Congress already has prepared a version of its Regulations written in “inclusive” language, a text in which the generic masculine is eliminated by combining the double —’deputies’—with the use of words like ‘members’ of the Chamber and other ‘neutral’ terms are included, such as ‘presidency’, instead of the current ‘the president’.
This ‘translation’ into an “inclusive” language, which will reach the House Table on Tuesday, affects the very title of the parliamentary normswhich will lose the tagline ‘of the deputies’ and will be simply called ‘Regulations of Congress’, according to sources from the Chamber.
The regulatory reform that was approved last September to regulate the use of co-official languages was already used to eliminate the generic masculine from the articles that were changed, in which the language that “the deputies” may use is no longer mentioned. », but of “the deputies.”
In addition, an additional provision was added to that law that ordered that, in the shortest possible time, a review of the text of the Congressional Regulations be undertaken. “to adapt it to gender-inclusive language.”
First comprehensive reform since its approval in 1982
Almost six months later, coinciding with the week of March 8, the Board of the Chamber plans to approve the new version of the institution’s rules, which date back to 1982 and which, since then, have only been subject to specific reforms, because all attempts at comprehensive reforms to update it have failed.
The new Regulation has been supervised by a working group in which The president of the Chamber herself, Francina Armengol, participated, and three other members of the Board: the third vice president, Esther Gil de Reboledo (Sumar); and the second secretaries, Isaura Leal (PSOE), and fourth, Carmen Navarro (PP).
After this draft receives the endorsement of the governing body, in which the PSOE and Sumar have a majority, it will be given the form of a bill so that it can be processed. Once you register, you will have to taken into consideration by the Plenary and then refer it to the Regulations Commission with the idea that the reform becomes a reality before the summer.
It affects the bulk of its 207 articles
To carry out this rewriting in “inclusive” language, we have had to touch the bulk of the 207 articles of the Regulation and also some of its provisions.
For example, article 3.1 now reads: «The President will declare the session open and one of the Secretaries will read the Royal Decree of convocation, the list of elected Deputies and the contentious-electoral appeals filed, with indication of the Deputies. elected officials who could be affected by their resolution.
It will remain as follows: «The Presidency will declare the session open and one of the people occupying the Secretariat will read the Royal Decree of convocation, the list of elected officials and the contentious-electoral appeals filed, indicating who the resolution of the issues could affect. themselves.”
“What is not named does not exist”
«We know that what is not named does not exist and we also know that Institutions have to advance at the same pace as society advances, setting an example and showing commitment to the demands in favor of equality,” argued Armengol.
In this context, last December the Congress Board already approved the ‘Recommendations for a non-sexist use of language in the Parliamentary Administration’, a guide, also adopted by the Senate, in which, as has been done now, It is advisable to avoid the generic masculine and use collective nouns such as “staff” instead of “employees.” or “citizenship” instead of “citizens.”
Furthermore, it is discouraged to “use expressions or words that contain grammatical errors, lack of legibility or that are not included in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).” To draft these recommendations, the guides on the subject prepared by other public institutions were used as a basis, as well as the current grammar rules and the RAE’s recommendations on inclusive language.
The RAE and “the natural way of expressing oneself”
“The equality of men and women is not supported by asking citizens (whether they are parliamentarians or not) to make constant syntactic, morphological and lexical balances to avoid linguistic options that belong to their natural way of expressing themselves,” the RAE ruled, leaving Of course, more than linguistic changes, She is in favor of making laws that “lead to the equality of rights.”
What’s more, the RAE “suspects” that behind the proposals made by the parliamentary guide there is hidden “the implicit desire to increase the distance, already considerable today, between the official universe and the real world.” “Although it would be expected that the administrations would work to shorten it, they seem more interested in applying again and again the double standards that so patently reveal it,” denounced the RAE.