Shielding Women Against Status Loss

Abstract

It is well established that the masculine form (MF) makes women invisible, yet little is known about which form of feminization represents the most appropriate alternative. In the present study, conducted in Italian language, the authors compared the MF (e.g., avvocato, lawyer) with two forms of feminization, namely, the asymmetrical and traditional suffix “-essa” (traditional forms of feminization [TFF], e.g., avvocatessa) that is currently in use and modern alternatives (modern forms of feminization [ModFF], e.g., avvocata) that represent neologisms. Results show that women professionals described by the TFF “-essa” are perceived as having less social status than those described either by the MF or ModFF. The authors conclude that symmetrical forms may shield women against both invisibility and status loss.

Keywords

gender-fair language nonsexist language social status suffix “-essa”

Words do have a magical effect—but not in the way that magicians supposed, and not on the objects they were trying to influence. Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them.

—Huxley (1940)

Words affect the way we think. Aldous Huxley’s coevals Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf have framed this concept in their model of linguistic relativity, generally referred to as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (Hoijer, 1954). Many subsequent studies have found evidence for language’s impact on perception and cognition. Winawer et al. (2007) have demonstrated that color perception depends on linguistic labels available in people’s native language, and Boroditsky, Schmidt, and Phillips (2003) have proven that the grammatical gender of an object affects how it is perceived. Carrying the argument one step further, Prewitt-Freilino, Caswell, and Laasko (2012) have recently argued that language conventions have tangible social consequences as they are systematically linked to economic and social gender equality. The authors find a greater gender gap in countries with grammatical gender languages than in those with other language systems, and this is true even after controlling for other relevant factors such as religion or type of political system.

If the way we speak affects how we think and how we conceive gender relations, then this becomes a crucial argument in favor of gender-fair language, making women and men equally visible. Rather than using the masculine form (MF) chairman that is likely to elicit predominantly male images (see Stahlberg, Braun, Irmen, & Sczesny, 2007, for an overview), one may use either gender-neutral expressions such as chair or dual denominations such as chairman and chairwoman.

But which expression is most appropriate when referring to women? In many languages, the masculine pole of nouns is unmarked (e.g., steward, major) and the feminine one marked (e.g., stewardess, majorette), but there is great variation in the degree to which masculine and feminine forms are dissimilar. In Romance languages, at times, the two forms are rather symmetrical as in the case of doctor and doctora in Spanish, whereas in other cases, they are clearly asymmetrical as in the case of dottore versus dottoressa or professore versus professoressa in Italian. So there are considerable variations in the degree to which feminine nouns are marked and asymmetrical. In this article, we investigate whether symmetrical and asymmetrical forms have distinct connotations. We will focus on occupational nouns and test whether female professionals (e.g., lawyers) are perceived differently in terms of competence and status when described by modern, symmetrical language forms (modern forms of feminization [ModFFs]) versus traditional, asymmetrical language forms (traditional forms of feminization [TFFs]). Both forms will be compared with the MF.

We hypothesize that ModFFs (e.g., avvocata) are more likely to eliminate male bias than TFFs (e.g., avvocatessa), even when the ModFF is unusual and likely to be perceived as ungrammatical. We investigate this question in Italian considering that both forms are common in this language.

Gender-Related Suffices and Their Roots

Italian is a gender-marked language. Most nouns can roughly be divided into two groups, opaque and transparent, with respect to gender. Opaque nouns carry the suffix “-e” that is per se neutral and for which gender can only be inferred by looking at the article (which is also gender-marked) or at other relevant parts of speech. So, il cantante indicates a male singer and la cantante a female singer. More common are gender-transparent nouns in which the singular usually ends in “-o” when referring to a man (e.g., maestro = male teacher) and in “-a” when referring to a woman (e.g., maestra = female teacher).¹ Besides the suffix “-a,” there are several occupational nouns, for which the feminine derivation is marked in a highly asymmetrical way, namely, with the suffix “-essa.”²

The suffix “-essa” derives from the Greek “-issa” and originally designated the wife of a man in a certain occupation, for example, baronessa indicating the barone’s wife (Meyer-Lübke, 1890). The suffix “-essa” (in English “-ess”) and its potentially diminutive or derogatory connotation have been subject to considerable controversy. In English as well as in different Romance languages, such as Spanish or French, this form has practically been abolished. Referring to the English language, Miller and Swift have declared that “attached to proper nouns, ‘-ess’ endings are especially offensive. Fortunately Negress, Jewess, Quakeress, etc., are almost defunct today” (Miller & Swift, 2001, p. 138).

