, if I don’t know whether a man or a woman is coming, I will use
feminine Linguistic Gender to refer to the ‘unknown’. Feminine Linguistic Gender is
the unmarked choice in Manambu anaphoric reference and agreement (as we saw in
§.). But in the lexicon things are different. The noun du ‘man’ is used as a generic
term for ‘human beings’. Some of the spirits of the jungle are human-like; and so are
the spirits of the deceased people. When telling stories about them, speakers stress that
they are humans, by saying du-adi (man-plural), ‘they are people’. The expression
du kui (man meat) ‘human flesh’—which reflects earlier cannibalistic practices—is
another instance of a ‘generic’ man. The noun du ‘man’ can also mean ‘human body’.
The word for woman is not used this way.30 We can recall that valuable and important
objects belong to the masculine Linguistic Gender—which is congruent with the
Manambu focus on male-oriented cults (§..).
In Jarawara, masculine is the functionally marked gender (see Dixon : –,
for discussion). It is used for reference to human males (and other referents assigned
to masculine Linguistic Gender). The feminine Linguistic Gender is the default
 . Markedness, status, and power 

choice (as we can recall from §.). All personal pronouns require feminine agree-
ment forms—R. M. W. Dixon reports that he found it rather difficult to refer to
himself ‘as if ’ he were a woman. The functionally unmarked choice—feminine, or
‘non-masculine’—is used for reference to human females (and referents belonging to
the feminine Linguistic Gender), and also when there is no gender specification. But
this does not imply that women are higher in status than men: as we recall from §.,
an important woman can be referred to with masculine gender—as if she were
promoted to the status of an honorary ‘male’. There is no reason to believe that
having feminine Linguistic Gender as a default choice automatically accords them a
privileged status in the society.
In Mohawk and other North Iroquoian languages, the same Linguistic Gender
category and forms are used for women and generic reference to humans (as we saw
in §.). As Chafe (: –) puts it, for Seneca:

the masculine [third person subject prefix] morpheme . . . denotes a male human being. The
feminine morpheme . . . either denotes a female human being or is an indefinite reference to
people in general, translatable as people, they, one. The neuter morpheme . . . denotes either an
animal or something inanimate.

How does the ‘distinctiveness’ of the masculine gender forms, as the functionally
and formally marked choice in Northern Iroquoian languages, correlate with the
cultural patterns and the Social Gender status of women?31 Sources on traditional
practices in Northern Iroquoian societies (including the Huron, the Seneca, and also
the Onondaga) suggest that

sex roles were distributed in Iroquois society in such a way that men were conspicuous, often
even flamboyant, and invested with decision-making powers, whereas women stayed in the
background, a position from which they nevertheless exerted considerable influence on what
men did. Women were neither unimportant nor undervalued. On the contrary, they were
responsible for keeping life going, both from day to day and from generation to generation.
The importance of women in Iroquoian culture has been emphasized by the anthropologist
Cara Richards, who went so far as to exclaim, ‘If you must be born a woman, try to be an
Onondaga’.

According to Richards (: ), the ‘relatively high status of Iroquois women’
was reflected in the matrilineal descent, and also the fact that land belonged to women,
and women were the ones who appointed the chiefs. The men ‘stood out as highly
visible figures against this essentially female background’. This matches the principles
of Linguistic Gender marking across Northern Iroquoian languages—with their special
marking for masculine gender and ‘its association of women with undifferentiated
people in general’ (Chafe : ). This is echoed by Mithun (: ):
The use of the same forms for female persons, generics, and indefinites suggests a link between
grammar and culture. Iroquoian culture is characterized by longstanding matrilineal and
  Manly women and womanly men

matrilocal traditions. Clan membership is inherited through the mother. Land was traditionally
passed down from mothers to daughters. Women have always been highly respected, and they
serve important community roles. Chiefs were traditionally men, but they were appointed (and
potentially recalled) by the clan mothers. It is perhaps no surprise that generic persons should be
represented by Feminine gender forms.

