Knowledge Bank

This paper examines the social and linguistic significance of gendered occupational nouns in Italian. The history of feminism in Italy is important in understanding the effort it took for women to have the rights, in particular the workplace rights, that they have today. Examining nouns used to refer to women in certain occupations reflects this movement and the rate of its evolution. Some occupational nouns have variant forms, one or two that mark the female gender and one that marks the masculine but is used for males and females in the occupation. This is true particularly for nouns referring to high-ranking positions traditionally held by men and only more recently held by women. This variation is significant because it means that these nouns are currently undergoing a change. In order to examine this change in progress, I conducted a study wherein participants completed a questionnaire of sentence completions which required a gendered occupational noun. The results demonstrated that in every noun displaying variation,
women always chose a feminine form whereas men almost always chose the masculine form to refer to females in the profession. This suggests that women are not content with the application of masculine nomenclature to their occupations, and possibly reflects their continued discomfort with gender inequality as well as the association of masculinity with positions of power. This study shows that language is not the only thing changing; Italian society is adapting to a modern world where women can and should occupy high-ranking positions in all labor sectors. Language change, like social change for women in Italy, is slow and it appears that women may be spear-heading this linguistic change in order to claim their feminine identity both in society and in the workplace.