For Italian, Sabatini has provided a report, containing precise recommendations for gender-fair language use (Sabatini, 1987). In her report, Sabatini considers the suffix “-essa” as derogatory, recommending to substitute it with the gender-fair suffices “-e” (e.g., la presidente) or “-a” (e.g., l’avvocata). We will refer to these suffices as ModFFs throughout this article. However, the language reform proposed by Sabatini has been met with skepticism and has never been implemented.

In line with Sabatini (1987), the linguists Lepschy, Lepschy, and Sanson (2001) have confirmed the rather negative connotation of the term dottoressa (female doctor) until the 20th century. Moreover, they report that symmetrical expressions as dottora had already been used in the 19th century and that also other feminine expressions (e.g., “student” and “professor”) have undergone constant change.

Cortelazzo (1995) hypothesizes provocatively that the connotation of the suffix “-essa” depends on its historical roots. According to him, terms that originally designated the “wife of” (such as baronessa, contessa) have taken on a negative connotation over time, whereas those that, from the very beginning, were intended to describe a female professional (professoressa, studentessa) have maintained a neutral connotation. Burr (1995) however claims that in today’s language “-essa” is used in a depreciatory way even when referring to professional activities performed by women such as soldatessa (female soldier).

Opinions about the TFF “-essa” are manifold among linguists, and the question of whether language should be regulated through a reform such as that proposed by Sabatini (see Cortelazzo, 1995; Robustelli, 2000) is controversial. Surprisingly, the controversy about alternative suffices has evolved mainly on an ideological level but has not been backed by solid empirical proof.

Psychological Studies on the Suffix “-essa”

To date there is little psychological research investigating how the TFF “-essa” and its alternatives are perceived. We are aware of only one study, conducted by Mucchi-Faina and Barro (2001), which examined if women referred to by the MF (“Giovanna Grossi, who is professore . . .”) are more persuasive than when referred to by the TFF (“Professoressa Giovanna Grossi, . . .”). Results show that women who are named with the TFF “-essa” are less persuasive and perceived as less reliable than men and than women who are addressed by the MF.

Thus, Mucchi-Faina and Barro (2001) provide first evidence for the derogatory function of the suffix “-essa.” However, the suffix “-essa” was only compared to the MF, used in a generic sense, which is problematic for other reasons. Various studies have demonstrated that the MF leads to a reduced mental representation of women (Stahlberg et al., 2007), suggesting that the MF may not constitute the most appropriate alternative to the “-essa” suffix. The present study was designed to close this gap, also investigating ModFFs.

Aims of Present Study

We aimed to investigate whether the perception of women in different occupations changes in function of the linguistic label used. We focused on those professions traditionally ending in “-essa” when referring to women. Participants read short biographies of six women whose occupations were presented either in the MF (e.g., l’avvocato, il presidente), the TFF with the suffix “-essa” (e.g., avocatessa, presidentessa), or one of the ModFFs, either “-a” or “-e” (e.g., l’avvocata, la presidente), which are currently not used for these professions but recommended as valid, nondiscriminatory alternatives by Sabatini (1987).

Our main interest was to see how these linguistic labels would affect the perceived status of the professional. We also wanted to test whether the different language forms would affect the degree to which the professional (and her profession) were gender-stereotyped. Gender-stereotypicality was assessed with the dimensions “warmth” (feminine trait) and “competence” (masculine trait) proposed by Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu (2002). Finally, we assessed the perceived grammatical correctness of each expression to assure that shifts in perceived status and stereotypicality would not simply be a function of grammatical correctness.

We advanced three main hypotheses. First, and most important, we predicted in line with Sabatini (1987) and Burr (1995) that the TFF would lead to a lesser ascription of social status than both the MF and the ModFF (Hypothesis 1).

Second, we expected that the professional would be perceived as less competent but warmer when labeled by a feminine form rather than by the MF (Hypothesis 2a) and that this would be even more pronounced for the TFF (Hypothesis 2b).

Third, the same professions were expected to be perceived as more typical of females when a grammatically feminine form was used (Hypothesis 3a), and this should be particularly true for the TFF making the feminine gender more salient (Hypothesis 3b).

