March 7, 2006 -(United Nations Development Programme) What is gender discrimination in language and what are its forms? Why there exists some resistance to using feminine nouns marking high positions in decision making centers? What is the message we send to the public if we don’t use gender sensitive language in public discourse?

These are some of the issues raised at today’s Sarajevo round table entitled „Language and Gender“. The event gathered some of the leading experts from the field, that discussed the issues of gender (in)equality in language.

Although gender equality is considered as the practical end to be achieved in a given society, inequality as well as equality of any identity starts from its roots in language; this is the attitude of one part of language and other social science experts. On the other side there are those who say that the unequal use of masculine and feminine nouns in language is only a mirror of the cultural and political situation in a given society.

 These and other issues related to gender equality in language were discussed by Ms. Samra Flipovic´-Hadz¹iabdic´, the manager of Gender Agency of BiH, professor Mr. Ahmet Kasumovic´, dean of the Faculty for Philosophy in Tuzla, Mr. Ivan Lovrenovic´, writer, editor and journalist, and dr. Enver Kazaz, docent at the department for Bosnian and Herzegovininan literature at the Faculty for Philosophy in Sarajevo. The discussion that was held on the issues of both, the language-constituted political reality and the politically-constituted language, besides the main speakers, also participated a number of public figures, journalists from various media in BiH and others.

„Our languages are non-discriminatory form the gender point of view. There is no theoretical discrimination of men of women in it. However, the question of its use in certain ways overshadows this fact to a large extent. Speaking Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian we can have an equal treatment of both sexes, and not to discriminate none of them “, said Ms. Klelija Balta, Manager of UNDP’s Gender Project, summing the conclusions given at the round table.

The Round table “Language and Gender”, was organized within the process of implementation of the Gender Equality Law in BiH, based on the recommendations of the working groups for education, media and public life, organized by the Gender Agency of BiH, and supported by United Nations Development Programme in BiH (UNDP), Japanese Fond „Women in Development“ (WiD) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
 

From: http://www.undp.ba/?PID=7&RID=346