| Summary: | The present paper focuses on a number of specific issues (most of which are in
fact challenges, misconceptions and rough ideas) that are subject to what is generally called the
feminist approach to linguistics. It presents some (strictly marginal) contrastive notes on expressing
gender in English and Romanian, among which: genderization and gender neutrality, the problems
posed by the usual definitions of gender (cf. sex, etc.), the existence of the epicenes in English, the
idea of neutralization of grammatical oppositions (cf. also the idea of “language economy”), the
possible existence of the “0 gender” (cf. the 0 / ø article) in English. Illustrative examples are given
with respect to the alleged “sexist tradition” – as perceived by feminist lingustics –, followed by a set
of prominent counterexamples (amply provided mainly by lexicography), fallacies and
inconsistencies. The actual existence of gender-oriented languages (vs. “gender-neutral” languages)
is then addressed, as well as a group of issues relating to usage and language didactics, mainly
idiosyncrasies, grammatical and miscellaneous problems.
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