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Literature for ¿todes? Contemporary Argentine literature, inclusive language and New Modes of Subjectivity. A study from the perspective of feminist theories of the collective poems of Martes Verde and the novel Vikinga Bonsái by Ana Ojeda. Marisa Payva Romanska och klassiska institutionen Examensarbete 15 hp Spanska Spanska kandidatkurs Hösterminen 2020 Handledare: Azucena Castro Literature for todes? Contemporary Argentine literature, inclusive language and New Modes of Subjectivity. A study from the perspective of feminist theories of the collective poems of Martes Verde and the novel Vikinga Bonsái by Ana Ojeda.
Literature for ¿todes? Contemporary Argentine literature, inclusive language and New Modes of Subjectivity. A study from the perspective of feminist theories of the collective poems of Martes Verde and the novel Vikinga Bonsái by Ana Ojeda. Marisa Payva Abstract The #NiUnaMenos movement against femicide started in 2015, the green scarf protests for the sanction of the pregnancy termination law as well as the interventions of the LGTBIQ collective in Argentina make use of non-binary inclusive language as another tool in the fight for equal rights for women and other minorities. These new uses of language that challenge established norms and structures by attempting to include historically marginalized identities by altering the grammar of the language are also manifested in an emerging corpus of contemporary Argentine literature linked to these social movements. In this study we place the uses and functions of this inclusive language in literature in the current cultural debate in Argentina that has aroused such literary gesture and in the question that such debate raises about the potential of inclusive language in literature to articulate new, broader subjectivities and transform sensibilities (Andruetto, Sarlo, Kalinowski). To examine this question, in this study we analyze the use of inclusive language in relation to the articulation of new subjectivities after said wave of movements, protests and interventions in a corpus of contemporary Argentine literature composed of the novel Vikinga Bonsái (2019) by Ana Ojeda and two poems taken from the collective compilation Martes Verde (2018). Based on an analysis of selected works from feminist theories from both the Anglo-Saxon context (Irigaray, Butler) and Latin American feminisms (Colanzi et al.) and the definition of subjectivity in post autonomous literatures (Ludmer), we investigate the configuration of a new inclusive non-binary subjectivity that arises through the literary use of inclusive language. In the first part of the analysis, we focus on the poem "La pija de Hegel" by the Máquina de Lavar collective, where we examine how the inclusive use of language in parallel to
deconstructive uses of the philosophical tradition that excludes women, builds a subjectivity of the difference (Irigaray) regarding the resignification of the idea of the weaker sex historically linked to women. In the first second part of the analysis, we study the untitled poem by María Insúa, where we examine how the inclusive use of language in this poem problematizes the construction of gender and the mark that said reconstruction prints on female bodies. Finally, we address the novel Vikinga Bonsái where we analyze how inclusive language in this novel poses an inclusive group of sisterhood whose sense of belonging and identification is generated with inclusive non-binary language. Among the most outstanding results, we find that, despite the singularities of each text and the genres to which they belong (novels, poetry) in the three literary texts studied, a broader subjectivity is built that arises from the struggle of feminist social movements. These subjectivities are intricately linked to the use of inclusive language and find in this a weapon of struggle for equal rights. Key words: Contemporary Argentine Literature; inclusive non-binary language; inclusive subjectivities; Martes Verde; Viking Bonsái Abbreviations: AAL: Academia Argentina de Letras (Argentinean Academy of Letters) DLE: Diccionario de la Lengua Española (Spansih Language Lexicon) LGTBIQ: Collective of Lesbian, Gay, Transsexual or transgender, Bisexuality, Intersex and Queer. IL: Inclusive language. RAE: Real Academia Española (Royal Academy of the Spanish Language)
Index
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Purpose ................................................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 4
1.5 Les hermanes sean unides. Motivation of the corpus ............................................................. 9
1.6 State of the Art .................................................................................................................... 11
2. Theoretical Framework ..............................................................................................15
2.1 To speak is never neutral. From Luce Irigaray’s feminism of the sexual difference to the
popular feminism of South America........................................................................................... 15
2.2 Bodies that matter. From Judith Butler's performative language to the disobedient language
of South America ....................................................................................................................... 17
2.3. The disobedience. From Anglo-Saxon feminisms to vernacular feminisms in Liliana Colanzi's
collective compilation ................................................................................................................ 19
2.4 The new subjectivities from the perspective of Josefina Ludmer’s postautonomous
literatures.................................................................................................................................. 21
2.5 Material and methodology................................................................................................... 23
3. Analysis .....................................................................................................................25
3.1.2 ‘Débil elemental’. Semantic shifts ....................................................................................................... 27
3.1.3 ’La vaca atada’. Popular lexicons ......................................................................................................... 28
3.1.4 ’Dudes’. To question the progressivism of society .............................................................................. 29
3.3.2 Urban and digital polyphony. .............................................................................................................. 37
4. Conclusion and final reflections ..................................................................................43Note to the reader: It is important, before beginning to read this study, to keep in mind that this thesis was originally written in the Spanish language. Moreover, its research means, which is to analyze the influence of the inclusive language on the contemporary argentine literature, it is very hard to translate to the English language due to the fact that nouns and adjectives in this language are neither masculine or feminine as in Spanish. Therefore, some words are not being translated but explained, since they do not have a possible translation. Finally, it is not less important to mention that the works that have been analyzed are also originally written on the Spanish language, hence my own translation of them might differ from its original means, especially poetry. Having that said, I hope you enjoy this thesis that tries to contribute to a more inclusive and fairer world, starting by the way we express ourselves.
1. Introduction
The struggle of the inclusive language is a serious struggle, it is a truly serious struggle,
which is measured in dead women, dead women every day, so we must highlight that fact.
The dead women, women who do not get paid the same for the same work, women who
cannot walk in peace on the street, women who suffer abuses inside and outside their
home, that is the struggle of the inclusive language.
