In the French language, steps forward and back for women

The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week

LE PECQ, France -- The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week. Warning that the well-being of France and its future are at stake, the government banned the use in schools of a method increasingly used by some French speakers to make the language more inclusive by feminizing some words. Specifically, the education minister's decree targets what is arguably the most contested and politicized letter in the French language — “e.” Simply put, “e” is the language’s feminine letter, used in feminine nouns and their adjectives and, sometimes, when conjugating verbs. But proponents of women's rights are also increasingly adding “e” to words that normally wouldn't have included that letter, in a conscious — and divisive — effort to make women more visible.