Participation

Participation is free, but registration is mandatory. To register, please fill in this Google form by Thursday, May 15th: https://forms.gle/hknjyJwWcoEhhboJA

 

Neutralize or visibilize? An open question

In the debate on gender-fair language, a conflict emerged between the interests of women and non-binary people. Several feminist groups call for making women visible in order to fight sexist stereotypes (visbility strategy). However, Dembroff and Wodak (2018, 2021) argued that is incompatible with a full fairness towards non-binary people: as they highlight, indeed, using the feminine for women and a further form for non-binary people amounts at lumping all the many non-binary identities in one form, while men and women have a dedicated one each. This, they argue, is unfair and to avoid such unfairness it’s necessary to get rid of masculine and feminine forms altogether (neutrality strategy). Such a proposal, though, is incompatible with making women visible in language through the employment of feminine forms. We are, then, at a double bind and research is needed to address this question and find a solution. On the one hand, the request to make women visible in grammar is grounded in the need, still actual, of using language as a tool to counter sexism and patriarchy. Crucially, challenging stereotypes would benefit not only women but also non-binary people. However, making women visible in language requires using forms that perpetrate a binary representation of genders, which is harmful to non-binary people. Moreover, while gender marking might be a useful tool to counter gender stereotypes, gender is the only social category marked in language: countering other types of stereotypes cannot take advantage of grammatical markers. Yet, it’s not clear we should give up on this useful tool and take advantage of the possibility of using grammatical gender marking to counter gender stereotypes. This workshop aims at reaching an advancement on this topic, thanks to prolific discussion between experts on gender in language. To this end, we plan to adopt a cooperative methodology rather than relying on the classical structure of workshops where each participant presents what they have done already: since here the goal is to produce a theoretical advancement on an open research question, we’ll focus more on new ideas brought about by the workshop than on participants’ previous positions. Instead of talks, then, we’ll employ non-formal education methodologies such as trajectories of knowledge, questioning circle, and case scenarios.
 

Confirmed invited speakers:

• Corrado Fumagalli (University of Genoa)
• Sofia Safina (University of Naples)
• Fiona Woollard (University of Southampton)
• Francesca Cesarano (University of Frankfurt)
• Mara Floris (University San Raffaele)

Organizers:

• Greta Persico (University of Milano-Bicocca)
• Teresa Marques (Universitat de Barcelona)
• Martina Rosola (Universitat de Barcelona)

Acknowledgment: This workshop is organized as part of the project New Paths in the Philosophy of Hybrid Representations, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science - Code: PID2023-150569NB-I00. 

 
Venue
Faculty of Philosophy of the Universitat de Barcelona: Campus Raval UB, 4th floor
Carrer de Montalegre 6-8, Barcelona

Workshop activities: room 412

Catering: room Seminari María Zambrano (inside the Department of Philosophy)

 

Programme

Thursday 05/06/2025, Room: 412

9.30-10.00: Ice breaking and presentation of the participants.

10.00-10.20: Activity “trajectories of knowledge”, coordinated by Greta Persico. 

10.20-10.40: Coffee break (in room Seminari María Zambrano)

10.40-12.30: Round table on theoretical positionings on visibility and neutrality with Francesca Cesarano, Mara Floris, Fiona Woollard, Corrado Fumagalli, and Sofia Safina.

12.30-14.00: Lunch

14.00-18.00: Exploration of the research question through the questioning circle technique, with Francesca Cesarano, Mara Floris, Fiona Woollard, Corrado Fumagalli, and Sofia Safina, coordinated by Greta Persico.

15.50-16.10: Coffee break (in room Seminari María Zambrano)


Friday 06/06/2025, Room: 412

9.30-9.45: Ice breaking.

9.45-12.30: Analysis of the possible practical outcomes of what emerged from day 1 thorugh the case scenario techique with Francesca Cesarano, Mara Floris, Fiona Woollard, Corrado Fumagalli, and Sofia Safina, coordinated by Greta Persico.

10.50-11.10: Coffee break (in room Seminari María Zambrano)

12.30-14.00: Lunch

14.00-15.50: Identification of the previous sessions’ results, coordinated by Greta Persico.

15.50-16.10: Coffee break (in room Seminari María Zambrano)

16.10-17.30: Programmation of follow up activities, coordinated by Teresa Marques and Martina Rosola.

17.30-18.00: Conclusion of the workshop.