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Loly Estévez

I dare say that the ability to speak and the emergence and evolution of languages are the greatest advancement in the history of mankind. Without them there would be no opera or rap, nor could complex theorems or the theory of relativity be explained. Without them we could not say I love you or I hate you, or call upon the gods, much less claim our rights.
In those toils gender studies are included and the consequent claim of that perspective for the use of the language. In our extended language the topic has led to theoretical studies, support at any cost from some sectors, counterarguments and not a few jokes, sometimes affectionate from others, like the friend who wonders if we should always refer to the male cat and the female cat when talking about the domestic proud feline.
According to the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts of the Royal Spanish Academy, "(…) in the language the possibility of referring to mixed groups through the masculine gender is provided, (…) which should not bear discriminatory intention, but the implementation of the linguistic law of economy of expression". I also find relevant the question of academician of the RSA Ignacio Bosque about “where to set the limits to the problem of the visibility of women in the language.”
The issue goes far beyond that. Women could not be visible in speech when they were denied access to universities. If only men could be doctors or lawyers, how could female words for doctors and lawyers exist?
I began by saying that I will be neither pilots nor at-sign. Some cultures and countries acknowledge that sex is not the determining factor for piloting an aircraft or spacecraft, yet it is still grammatically correct to say the pilot (masculine form) as a common term and only specify it when the pilot is actually a female (in Spanish la piloto). Nor do I want to be @ because this is not a linguistic sign, plus the RSA alert "can lead to serious inconsistencies, as in Day of the Child @ (Día del niñ@), where the contraction “del” is valid only for the male child."
The language is an expression of concepts and values; it is to these that we must force the march towards progress. Depending on the criteria of justice and fairness of the speakers, our mother tongue will be more or less inclusive and visibilizing.