Method

Item Selection

We generated a list of occupations that typically carry the suffix “-essa” when referring to female professionals. Of this list, four occupations were selected so that half were high-status occupations (“president” and “lawyer”) and the other half low-status occupations (“soldier” and “police officer”).

Pretest

In a pretest, we assessed the perceived grammatical correctness of these four selected professions in each language form on a 7-point Likert-type scale (“To what extent do you think it is formally and grammatically correct to use the following professional expressions in order to describe a woman?”). Twenty Italians, 10 men and 10 women, participated in this paper-and-pencil pretest. Paired sample t-tests, with the averaged values across all professions, indicated that the TFF was perceived as the most adequate (M = 5.10, SD = 1.30) and the ModFF the least adequate (M = 2.21, SD = .77), with the MF occupying the intermediate position (M = 4.04, SD = 1.70). All comparisons were highly significant with p < .04.

Participants of Main Study

One hundred Italian participants volunteered in the study, including 50 women and 50 men, with an average age of 23.2 years.

Materials

The paper-and-pencil questionnaires consisted of four short texts, each describing a woman and her occupation (see the appendix for two examples of the descriptions). The described person was labeled with the occupational noun in the MF (“-o”), the TFF (“-essa”), or the ModFF (“-a” or “-e”; see Table 1). The occupational noun was repeated three times. Subsequently participants rated the professional with respect to her Status (“How do you judge the social status of the described person?”), Competence (“How competent is the described person according to you?”), Warmth (“How warm is the described person, according to you?”), and Stereotypicality of the profession (“Is this occupation more typical for women or for men?”), from 1 = women to 7 = men, each assessed on a 7-point Likert-type scale. Moreover, participants received a list of the four occupational nouns they had seen and rated the Grammatical Correctness of each on a 7-point Likert-type scale (“To what extent do you think it is formally and grammatically correct to use the following occupational expressions in order to describe a woman?”).

Table 1.

Professions Used for the Main Study

MF	TFF	ModFF	English
Il presidente	La presidentessa	La presidente	The president
Il vigile	La vigilessa	La vigile	The police officer
L’avvocato	L’avvocatessa	L’avvocata	The lawyer
Il soldato	La soldatessa	La soldata	The soldier

Note: MF = masculine form; TFF = traditional forms of feminization; ModFF = modern forms of feminization.

All participants read two descriptions in the MF (one high-status and one low-status profession), whereas the remaining two descriptions (again, one high-status and one low–status profession) were varied across participants and presented either in the TFF or a ModFF. Thus, half of the participants saw two descriptions with the masculine “-o” suffix and two with the “-essa,” whereas the other half saw two descriptions with the masculine “-o” suffix and two with a modern suffix. In the latter condition, one of the modern suffices was “-a” (e.g., la soldata) and the other “e” (e.g., la presidente). Both forms correspond to the recommendations of the Italian language reform, but the former version may sound more unusual than the latter.

The assignment of professions to language forms was counterbalanced such that each profession was associated with all four language forms, resulting in a total of four different subversions.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Preliminary ANOVAs including participant gender as an additional factor revealed no differences between male and female participants or relevant interactions in any of the analyses, so this factor was not considered in the main analyses.

We also tested whether participants assigned to the two different questionnaire versions (MF + TFF or MF + ModFF) would judge the MF that was common to both versions, equally. A MANOVA with all four dependent variables, using questionnaire version as between-participants factor, showed no effects. Thus, the MF was rated the same with regard to Status, Competence, Warmth, and Stereotypicality in both questionnaire versions.

Main Analyses

Data were analyzed using 2 (questionnaire version: MF + TFF vs. MF + ModFF) × 2 (masculine vs. feminine forms [ModFF and TFF]) ANOVAs with repeated measures on the last variable.

Status

Most important, the predicted interaction for Status was found, F(1, 98) = 4.82, p = .03, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .05. Women described by the TFF (M = 4.11, SE = .134) were perceived as having less social status than when described by the ModFF (M = 4.62, SE = .134), t(98) = −2.69, p = .009. Also, looking separately at the two questionnaire versions, women described by TFF (M = 4.11, SE = .134) enjoyed less status than when described by the MF (M = 4.49, SE = .131), t(49) = 2.93, p = .005, whereas those described by ModFF (M = 4.62, SE = .134) did not differ from those described by MF (M = 4.60, SE = .131), t(49) = .16, p = ns.