But in actual fact, ‘the associations between language and culture suggested by use
of one category of women and generics on the one hand, and a separate category for
some women and animals on the other, are not as direct as might be assumed’
(Mithun : ; see also note  in Chapter  for their history). That the same
gender category happens to be used ‘for women and generic human beings’ is the
result of historical development, from the use ‘of original indefinite category to
certain women as a sign of respect’ (p. ).
A challenge to a straightforward correlation between Linguistic Gender marked-
ness and women’s societal status comes from further quarters. Social Gender roles in
many indigenous societies in North America can be described in terms similar to
Northern Iroquoian, with men having high ‘visibility’. However, far from all of them
have developed feminine as the unmarked Linguistic Gender (see Chafe :
–). A culture pattern may at some point in time have motivated the linguistic
pattern; however, the exact causal relationship is hard to argue.
Correlations between functional markedness of Linguistic Gender and Social
Gender roles can be interpreted in two, mutually exclusive ways:
. Having masculine gender forms as a functionally ‘unmarked’ category can be
understood as a token of ‘male dominance’ (and fought against). This is often
assumed to be the case in Modern English, and is reflected in the contemporary
debate against the use of terms with masculine referents as generic ones—see
§..
. Alternatively, having masculine gender as a ‘special’, marked one may be
understood as a token of special importance and particular ‘visibility’ of
males in cultural practices. This appears to be the case in Jarawara, and in the
Northern Iroquoian examples.
As Mithun (: ) puts it, there is no doubt that ‘relations do exist between
grammatical gender categories and culture’. But they are rarely straightforward and
simplistic. Cultural norms and the Social Gender status cannot be directly correlated
with, or inferred from, the linguistic form and markedness relations in Linguistic
Gender. However, the choice of Linguistic Gender may reflect stereotypes and
expectations associated with Social Gender and with Natural Gender. This is espe-
cially salient for humans with their defined social roles, and particularly so in
languages whose speakers are aware of the meanings of genders.
 . Markedness, status, and power 

NOTES AND SOURCES

. Based on my notes . Laycock (: ) wrote down the first person forms correctly;
he erroneously interpreted second feminine form as having third feminine reference.
. Rosenhouse and Dbayyat (: –); see there for further details and additional
explanation of the gender switch.
. Hoben (: –) tells a similar story: ‘Once in a while in the countryside, parents call a
son anci (you feminine) or a daughter antɛ (you masculine—A.Y.A.). The usual explan-
ation is that earlier children of the couple died in infancy. The pronoun switch is made in
an effort to conceal the true identity of this child from the evil forces that attacked the
other babies. This is not a case of expressive variation: it is rather one of deception.’ See
also Repp (: ), for comparable practices in Arabic.
. See Sa'ar (: –); the same principle applies in Palestinian Arabic.
. See Aikhenvald (: –), on loss of cultural knowledge among the Manambu.
. Cf. also Houseman and Severi (). The Manambu used to have a reduced version of
Naven (Harrison ), now all but forgotten.
. We can recall, from §., that in Dyirbal yara ‘man’ can be used with the feminine class
marker, instead of masculine, to point out the female characteristics of a hermaphrodite
(see Dixon : –; : –). I am not aware of such examples in Mana-
mbu: there do not appear to be any hermaphrodites, nor homosexuals, in any of the
settlements.
. See Taïfi (: –), Oussikoum (: –). I am grateful to Maarten Kossmann for
these references, and his comments on the meanings of derivational gender across Berber
languages.
. See Pet (: –). We do not know enough about the traditional Lokono society to
establish any association with the Social Gender patterns.
. See Benamara (: ). I am grateful to Maarten Kossmann for making me aware of
this, and other references on Berber.
. Using a feminine form in Amharic may also have an opposite function: men may use the
feminine address form towards men whom they consider high in status (Wołk :
–).
. See Ferguson (: , ) on affectionate Linguistic Gender reversals in Arabic and
Marathi. Similar instances of gender switch in Egyptian Arabic are described by Woidich
().
. See Yokoyama (: , ). Based on Zemskaya, Kitajgorodskaja, and Rozanova
(), Yokoyama (: ) reports that masculine forms used by both sexes to refer
to women carry affectionate connotations. Diminutives of female names may take mas-
culine endings in both Russian and Polish (Kasia Wojtylak, p.c.), with specially endearing
overtones. So, my Russian friend Masha can be lovingly addressed as Mashik (Masha
+diminutive.masculine.singular); the resulting form may trigger masculine rather than
feminine agreement. Both Milyj Mashik (dear+masc.sg Mashik) and Milaya Mashik (dear
+fem.sg Mashik) are possible (see also Doleschal and Schmid : , and references
there). Rothstein (: ) comments on ‘the expressive use of nouns of feminine
gender, especially hostile epithets, to apply to male human beings. Thus, it is more effective
to call a man dura “idiot”, the form with feminine gender, than durak (a corresponding
form of masculine gender)’ (a similar example is in Doleschal and Schmid : ). This
  Manly women and womanly men