Santiago Kalinowski (2019: 33, my translation)
“There's a crack in everything, that's how the light comes in, says Leonard Cohen. And it is
there into those cracks where I would like to look in” (Andruetto, 2019, my translation). It is
with this quote from Cohen that the writer María Teresa Andruetto (2019, s/n) began the
closing speech of the last Language Congress held in Argentina1. In this speech, Andruetto
criticized the absence of discussion tables on inclusive language, as well as the supremacy of
the RAE over the Hispanic language, she also highlighted the power and richness of the
language to generate movements and social transformations. Likewise, the writer
problematized the ideological load of language and highlighted the role of inclusive language
in making this aspect of language visible: "inclusive language puts us in front of the
ideological load of language that is usually invisible to us" (ibid., 2019, s / n), but it also
raised the risk that the inclusive language runs of becoming pure political correctness.
Was on this context, that Andruetto (2019) also highlighted the presence of inclusive
language both in literature, the cultural expression that concerns us in this thesis, as in society
as a political issue:
We cannot foresee its point of arrival, but we do know that it is among us in a
way that we cannot ignore. What is clear, the inescapable, is that it is a political
question, that the language responds to the society in which it inhabit, to the
historical moment that its speakers go through, because as Victor Klempler also
says, 'the spirit of an era it is defined by its language '(Andruetto, 2019: s/n, my
translation).
1
See the speech as a video recording at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8HYTImbdiA&feature=share
1It is because of the statement above that we will begin this study by contextualizing the
current situation in which the inclusive language arises and enters the literary texts. If the
language defines the spirit of an era, in today’s Argentina, a cracking of the patriarchal
linguistic order can be observed thanks to those voices that were previously appeased by a
society with a macho discourse, and today have finally began to emerge in the form of new
languages and new literary formats connected to various social movements, which constitutes
the thematic focus of this study. One of the most notable movements has been #NiUnaMenos2
which emerged to protest against the growing femicides in Argentina, as well as the
mobilizations that are carried out for the demand for the legalization of abortion: the so-called
“pañuelazos”3 (handkerchiefs). In this context, a heated debate has arisen regarding the
invisibility of some sectors of society in the Spanish language and the latent sexism in its
structures. These debates arose in parallel to a set of feminist demands that have recently been
reflected in a corpus of Argentine literature of the XXI century which incorporates inclusive
language (hereinafter IL) which is understood as a language that breaks the binarism of the
Spanish language and constitutes the analytical approach of the present study.
Although these controversies regarding the IL have arisen in numerous Spanish-speaking
societies, the great difference with the area of the La Plata river is that there it has taken a
more radical nuance. While in countries like Spain, the debate around IL has mainly focused
on the use of inclusion in words ‒for example, 'capitan, capitana'‒, (male and female captain
respectively) as well as on the inclusion of both genders ‒for example the use of 'todos y
todas'‒, (everyone including both male and women) thus unfolding the inclusion of the
feminine version to avoid the universal masculine, but still acting within the norm; in
Argentina, on the other hand, this debate has gone beyond the discussion on the economy of
the language and grammatical norms. The proposal for the use of the IL in this South
American country aspires to generate a change in the grammatical bases through the
substitution with the letter 'e' of expressions that encompass the masculine and feminine
gender. In this way, instead of referring to a mixed group of people as "todos", in Argentina
uses such as "todes" are proposed. This use of the IL called 'inclusive non-binary language' is
considered more comprehensive since it tries to make visible not only women, but also other
sectors that, in identity terms, do not identify with the letter 'a' (female) nor with the letter 'o'
(masculine). At the matter of fact, was in this country where the IL, or also called non-binary
language (in its way of replacing gender with the vowel 'e'), has reached its apogee during the
takeover by a group of students from the renowned school from Buenos Aires Carlos
2
#NiUnamenosis the hashtag that gave rise to the feminist social movement that emerged in Argentina in
2015. It is a self-organized protest group against gender violence and its most serious and visible consequence,
femicide. For further information go to: http://niunamenos.org.ar
3
Name given to the great mobilization that reached the gates of the Parliament in the city of Buenos Aires and
was as well extended to a hundred cities in the interior of the country with the purpose of demanding the Law
of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy and whose symbol is a green handkerchief. After the first episode, the
march was repeated on Tuesdays during the weeks that this law was debated in the National Parliament. It is
also for this reason that the protest was also called Green Tuesday. For further information go to:
http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/tag/panuelazo/
2Pellegrini to demand the legalization of abortion4. On that occasion, the vice president of the
prestigious school's student council was interviewed by a national television news channel
and throughout the entire interview she expressed herself in this non- binary language. The
interview soon became viral, and the IL was in no time on the lips of almost everyone, both to
support it and to repudiate it.
It is on the previously described sociocultural context that the IL emerges as well in literary
expressions, shaping what we propose as a new literature that not only reflects the political
use of the IL, but also experiments literarily with inclusive uses around the emergence of new
subjectivities.
In this study we propose to analyze two Argentine and contemporary works that resort to the
IL as a political place where broader literary subjectivities are constructed. These are the
collective poems Martes Verde (2018) and the first novel written in IL, Vikinga Bonsái
(2019), by Ana Ojeda. Both works share a linguistic gesture: they are written in non-binary
language. The Martes Verde (green Tuesdays) collection of poems collects poems by more
than fifty poets that were recited and read in the social action of the “pañuelazos”
(handkerchiefs), in which every Tuesday of the months of May and June 2018 these poets
(among which were also female and queer groups as authors of some poems) recited their
own poems at the same time as the law on the legalization of abortion was being debated in
the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Argentine Nation. The poetry reading action
was carried out with the means of supporting the approval of said law. Since the action was
called "Green Tuesday”, the collection of poems that emerged from those readings has been
given the same name. This collection of poems brings together the transcriptions of the poems
recited during these social actions and explores the sound and vibratory field in the poems,
appealing to a sort of collectivity in the language and the society. For its part, the novel
Vikinga Bonsai articulates links between the lunfardo, the Calabrian and the IL around the
coexistence of a community of characters that form a collective in an urban department. Its
author, Ana Ojeda, is a writer and editor, originally from the Boedo neighborhood of the City
of Buenos Aires. In addition to her long journey within the literary world, the author is very
involved in the cause of IL, since she herself uses it when speaking in daily bases (Verdile,
2020: s / n) and is also linked to the #NiUnaMenos movement in her quality of feminist
activist.
1.1 Purpose
Starting from the literary and linguistic complexity presented by the aforementioned works, as
well as the sociocultural debate that they have aroused and where we place them, in this thesis
4
See the video report about the students during the taking over of the school in the following social media of
the TN newspaper: https://twitter.com/todonoticias/status/1006531072144953345
3we will investigate the use of the non-binary IL in contemporary Argentine literature and, in
particular, in the Martes Verde poetry book and in the Vikinga Bonsai novel.
The objective of this study is to examine how the works in our corpus configure a visibility in
the public imagination of a set of subjectivities that were commonly crossed out or made
invisible, and that, nowadays find an expression through the non-binary linguistic register in
their literary use. In particular, in this study we seek to establish which subjectivities
configure these works through the use of the IL, and to determine how these subjectivities are
related to the feminist social demands arising in the contemporary Argentine public sphere. At
this point, it would be pertinent to clarify that we consider the object of study as a reflection
and reformulation of the sociocultural movements that promote it. Hence, both our feminist
approach to the material (see 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) and the focus on new subjectivities arising from
the so- called post autonomous literatures (see 2.4), implies considering that literature
dialogues with sociological problems, also taking into account that the literary phenomenon,
although it is not a purely social fact, has the potential to interpret reality and to be a reality in
itself; as expressed in her speech by the writer Maria Teresa Andruetto (2019) with which we
open the introduction to this thesis.
1.2 Research Questions
To carry out the proposed objectives, we have formulated the following questions that will
serve as a guide for the analysis:
1. What function does non-binary inclusive language have in these texts and how is it
related to the formation of new subjectivities in the framework of feminist struggles?
2. In what way are the subjectivities that arise in and with the struggle as well as in
feminist thought manifested in these texts and how can they be interpreted from
feminist perspectives?
To answer the research questions, and as a part of this introduction, we will first contextualize
the sociocultural framework in which this new manifestation of the Hispanic language
emerges (1.3); to then determine what is understood by IL and the different proposals of it
(1.4), after this, we will determine the motivation for the choice of the corpus and the scope of
our research (1.5). Once we have established in which of the manifestations of the non-binary
IL we will centralize our study, we will give an account of the state of the art regarding the
selected works. In chapter two (2.) we describe the theoretical framework and then, once the
theoretical concepts and methodology have been presented, we will carry out the
corresponding analysis of our corpus in chapter three (3.) where, as we have proposed, we
will study the literary use of the non-binary IL in the configuration of new subjectivities that
refer to the public arena in two poems of Martes Verde, first, and in Vikinga Bonsai secondly;
to finally close the present study with our final reflections and conclusions (4.).
41.3 Inclusive language and literature - cultural
debates in the times of #NiUnaMenos and the
pañuelazos
Given that the emergence of the IL is a very recent phenomenon, it is necessary to trace its
use and the consequences that this entails in its sociocultural context of emergence. This is
why in this section we will place our study and the analysis material in the academic and
cultural debate that have generated the relationships between the IL, literature and the social
movements that concern us in this study. In this framework, we want to highlight the cultural
debate organized by Ana Ojeda and Cecilia Fanti, which took place at the eighth Editors' Fair
under the name of "The language in dispute", and which was later made into a book with the
same title in which the complete transcription of the debate carried out between the invited
critics Beatriz Sarlo and Santiago Kalinowski is collected, and where two different views on
the relationship between inclusive language, society and culture are exposed.
In such debate, Santiago Kalinowski highlights that the generic masculine of the Spanish
language was encoded in the language throughout the millennia (Kalinowski, 2019 in Sarlo &
Kalinowski 2019: 40). This premise is based on the idea that for thousands of years man was
considered the male of the species and acted accordingly. As such, the man monopolized all
the spaces of visibility, distributed the resources (hunting and harvest in the beginning) as
well as dominated the spaces of politics, science and art as they emerged. Therefore,
Kalinowski explains the generic masculine as the grammatical correlate of an ancestral social
order of the species, which is patriarchal (ibid.: 40). In other words, Kalinowski (ibid.: 42)
asserts that the generic masculine is practically a linguistic universal based on examples from
other languages since inequality between male and female is also a universal aspect of
humanity. Based on this observation, he emphasizes that the function of the IL does not aim at
a linguistic change per se, but rather a political and social change, and that is precisely why it
is categorized as a rhetorical phenomenon5 (ibid.: 42). The IL, according to Kalinowski, is
then a conscious intervention and therefore a discursive configuration (ibid.: 72).
On the other hand, Beatriz Sarlo maintains, that the IL proposal can be taken as an imposition
that, in the case of language, generates a force (Sarlo, 2019 in Sarlo & Kalinowski 2019: 28).
Sarlo also argues that the obsession with the IL was generated by the mere initiative of a
group of girls from two elite schools in the City of Buenos Aires and, therefore, said debate
does not represent a major event or relevance in the global context of the Spanish-speaking
world (ibid.: 76). The main axis of Sarlo's argument (2019) is found in a perception of the
nature of the language from which, this criticism emphasizes the ineffectiveness of the
imposition of the IL in the general speech of society: in the name of democracy and inclusion,
it is not convenient to do things that are not democratic or include the inevitable linguistic
5
The interpretation of IL as a rhetorical phenomenon, according to Kalinowski (2019: 61), is related to the
intervention of public discourse and with the explicit objective of achieving progress in terms of equalit
5tensions (ibid.: 60), especially if one takes into account that those who act on it are an “urban
educated minority”6 (ibid.). In contrast to Kalinowski's idea, in this debate Sarlo maintains
that the relationship between language and reality is unstable and therefore no rules can be
established on the use of language since impositions, according to Sarlo (ibid.), are useless.
A third position, even more radical than that of Sarlo and equally critical of the IL, is that of
the Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa (2019), who delivered the opening speech
of the VIII International Congress of the Spanish Language held in the province of Córdoba,
Argentina in the year 2019. During an interview after his participation, Vargas Llosa
expressed his position regarding the IL, alleging that discrimination against women is
undeniable and must be corrected, but that this problem is not solved through changes in
language, since languages must change freely (Vargas Llosa in Bolívar, 2019 s / n) and ‒in a
vision like Sarlo's‒ specified that this change can in no way be forced. Vargas Llosa (ibid.)
Also defines the role of institutions in the use of language by stating that it is not the
academies who create language, but rather, they collect what speakers and scribes produce
(ibid.). This is to say, from the ideological point of view, according to Vargas Llosa (ibid.),
Language is something conceived naturally by all humanity and has rules that cannot be
broken. For this reason, in this vision, when trying to install the IL, what is obtained is a
prejudiced situation that denatures the language and impoverishes it (ibid.). In short,
according to Vargas Llosa, the IL is not going to solve the problem of discrimination against
women, which certainly must be fought, but in a way that is effective. He considers that it is
not necessary to go further and denaturalize the language to establish a supposed unprejudiced
linguistic equality (ibid.). Vargas Llosa's position lies in the dilemma about whether the IL
arises as a genuine consequence of the changes in our society or if, on the contrary, an attempt
to force a transformation at a cultural, ideological, and political level through alterations that
pretends to be done to the Spanish language.
From the foregoing, we conclude that, while some critics propose that the use of non-binary
language in literature consists of a mere transfer of politics from identity to language (Sarlo,
Vargas Llosa), others (Kalinowski) affirm that cultural revolutions begin in language and that
the IL has the potential to modify the way we understand ourselves and perceive others. In
this framework of antagonistic positions, it should be noted that, although the implementation
of the IL has a merely recent use and application, the Argentine researcher Delia Suardiaz was
one of the pioneers in visualizing the problem of the representation of women in language,
and especially in Spanish. In her doctoral thesis Sexism in the Spanish language, Suardiaz
(1973) analyzes and highlights the absence of women in the Spanish language and the sexist
uses of this language, raising, already in the seventies, the need for a linguistic change7, a
6
This statement made by Sarlo (2019) is used to devalue the importance of the language revolution presented
by the IL and in order to do this she compares it with great movements, such as the march in the United States
from Alabama to Washington, or the speeches of Martin Luther King , facts that, as Sarlo (2019: 29) highlights,
did achieve linguistic changes, such as, for example, that the use of the word “nigger” is practically prohibited.
7
Her work was recently translated into Spanish in a kind of posthumous tribute after her death in 2001.
Suardiaz's work has been rescued as one of the first feminist criticisms of the Spanish language.
6change that begins to be glimpsed in the literary corpus of the present study and constitutes
our object of exploration.
1.4 @, “todos y todas”, “x”, “e” ¿Inclusive
language or discursive monster?
In this section we are going to delimit our object of study, which consists of literary works
that resort to the non-binary IL, which is manifested with the use of the letter e as a neutral
gender and is the one that has established itself in the La Plata river region. However, it must
be emphasized that this is not the only way in which IL has been discussed and crystallized in
the language. Other proposals include the doubling, the use of the letter x and the symbol @,
which we will discuss to define the analytical focus of this thesis.
Nowadays, the problem about the egalitarian inclusion of women in the Spanish language and
its lack of discursive and social visibility is widely accepted by cultural and academic sectors.
One of the first antecedents on the acceptance of this problematization could be the guide
published in 1995 written by the advisory commission on the language of the Institute for
Women (NOMBRA) which has been prepared in collaboration with the Spanish commission
of UNESCO8. This guide suggests, for example, that common phrases that uses a masculine
name like ‘hombre’ to refer to all of humanity should began to evolve to be gender neutral,
with uses such as ‘humanidad’ instead, or the use of word ‘vecindad’ to refer to a group of
neighbors made up of men and women instead of the common one of ‘vecinos’. Thus, the
suggestions that emerge from this guide are basically a replacement of terminology to make
the language more inclusive.
Likewise, the alternatives of incorporating different letters, and even a symbol, have also been
proposed. Some of these suggestions include the use of both o and a, that is, “los – las” to
include men and women, masculine and feminine, incorporating the feminine generic instead
of using only the masculine generic, a resource that is known as doubling. A problem that
arises from the approach of using both masculine and feminine is the lengthening of
sentences9, which, according to the RAE, would go against the principle of linguistic
economy and applied without control, would generate “discursive monsters”10. However,
8
This guide is considered a reference par excellence for other materials that have been published subsequently
in order to institute the visibility of women in language.
9
For example: saying “the male and female doctors” results in a sentence of five words instead of two.
10
This is how the RAE problematizes it in a report carried out regarding the IL (2020), since in point 8.3.3.2 of
the report it dismisses said duplication appeal because: One of the great principles that govern the functioning
of the language, both in its evolution as in its presence in discourse, from phonology to pragmatics, it is the
principle of economy. Gender breakdowns are grammatical, and even courteous; but applied without control
they generate discursive monsters (RAE, 2020: 56, my bold).
7despite the above, this resource is commonly used in political speeches to address the entire
population, both male and female (todos y todas).
The use of the @ symbol has been another of the IL's proposals. This symbol became popular
because it is considered to resemble the letter a contained within the o and therefore can be
applied to contain in a single word the masculine and feminine forms of the noun. However,
this resource has been repudiated by the RAE in their report entitled Linguistic sexism and
visibility of women. In this report, its author, Ignacio Bosque (2012), makes it clear that,
according to the position of the RAE, the at symbol (@) is exactly a symbol and not a
linguistic sign, therefore, its use as an integrating graphic resource is not the appropriate one.
Likewise, according to the RAE, there is also the impediment of its oral application since said
appeal is a written solution that cannot be pronounced in the Spanish language. A similar
situation of the impossibility of pronunciation arises with the use of the letter x, which has
also been proposed as an inclusive resource. Although this is a letter in the Spanish language,
its inclusive use cannot be pronounced at the end of a word and, consequently, like the at sign,
it does not have a phonetic realization in the Spanish language when it is used, for example, in
the word todxs (everyone in inclusive key), although in some cases the x is pronounced as e
(todxs / todex, latinxs / latinex).
Finally, we arrive at the fourth option of IL with the letter e, which constitutes the focus of the
analysis in our corpus. This resource has a great advantage over the two previous options of
@ and x, since it has a phonetic realization and can, therefore, be used in oral interactions
(Gil, 2020). Furthermore, it is important to note that this vowel is not grammatically
associated with masculine or feminine, but rather implies a non-binary use. Since this
variation of IL is the most used in the La Plata river region, this is the variant that we will find
most frequently in the Argentine literature that uses IL and, therefore, in the texts of our
corpus.
However, even though this seems the most effective resource, there is no shortage of criticism
of this type of inclusive tool. Irizarry-Robles and Esteban (2020) problematizes that, although
the use of the letter e has been useful for many words in Spanish in terms of IL, this letter
does not solve the problem for many other words in this language. His argument is based on
the fact that the vowel e in Spanish has different sounds depending on the letter that precedes
it11. Likewise, the critics maintain that the letter e is sometimes used as masculine. As an
example, we could use the word presidente (male president) but that does not necessarily
mean that it is inclusive of the feminine, since the word presidenta (female president) is used
instead to change it to its female version (Irizarry-Robles and Esteban, 2020). Esteban (2019:
3), had as well pointed out another problem related to the use of the e related to the possibility
of interpretation that the e is being used to refer exclusively to the non- binary gender
community. In this context, Esteban (ibid.) raises the dilemma that in this case its use can be
11
For example, if we look at the word psicóloges, it would not be pronounced with g, but rather its
pronunciation would change phonetically to the sound of the morpheme j, thus pronouncing psicólojes.
8interpreted as an exclusive letter and only used to represent the non-binary gender
community. In relation to this observation, Esteban (ibid.) emphasizes the concern that the use
of this exclusive letter to make the non-binary community visible articulates a segregation of
LGTBIQ communities and highlights the importance of knowing this distinction precisely due
to that, if it were indeed an exclusive letter, we would be continuing with the extension of the
language and this could continue bringing the same problems and debates that have been held
until now12.
For his part, in its Digital Newsletter No. 94, and regarding the unification with the vowel e of
the gender distinctions present in the nominal suffixes, José Luis Moure, the president of the
Argentine Academy of Letters, maintains that said proposal is destined for failure. Moure
(2018) indicates that the proposed change does not arise from below as a gradual and
progressive evolution in the face of an expressive need of a considerable number of speakers,
but, instead, it is a proposal generated from above. He is also cataloging the people using this
resource as a numerical minority and born of a middle-class group that seeks to impose a
value on the language around a social claim (ibid.). Moure (2018) points out that this change
does not imply a simplification of the pre-existing system, but, on the contrary, it entails a
complication of its use. For Moure (ibid.) it is not possible to pretend to generate a social
change from a substantial change in the morphology and grammar of the language and he
emphasizes that there is a fundamental error in assuming that this change in the language will
lead to a change in the social behavior. Therefore, for the director of the Academy of Letters,
the proposal of the implementation of the e is totally artificial and arbitrary since it does not
have any antecedent in the historical conformation of the language and, according to him, it
could perfectly have been proposed both the use of the vowel i as the e (ibid.). However, we
want to problematize the position of the president of the Argentine Academy of Letters
pointing out that the e is as artificial and arbitrary as all language itself, and although another
letter could have been chosen to represent inclusion such as i, the widespread use of the e as a
sign of inclusion in various cultural, academic, and social spheres shows that its use would be
dictating a change in the norm.
1.5 Les hermanes sean unides. Motivation of the
corpus
In this section we will firstly locate the corpus of our study in the literary and social context in
which emerges in Argentine literature to motivate its selection for this approach. We have
chosen Argentine literature as a focus in IL due to the cultural context of experiments with
literary language, translations of literary classics into IL, and uses of the IL in various genres
of literature, as we develop below.
12
As Esteban (2019) explains, in this context, and in order to be inclusive, the three letters should then be
written: “todas, todos y todes”, otherwise, in any text or statement in which the option with e is not used, it
would be then systematically marginalizing the LGTBIQ collective.
9In the Spanish dialect from the La Plata river region there is already a tradition of radical
experimental languages that sought to differentiate themselves from the norms of the
traditional Spanish from Spain, like for instance the Gotán13 and the Lunfardo14. These
languages also began as popular and oral forms until they were incorporated into cultural
expressions such as tango and poetry, giving rise to ways of speaking outside the norm of the
dictionary and language academies. Another characteristic that differentiates this region from
the rest of the Spanish-speaking countries is the use of “voseo”15. This particular use was
given because the Southern Cone region was characterized by being an archaic area of the
Spanish empire, unlike the regions that had viceroyalties courts instead, which continue to use
“tuteo”16 even today (Sarlo, in Sarlo & Kallinowski, 2019: 60)17.
