The XX Factor: What women really think.

Is the Spanish Language Sexist?

Nobody cops to “political correctness” anymore; policing language is what the other guy does. The rest of us are just, you know, telling it like it is. But playing PC-policeman officer is a relatively peaceful and noninvasive way to nudge the culture in a particular direction, a form of persuasion in a democracy built on consensus. And according to the authors of a little study in the November issue of the Journal Sex Roles, switching from one form of speaking to another might shift your inner liberal just as quickly.

The study authors wanted to see whether languages that assign genderto nouns, like Spanish and French, might implicitly encourage “opposition or hostility to extending equal opportunity to women, especially in terms of work-related issues” ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)