Work

Do Anti-Egalitarians Report Increased Support for People with Language Difficulties when Exposed to Gender-Fair Language?

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: In many countries, the use of gender-fair language is heavily debated. In France, some opponents to gender-fair language have argued that it hinders language comprehension for people who have difficulties with language (PDLs). This argument was notably promoted by (far) right-wing personalities and newspapers. The justification-suppression model of prejudice and the concept of ideology malleability suggest that such a defence of PDLs may be a strategy to oppose gender-fair language and promote the status quo. We hypothesized that threatening participants with gender-fair language would lead high-SDO individuals to report greater concern for PDLs. In two experimental studies (ntotal = 1117, France), we did not find support for our prediction. Overall, SDO was negatively correlated with support for PDLs, whereas participants supporting gender-fair language were also more concerned with PDLs. This suggests that contrary to what some conservative commentators have claimed, gender-fair language supporters do not overlook the question of language accessibility, as opposed to anti-egalitarians. To our knowledge, this is the first research to bridge literature on the justification of prejudice and gender-fair language.

Source: Psychologica Belgica

DOI: 10.5334/pb.1342

Authors: Pascaline Van Oost, Kenzo Nera, Vincent Yzerbyt

Institutions: UCLouvain, KU Leuven, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Language: English

Topic: Gender Studies in Language

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, Gender equality

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $735