Have you ever read or heard "professor", "editor" or "deputy" with female ending in Russian? These are feminitives. Why they appeared and whether you should think about it, we explain in our material.

On September 25, 2019, in the framework of the meeting of the "UNITED" Coalition, a discussion was organized about feminitives in the Russian language, as they arouse interest and lively discussions at various venues. The discussion was attended by linguists, journalists, and activists who have certain knowledge and experience in using / not using feminitives. Each of the speakers shared their visions and arguments why feminitives should or should not be used in the Russian language and speech.

Aidai Irgebaeva, journalist of the online portal "Kloop" spoke about the experience of the portal when they used feminists and faced both positive and negative reaction of readers. She highlighted moments from the story about how feminitives were used during the time of Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy in their works. Therefore, the arguments about how they "spoil" the language are not relevant. According to Aidai, feminitives have always been, however, not in all professional fields. There was no need to single out the role of women in medicine until women appeared there. The same can be said about the word "student".

In her opinion, a trend later began, as the masculinitives (male endings) became gender-neutral. For example, "participants", "teachers", and "professionals" began to mean both women and men. But at the same time, the use of the word "professional" by many can be perceived negatively and offensively. Aidai is convinced that this is due to a patriarchal society when there is an understanding that "only men can be true professionals." Moreover, she claims the influence of the patriarchy on the perception of feminitives to this day. In her opinion, feminitives, in turn, play an important role in increasing the visibility of women in society and, in particular, in professional environments.

The next speaker made a somewhat distinctive speech about feminitives. Balakina Irina Vadimovna - a journalist with many years of experience and an employee of the Central Asian newspaper shared that we need a systematic approach if we want to change the language. In her opinion, such proposals should not be based on personal feelings and should not be imposed on others.

Irina Vadimovna said that she does not use feminitives - neither in everyday speech nor in the professional environment. Especially the latter is practically impossible, since it is edited by colleagues, and the editorial policy does not approve of feminitives. "There is no critical point where feminitives could not be dispensed with. This is a huge job that not everyone will undertake. Even if the work on introducing feminitives begins, then this should be done by specialists. We need to think about how to instill them in schoolchildren and students. I think it will not be soon" - she concluded her thoughts.

Nurgul Koichumanova, philologist and teacher of Kyrgyz National University, shared her experience when it was important for her to use feminitives to establish contact and strengthen communication with her daughter. For her, feminitives are not a critical issue and she can use them if it is important for the conversation. She also added: "Language is changing. 20 years ago everyone was required to write "Kyrgyzstan", not "Kyrgyzstan", and this now seems ridiculous, since we have passed this stage a long time ago. Given this, I can't say that feminitives will not take root in the language after a few years. "

Georgy Mamedov, an activist with a linguistic education, began his speech from memories of his student years. He gave an example of a case where his teacher predicted that the word "coffee" would become a neuter gender after some time. Indeed, a little time has passed and we now have a dictionary of the Russian language, where this word is described both masculine and neutral.

He explained what corpus linguistics is and why the active use of feminitives can become the norm of the language. In his opinion, some feminitives are perceived normally when some cannot get accustomed to the language and cause a painful reaction in its speakers. Therefore, he singled out the role and task for journalists, editors, writers, poets and native speakers in the use of feminists in a form that suits everyone, while taking into account aspects of grammar and language rules.

The UNDP team in the Kyrgyz Republic has been implementing a comprehensive program on gender equality over the years and supports initiatives, activities, and organizations aimed at improving the situation of women's rights throughout the country. Consequently, it shares the principles of using feminitives in order to increase the visibility of women, in particular, the professional environment.