Which is the fairest of them all?

Abstract

Gender-unfair language gives rise to injustice towards both women and non-binary people. Different strategies have been proposed to overcome this injustice, but which is the “best”? In this paper, I will approach this question from a normative perspective, taking into account practical and ethical aspects. I’ll first assess the feasibility and redundancy of the various strategies. Through this lens, no strategy stands out as the best, but each is best suited for specific contexts. I thus argue for a pluralistic approach relying on multiple strategies. I further propose to combine more of them in the same text. This solution is the most efficient, but not the fairest: when considering ethical aspects, most strategies turn out inadequate. Only gender-neutral paraphrases, namely what I call “conservative neutrality”, are truly fair both towards women and non-binary people. I conclude by proposing an adjustment to such a strategy to counterbalance its practical shortcomings. Whether such a proposal will be taken on board by speakers is an empirical question that goes beyond the scope of this paper: my goal here is to provide reasons that could guide speakers’ decisions rather than arguing for which strategies are more likely to spread.