Given these antecedents, or perhaps, better still, starting from said linguistic particularities
that the region presents, we will observe the case of the non-binary IL and we will try to
determine what is the mark that this transformation of the Spanish language is leaving in
contemporary Argentine literature.
Today, in the area of the La Plata river, the IL is discussed and incorporated in academic,
literary, and governmental spheres, and is also used in the colloquial and oral language of
some sectors of the Argentine society. Furthermore, the discussion regarding its use has even
extended to the media and social networks (Niro, 2019: 80). In relation to this issue, an
Argentine glotopolitics yearbook carried out a literary experiment that consisted in publishing
on the Twitter account of the AGlo Project a very brief audiovisual cut taken from an
Argentine public channel linked to cultural and educational issues in which a young woman
shows the host of the program how the famous verses of El Gaucho Martín Fierro would be if
they were written in its inclusive version18. The well-known verses of the poem, in its
inclusive version, were the following:
13
Gotan is the word “tango” written backwards. It's in a kind of slang from the City of Buenos Aires in which
certain words are said backwards, making the speech hard to understand for outsiders.
14
Lunfardo is a term that refers to slang words and phrases used in Argentina. A debate exists about
whether Lunfardo refers to any Argentinean slang or if it only applies to the original terms that
began Lunfardo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
15
In Spanish grammar, voseo is the use of vos as a second-person singular pronoun, including its conjugational
verb forms in many dialects. In dialects that have it, it isused either instead of tú, or alongside it.
16
the use of informal as opposed to polite pronouns
17
It should be noted that we are aware that voseo is also used in other regions of Latin America, but in this
case, we want to highlight the widespread use of this phenomenon in the Argentine context, which is indicated
by the cited source (Sarlo, 2019).
18
In this context, it is important to highlight that, regarding the use of the colloquial language that
characterizes Argentine literature, it is The Martín Fierro a canonical text since it makes use of popular speech.
The reading of The Martín Fierro in an inclusive way was therefore a political gesture that generated numerous
controversies.
10“May the brothers be unides, (united in inclusive key)
Because that is the main Law.
May they have a true union
in whichever time this may be,
Because if elles (their) fight,
They will be eaten up by the ones from outside (Niro, 2019: 80, my translation).”
Following this same trend of linguistic transformation (“unides, elles, etc.”), The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, another classic of literature but this time known worldwide, has
also been translated into a version of IL by the Argentine publisher Ethos. Finally, it is also
worth highlighting the work of the renowned Argentine writer Federico Jeanmarie, who has
proposed a free interpretation of IL in his novel “La creación de Eva” (the creation of Eva)
(2018), in which his main character is José María, a transsexual person who after their sex
change operation is renamed Maruja. One of the peculiarities of the work with respect to the
use of the IL is that Maruja describes the world in a feminine key ending with the letter “a” all
the words it enunciates, regardless of their original form. In this way, this character
appropriates the language as a counterweight to the predominant male gaze in the structures
of the Spanish language.
Although the literary works previously presented show interesting uses of the IL in Argentine
literature, due to the scope of this thesis we have selected two poems from the collective
poetry collection Martes Verde and the novel by Ojeda since these are not translations and
make use of the non-binary IL. Although the work of Jeanmarie (2018) presents an
experimental use of the IL, this is far from the use that is currently being applied in
connection with social movements; therefore, we exclude it from the corpus of our research.
Likewise, we exclude the other works mentioned (El Martín Fierro and The Little Prince)
since they are translations of literary classics to the IL, and therefore their analysis would
imply a study that considers translation aspects that would exceed the spectrum that this thesis
enables us to cover. However, it should be noted that, as can be seen from these examples,
although the non-binary IL has reached many countries within the Hispanic world, it is in the
area of the La Plata river where it has crossed the borders of social debate to even be part of
the literary field.
It is in this context that the first novel written purely in IL, Vikinga Bonsai, and the poems La
pija de Hegel (the dick of Hegel) and the untitled poem have come to light. Being these the
only ones that contain the inclusive use with the letter e, it is why they have been the select
works that constitute the corpus of analysis within the emerging production of literary works
with IL in Argentina.
1.6 State of the Art
In this section we report on previous studies on the works that make up the corpus of this
research. Given that both the collection of poems and the novel are very recent works (2018
11and 2019 respectively) there are currently no numerous studies carried out on them, for this
reason, this state of the art will also be made up of cultural studies and reviews of both works.
Regarding Martes Verde, Castro (2019) proposes the poems could be catalogue as action
poetry that assembles the physical place of the protests, the bodies and the materiality of
language in sounds and rhythm into paper, in her own words: poetry that vibrates and
activates sonority and sisterhood (Castro, 2019: 192). According to Castro (ibid.: 185),
despite the relationship within reality through its operations with the everyday and the
familiarity, this poetry cannot be classified as realistic, and chooses instead to relate it to the
concept of “post autonomous literatures” by Josefina Ludmer. In this context, Castro (2019)
also highlights that the proposal provided by these poems takes a double starting point: the
printed poetry book, on the one hand, and the oral situation where the poems were recited, on
the other. According to Castro (2019), this double meaning projects the printed poems to the
virtual scene of collective street recitation where Martes Verde (poems) forms an “iteration”
of Martes Verde (collective reading of poems in front of the Parliament) (ibid.: 185).