Warmth

A main effect for masculine versus feminine forms concerning the variable Warmth, F(1,98) = 4.05, p = .047, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .04, suggests that the woman professional described with a feminine form (M = 5.11, SE = .10) was perceived as warmer than when described by the MF (M = 4.87, SE = .10). Neither Competence of the professional nor Stereotypicality of the profession revealed significant effects.

Influence of grammatical correctness on judgments

The Correctness ratings were correlated with all other variables for each profession (president, lawyer, soldier, and police officer) to test whether perceived Correctness affected the remaining judgments. None of the correlations was significant, suggesting that participants judged Status, Competence, Warmth, and Stereotypicality independent of how appropriate they found the expression.

Discussion

In most grammatical gender languages, the feminine (rather than masculine) gender is marked. However, the degree to which the two differ can vary considerably. At times, masculine and feminine forms are rather symmetrical (e.g., maestro vs. maestra); at times the markedness is very salient, leading to clearly asymmetrical versions (e.g., acteur vs. actrice or coiffeur vs. coiffeuse). Previous research has shown that such asymmetrical forms imply certain risks, such as the loss of persuasiveness (Mucchi-Faina & Barro, 2001). The question addressed here is whether such risks can be avoided when using more symmetrical forms.

In the present study, we tested three hypotheses. First, and most important, we predicted and found that the TFF “-essa” led to a status loss compared with the MF, whereas the symmetrical ModFF did not, despite the fact that it was considered a-grammatical. Note that the ModFFs used here were neologisms that, although proposed by language reform decades ago, have not entered the common vocabulary. Thus, they clearly sound incorrect (see pretest), yet they suggest a higher social status than the grammatically correct TFF. The second hypothesis, stating that feminine forms would lead to greater gender stereotyping than the MF was supported, regarding warmth, although we did not find a difference between the ModFF and the TFF. The third hypothesis, predicting a less stereotypical vision of the profession when the feminine form was used, did not result in significant findings. Hence, the asymmetrical form “-essa” implies a loss in status of female professionals, whereas the modern version protects women from status loss but (still) sounds grammatically incorrect. This might, however, be attributable to the relative novelty of the modern form and might change with time and training.

We believe that these findings have important applied implications, which might also be valid for other languages, such as English, French, or German (e.g., stewardess or hostess). Although new forms of feminization have been proposed for decades, linguists have often expressed strong reservations against such language reforms (see Cortelazzo, 1995; Robustelli, 2000). Similarly, lay people (e.g., http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=803538, last entry February 4, 2008) have often argued that ModFFs sound incorrect and ridiculous. Given that modern language forms are mostly used by feminists, this negative attitude toward gender-fair language may reflect people’s opinions about feminism rather than about language. Our results indeed show that the ModFF is considered as grammatically incorrect compared with both the TFF and the MF (see pretest). However, although considered grammatically incorrect and possibly interpreted as feminist discourse, the ModFF does not lead to the status loss that was found for the TFF. An avvocata is regarded as having a higher status than an avvocatessa, and la presidente has a higher social status than la presidentessa. This finding clearly supports Sabatini’s (1987) and Burr’s (1995) impression as well as Mucchi-Faina and Barro’s (2001) findings that the suffix “-essa” has a derogatory function, decreasing the status of female professionals.

Hence, the ModFF seems to be the adequate feminine equivalent to the MF, fulfilling a very important function: Without running the risk of “making women invisible” (Mucchi-Faina, 2005; Stahlberg et al., 2007), it heightens the perception of status of women with respect to the TFF. Ultimately, symmetrical forms may shield women against both invisibility and status loss.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank two anonymous reviewers and Howie Giles for their helpful comments, which improved this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:

The present research was conducted within the Marie Curie Initial Training Network: Language, Cognition, & Gender, ITN LCG, funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No. 237907 ().

Notes

Bios

Elisa Merkel is currently a doctoral student at Padua University. She is a fellow of the European Marie Curie Network on Language, Gender and Cognition and works under the supervision of Anne Maass.

Anne Maass received her PhD from Florida State University and is a professor of social psychology at Padua University. Her research focuses primarily on the interface between language and social cognition.

Laura Frommelt worked as a research intern at Padua University. She is getting her master’s degree in psychology at the University of Münster, Germany.

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