example is attributed to Roman Jakobson and is ‘often cited in the oral tradition of
Jakobson’s students’ (Yokoyama : –).
. See Mladenova (: –) on what she refers to as ‘value-laden neuters’ in Bulgarian and
also Greek, and their use in nineteenth-century literature and modern languages.
. Iroquoianists call it ‘Feminine-zoic’: Mithun (: ; : ).
. Chafe (: ) adds to that: ‘the situation in Onondaga is similar, though speakers of
the language have emphasized to me that ka-/wa- is not derogatory, but only detached and
impersonal’.
. See Chafe (), Mithun (: , –), and §.. A somewhat similar example of
Linguistic Gender reversal as a mark of politeness was described by Khaidakov (:
–) for Lak.
. Changing genders may correlate with the participant’s agency: we can recall, from §.,
how an inanimate Comb is treated as ‘animate’ as soon as it starts speaking and acting on
its own, in stories in Fox and other Algonquian languages (see Goddard ). Polish has
three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Masculine nouns further divide into
animate/inanimate (in the singular) and personal/non-personal (in plural). Non-personal
forms of personal nouns can be used for a pejorative effect, as a way of downgrading a
human to a non-human status; occasionally they may have positive overtones (see
Rothstein : ).
. See Wales (: , –); the example has been shortened. Similarly, speakers of
American English may use he to refer to animals they have empathy for (Morris : ).
. See Baron (: ); also see Yaguello (), for a similar approach to French.
Svartengren ( and : –) provides numerous examples, in American English,
of ‘she’ applied to inanimates in English (including tools, hollow objects, bridges, and
man-made tools and machinery, clothing, small objects, furniture, water, seasons, and a
few more).
. See Mathiot (b: –). See also Clamons (: ) and §. on Oromo.
. See Mathiot (b: –).
. See Baron (: –) on the history of the word; Dixon (: –) on the history
of the suffix -ster and its negative overtones in other formations, such as gang-ster and
mob-ster.
. See p.  of Byron’s letters and journals, ed. Richard Lansdown (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, ).
. This is contrary to Connors’s (: ) claim that the terms for female occupations have
no derogatory or facetious connotations, thanks to the egalitarian structure of Soviet
society and equal rights for men and women. See Yokoyama (: , ), Zemskaya,
Kitajgorodskaja, and Rozanova ().
. Yuri A. Aikhenvald, p.c.
. Law No.,  April : <www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_/_ato-//lei/
.htm>. This law reinforces a similar Federal law, of  April  (Law .
proposed by the Senator Mozart Lago and sanctioned by Juscelino Kubitschek, the then
president of Brazil), to the same effect. The term presidenta is morphologically unusual in
the language. The majority of agentive nouns in -ente, including agente ‘agent’, cliente
‘client’, and paciente ‘patent’, in Portuguese do not have a special feminine form (*clienta,
*agenta, *pacienta are ungrammatical). Just a few do: pairs such as sargente ‘sergeant’ and
sargenta ‘woman sargent; wife of a sergeant’ and parente ‘male relative, relative in general’
and parenta ‘female relative’ are in general use. The ‘legalization’ of the term presidenta—
whose referent is for now uniquely identifiable—may result in the expansion of productivity
 . Markedness, status, and power 

of the feminine -enta (see, for instance, the discussion at <http://revistalingua.com.br/textos/

/presidente-ou-presidenta--.asp>).
. Sexism in English has been discussed at length: a useful summary is in Mills (: –);
see also Hellinger and Pauwels (), McConnell-Ginet (), Eckert and McConnell-
Ginet (, ), and Coates ().
. See Brauer and Landry (), for similar results in French.
. See Aikhenvald (a) on subtle differences in grammatical behaviour between du ‘man,
human being’ and du ‘human body’.
. See Chafe (: –) for further discussion.