For their part, Dema and Gigena (2018), who summarize the outstanding feminist works of
the year 2018, in the poetry category, highlight the poetry collection Martes Verde as a
documentary work cataloguing it as the document of a year in which the green wave flooded
the streets of the country (Dema and Gigena, 2018: s /n)19. On the other hand, the editorial
Romero (2018)20, also highlights the link between the poetry collection and the political
struggle. Citing the phrase "We are writing history / we are making the revolution" (my own
translation) pronounced by one of the authors of the collection of poems, who also affirms
that the poetic word stamped in multiple voices a cry that society demanded: Legal abortion
now! (Roggero, 2018, in Romero, 2018: s / n), the cultural article of the editorial highlights
that the poetic word is not alienated from the political dispute and therefore catalogs the
collection of poems as a reflection of said struggle (ibid.).
In such a critical-cultural panorama, we want to highlight that, although the previous studies
connect poetry with the social movements by addressing the poem in its scenic aspect as art-
action (Castro, 2019), as a historical-cultural document (Dema and Gigena, 2018) and as a
reflection of the struggle (Roggero, 2018), these studies do not properly focus on the
emergence of non-binary language in the literary event or on the ways in which this language
articulates new subjectivities that dispute a place and a voice in the public space, as we intend
to analyze in this thesis.
Regarding the previous studies on Vikinga Bonsai, Borrelli Azara (2020) places Ojeda's work
within a Buenos Aires literary tradition and compares it with the work Adam Buenosayres
19
For further information see the following link: https://www.lanacion.com.ar/cultura/una-ola-verde-literatura-
mejores-libros- feministas-nid2200334
20
For further information see the following link: http://www.nuestrasvoces.com.ar/mujeres-en-lucha/la-poesia-
se-tino-de- verde/
12(1948), the famous novel by Leopoldo Marechal. The parallel between the two works is based
on the number of main characters, since in both there are four friends, with the difference that
in Adam Buenosayres these are men. For Borrelli Azara, Ojeda's novel articulates a
Marechaliano wink of number five: Tesler, Pereda, Shulze, Petiso Bernini and our girls who
are the same number but are other, insurrectionary daughters of the society of this time, make
their own version of dreamed community in the face of death as they practice shared
parenting without a theoretical framework (Borrelli Azara, 2020: s / n). Borrelli Azara also
highlights that, in both Marechal's and Ojeda's work, common and everyday phrases are
incorporated into the narrative, as well as different areas of the city of Buenos Aires; while in
Adam Buenosayres the Villa Crespo neighborhood prevails, in Vikinga Bonsai almost all the
scenes take place in the neighborhood of Boédo, two neighborhoods that also have many
similarities to each other. Regarding the use of the IL, the literary critic Borrelli Azara gives
less importance to the political act of the use of the IL in this novel, since it proposes
refraining from celebrating the inclusive as a gesture of a gift to be used for the enjoyment of
reading (ibid.). Borrelli Azara points out as well the muddy aspect of the language of the
novel in relation to the American neo-baroque tradition and compares this kind of language
with a swamp that from afar looks smooth and passable and that if one dares to walk on it,
one will eat it, grabbing it in its mud so that we get bogged down (ibid.: s / n).
For her part, the cultural journalist Boix (2019)21 points out that Vikinga Bonsai risks crossing
borders using current jargon, IL and hashtags. Likewise, Boix (2019) highlights the sound of
the language in the novel and suggests that Ojeda seems to want to find the sonorous territory
of our contemporary life by experimenting with speech, the diversity of voices and the vertigo
of language to capture the affective network that the friends weave to sustain parenting, work,
and social lives amid chaos. On the contrary, Paz Frontera (2019) argues that, since the text is
written in IL, the fluent reading of the work only appeals to those who live in communities of
inclusive speakers, and that perhaps this use requires an interpretive effort for those who read
from another frame. In this same sense, Ferrer Anechina (2020) points out that the condensed
and sometimes almost cryptic language of the novel requires adapting to a new reading
rhythm; however, she points out that once the registration is processed, the novel unfolds as a
parody of the everyday life taken to the extreme. In this context, Ferrer Anechina (2020)
highlights the poetic way in which Ojeda subverts linguistic conventions and shows the
fragility and elasticity of these structures. The incorporation of archaic words, invented words,
words from different dialects and geographical areas, anglicisms, expressions coined on the
internet, hashtags combined with a free syntax that goes from the message telegraphic where
everything is condensed to the most artificial baroque; makes the author extract a multiplicity
of meanings from words and configure an almost abstract language that escapes conventional
pressures and exceeds any normative framework (Ferrer Anechina, 2020: s / n). In this regard,
Ferrer Anechina (2020) highlighted the use of a choral character that, although it gives the
21
Review: Vikinga bonsai, by Ana Ojeda (Verónica Boix) https://www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/una- novela-
libre-y-sin-domesticar-nid2298037
13feeling of being anti-heroic, embodies the everyday heroism of middle-class women when the
male characters ignore the life troubles and hardly appear on the novel.
Paz Frontera (2019), for her part, highlighted the particular saturation of Babel narrative style
in Ojeda's novel:
the narrator builds a Babel from where all the accumulated languages spring
from: English, Italian, French, Lunfardo, the hashtag language, the language of
tweeter, of the WhatsApp message, and everything flows as if we were also
polyglot readers of that assortment of different languages, or as if it were
possible to learn more words in a time of saturation of such (Paz Frontera, 2019,
s / n) (my own translation)
As we noted in the previous quote, Paz Frontera (2019) highlights this language as the
appropriation of a woman who writes about the lives of women in the domestic space and
sustains that this shows that it is still possible to write literature from that battlefield, in
inclusive key and co-habiting with friends. The idea of saturation that Paz Frontera proposes
is also highlighted by Maude (2019)22, who compares Ojeda's narrative style with the famous
North American writer Thomas Pynchon for his complex and labyrinthine narrative as well as
the loaded language of the Argentine writer, Julio Cortázar, in her own words: the language of
Ojeda's novel is not very far from the Pynchonian or Cortazarian delirium (Maude, 2019: s /
n) (my own translation)
As we have seen, previous studies on Ojeda's novel address two main aspects, and these are in
the one hand the use of language, linguistic experimentations and the relationships that can be
traced with other experimental texts (Boix, 2019; Ferrer Anechina, 2020; Paz Frontera, 2019;
Maude, 2019); and on the other hand, the representation of female experiences that embody
the struggle of women to gain visibility in the social sphere and demolish the patriarchal
system (Borrelli Azara, 2020). This overview of the previous studies shows the relevance of
the study that we undertake, since, although the previous studies on the novel focus on the
language of the novel, they ignore the interrelationships between the linguistic-literary
experimentations in the novel and the use of the IL as ways of articulating new subjectivities
in the framework of feminist struggles, which constitutes the focus of our study.
