yup, struggle session time
edit: no one is right, everyone is wrong :^)
edit 2: this post is actually dedicated to Amy Goodman, please stop trying to sound cool grandma
Latinos is not gender neutral. Its the accepted use, just as much as any adjective that refers to a group of people is used in masculine (todos, nosotros, amigos, etc…). And its exactly that usage of masculine adjectives in spanish that is being fought upon. Latino is just another example.
You’re pushing the line between what counts as “accepted” and what is just a rule of the language. From a descriptivist standpoint, ‘latinos’ describes either a group of men, or a group that has at least one man, so gender neutral-ish. I assume when you don’t know the gender of anyone in the group, you would also use ‘latinos’, making it mostly gender neutral.
But yeah, defaulting to masculine is part of why people are trying to make new terms (alongside including enbys). ‘Latinx’ just isn’t good though.
I assume when you don’t know the gender of anyone in the group, you would also use ‘latinos’, making it mostly gender neutral.
Not exactly, this rule basically says, instead of thinking about the gender of the group im referring to, I will assume they are male, at least by majority.
This continues to spark a similar debate about: If a group of only latina women is referred by feminine pronouns, does a single man in a group of a hundred women necessarily indicate they will all be treated as men? If not, where is the line drawn?
I will assume they are male, at least by majority.
This is again a sort of semantic debate about the rules of the language. “Assuming male” is the language’s form of gender neutral, by the rules of the language (“rules” being a tricky word in language, but still). It’s like a homonym, -os means both male and gender neutral, depending on context. I absolutely understand the desire to change that rule, but that’s how the language is currently defined.
If a group of only latina women is referred by feminine pronouns, does a single man in a group of a hundred women necessarily indicate they will all be treated as men?
Again, by the rules of the language, a group with even a single male in it gets the gender neutral usage of -os.
