Inclusive writing aims to better represent men, women, and non-binary people. It seeks to demasculinize language and avoid reinforcing gender stereotypes. This evolution tends toward a more egalitarian perception of individuals, but unfortunately, it struggles to gain acceptance and is divisive. The French language is extremely gendered. Over time, changes in grammar rules have reinforced the masculine gender in the language, and today, in light of issues surrounding gender and gender identity, we may wonder whether it would not be more beneficial to challenge these outdated rules.
In the 1980s, feminist groups called for the feminization of job titles in order to be better represented in the labor market. Indeed, in an advertisement that reads “recherche un professeur d’anglais,” women may be discouraged from applying because the word “un” (a masculine article) is used. It took almost 30 years for this feminization of job titles to cease being a complicated issue and for the use of terms such as “auteure” (female author) and “médecine” (female doctor) to be tolerated by the authorities, even though in everyday life these words are still sometimes frowned upon. Some people are outraged that new words are being invented to include women, which is a bit ridiculous when you consider that before the 17th century, both genders were systematically represented in job titles. It was with the creation of the Académie Française in 1635 that the use of these words disappeared. The grammarians of the time had a real desire to masculinize the language. Then, in 1767, the rule that the masculine “takes precedence” over the feminine was established and taught. This means that if a single masculine word is found alongside two feminine words, its gender will be attributed to the adjective associated with them.
ex: La cerise, la fraise et l’abricot sont mûrs
The Académie Française has opposed the reuse of feminized job titles, supporting the idea that the masculine gender is a generic masculine and is the successor to the neutral gender in Old French. For me, that's not neutrality, and I think it's terrible to learn at school that one gender is superior to another.
Today, a new element is shaking up the Académie Française: the median point. The median point is one of the solutions found to demasculinize French. It allows both genders to be represented at the same time.
ex: étudiant·e·s
étudiant·es
It can be used by cutting out each sign at the end or by calling it just once. But this little sign is highly controversial. There are those who refuse to use it. Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education between 2017 and 2022, expressed his disagreement with the use of this system in several interviews. He says that the median dot is too elitist and excludes students with difficulties (dyslexia). A law passed in 2017 prohibits its use, as well as the use of inclusive writing in teaching programs and official documents. And defenders of the beautiful French language consider it an orthographic aberration. They also find that it makes reading more difficult.
In light of new thinking around gender identity, I believe it is necessary and consistent to adapt the writing system and make it more representative. There are other solutions besides the median dot, such as proximity agreement or the use of generic words. Proximity agreement comes from Latin and is a grammatical rule that assigns an adjective the gender of the word closest to it. It is used in some newspaper writing. We can also choose more inclusive words that do not determine gender. We are seeing the spread of new pronouns that are intended to be neutral, such as “iel,” “celeux,” and “toustes,” but once again, they are not well received. This method requires a little work upfront to learn this new vocabulary, but it is easy to understand the meaning of the word. This argument of complexity is often used against the use of this neutral form.
Camille Circlude will focus her master's thesis on this link between typography and gender. She distinguishes between several inclusive writing systems, including epicene writing, which involves writing the masculine form of a word followed by its feminine form, inclusive writing with the use of the median point, and finally inclusive or non-binary typography.
Post-binary characters
I would now like to discuss typographical innovations. For several years now, we have seen the emergence of new characters, known as inclusive glyphs. The Bye Bye Binary collective brings together and disseminates the work of typographers who design post-binary characters. This Franco-Belgian collective is at once an experimental laboratory, an educational center, and a network of creators.
These glyphs function as ligatures, meaning they are combinations of two or more characters. Compared to the midpoint, ligatures reinforce the idea of links and connections, whereas the midpoint separates. The development of these new characters requires the creation of new boxes in the list of characters in a font. This list assigns a code to each character, which allows for the transition from one font to another. The collective developed the Queer Unicode Initiative (QUNI) to harmonize and standardize the functioning of post-binary characters. It allows for the coordination of encoding. Mixing these glyphs with the midpoint allows for better typographic gray and avoids an overabundance of cracks.
At the same time, the collective organizes surveys and typographic crash tests to test post-binary characters and find out which form is the most readable, understandable, and identifiable for people who may have difficulties (dyslexia). It conducted a survey of three distinct groups of people: children learning to read, adults diagnosed with reading disabilities, and a third group of people with no reading difficulties. In this survey, participants were asked to read aloud sentences written in the typefaces developed by the collective using post-binary glyphs. A short questionnaire accompanied each sentence, asking participants if they had experienced any discomfort while reading and, if so, where in the sentence (word, syllable, character).
Here are a few examples of post-binary typefaces. Baskervvol, designed by the Bye Bye Binary collective, was created for use in work texts. It has serifs to make it easier to read. It is based on John Baskerville's Baskerville design. It is available for free.
DINdong, designed by Clara Sambot, is based on the style of DIN 1451 fette Breitschrift.
Times New Roman Inclusive, designed by Eugénie Bidaut, features very thin ligatures connecting the letters. These ligatures replace the use of median point. She decided to rework the font recommended for academic writing.
Akkurat Inclusive, designed by Tristan Bartolini. He added 40 inclusive glyphs to the existing Akkurat font, a typeface known for its legibility.
A language must constantly evolve. Every year, new words are added to dictionaries. There are always expressions and ways of speaking that are passed on and that sometimes stray from the language of the great authors. I think it is interesting to suggest new written forms as well; written language should not remain static, it must evolve like spoken language. The initial results of these experiments may not be the ones that are retained in the future, but they are an interesting avenue to explore in order to better represent individuals.