To carry out the analysis of the poems of Martes Verde and the Viking Bonsai novel in order
to answer the research questions we will use a critical vocabulary from feminist theories, as
we will develop below.
22
Vikinga Bonsái (Kit Maude) https://www.revistaotraparte.com/literatura-argentina/vikinga-bonsai/
142. Theoretical Framework
In this section we will present the theoretical-methodological framework that will serve as the
foundation for the exploration of our corpus. Since our study relates IL to the construction of
a subjectivity in literature that transcends the limits of generic identity and thus highlights
traditionally invisible subjects such as women, in the analysis we will use concepts from
feminist theories with a deconstructive basis such as those of Luce Irigaray (2.1) and Judith
Butler (2.2) since their studies focus on language, but we also resorted to feminist essays from
South America from the compilation edited by Liliana Colanzi (2.3) since the vocabularies of
feminisms natives from Latin American practices propose concepts that allow us to
understand this literature rooted in the social problems located in the region. Finally, we will
use the theoretical perspective of post autonomous literatures of Argentinian Josefina Ludmer
(2.4) to define what we understand by subjectivity in this type of contemporary works that
have a fluid relationship with social reality as well as with social media languages, such as
Martes Verde and Viking Bonsai.
As Culler (2000) highlights, feminism is not about a unified school but rather about a social
and intellectual movement that also generates a space for debate (Culler, 2000: 152).
Therefore, the attempt to connect two thinkers like Butler and Irigaray may be paradoxical,
since, while the first is linked to the feminist theory of equality, the second, on the other hand,
is one of the precursors of the feminism idea of difference. Likewise, it can also be thought of
as contradictory, relating those Anglo-Saxon feminisms with the feminisms of disobedience
that articulate the essays compiled by Colanzi (2019). However, we stand on the basis that
these theories do not conflict, but rather complement each other, because despite their
different approaches, the three perspectives deal with the interrelation between language,
gender, sex, and society. The three aspects are relevant because the texts of the corpus exhibit
aspects that can be illuminated in the interrelation between these theories, for example,
Irigaray's idea of community of women, non-binary language and the performance of identity
proposed by Butler and disobedience in the face of authority and the norm posed in Latin
American feminism essays.
2.1 To speak is never neutral. From Luce
Irigaray’s feminism of the sexual difference to the
popular feminism of South America
Claiming equality, as women, seems to me the wrong expression of a real goal.
Claiming equality implies a term of comparison. To what or whom do women
want to equalize? To men? To a salary? To a public position? To which model?
Why not to themselves? Luce Irigaray (1992: 9) (my own translation).
15Luce Irigaray is one of the theorists most passionately interested in the concept of difference:
between the sexes, between the same women, between each individual woman. Her feminism
of sexual difference takes as a premise that female jouissance, considered a specific female
representation of the unconscious and desire, is the unsaid of all discourse, and develops a
fundamental critique of discourse trying to inscribe sexual difference in it (Braidotti, 1994:
62).
According to Braidotti (1994: 62) Irigaray's work can be read as a direct response to the
position of modern master thinkers: Foucault's archaeological / genealogical method and
Derrida's metaphysical deconstruction. Irigaray's concept of sexual difference in feminism
also follows the trail of Gilles Deleuze when he claims that the difference is the other, the
non-identical, which questions every possibility of identity (Deleuze, 1998 in Posada Kubisa,
2014: 66).
In her work in general, and more explicitly in This Sex which is Not One (1985), Irigaray
addresses the question of the relationship between equality and difference. She repeatedly
warns women that emancipation leads to the homologation of masculine ways and norms.
Irigaray argues that if women aspire to be equal to men, in that case they would enjoy, in the
near future, the same economic, social and political rights as men. That is, they would become
a potential man (Irigaray, 1985). Therefore, what is really needed, according to Irigaray
(1992), is the symbolic recognition of both sexes and their particularities. In this sense, the
liberation of women would not happen through “becoming men” (ibid., 1992: 69) or in
envying objects or parts of the man23, but instead in that the female subjects give a new value
of their own to the expression of their sex and their gender.
In her commitment to feminist struggles for equality, Irigaray defends the notion of sexual
difference conditionally. This means that women do not yet exist and that they cannot be born
without the collective effort of women who empower and symbolize their specific sexuality,
enjoyment, textual practice and political vision. Braidotti (1994: 64), who has delved into
Irigaray's work, argues that the sexual difference of women must be constructed and that, for
Irigaray, it is the task of women's movements to establish the conditions of possibility for this
differential becoming. In this sense, it is important to highlight the idea of Irigaray (1992) that
the multiplicity of theoretical and political positions is the source of the very richness of
feminist consciousness. The objective is therefore not to elaborate a unified and all-
encompassing feminist politics, but to generate the conditions for the possibility of profound
transformations, which in turn arise from the collective political struggle (Braidotti, 1994: 66).
From Irigaray's perspective, it is essential to restore equal subjective rights to men and
women; that is, equivalent rights in exchange systems from the linguistic point of view. Thus,
the cultural injustices of the language and its generalized sexism should be analyzed, which is
23
Critical allusion is made here to the Freudian theory of penis envy.
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