The Masculinity of the Arabic Language: A Silent Erasure of Women’s Humanity

Bayan Saleh

The masculinity of the Arabic language is not a fleeting linguistic phenomenon. It is one of the most egregious forms of injustice practiced against women, because it erases their existence and humanity. Language is a means of thinking, communication, and the construction of reality. When language becomes entirely masculine, this is reflected in how we are treated and in how our role in society is perceived. On a daily basis, we face this programmed erasure in public discourse: in the home, the workplace, the street, schools, universities, and elsewhere. What is even more unfortunate and painful is that this marginalization does not appear only in traditional or conservative environments, but is also reproduced within organizations and parties that define themselves as progressive or as supporters of women’s rights.

Personally, I experience a pronounced sense of nonexistence when only the masculine form is used to address everyone: “our colleagues,” “our writers,” “our readers,” “our youth”… as if women were merely an unseen shadow, or as if their presence were secondary and unworthy of acknowledgment. At times, I am forced to expend extra energy simply to remind the group that there is a female presence among them, and that their mode of address should include us as women as well. This is exhausting, as it requires additional effort and reflects a deep psychological burden: the burden of having to demand recognition of our existence in the most basic details, even in forms of address and pronouns.

The persistence of this repugnant phenomenon is not an incidental linguistic occurrence. It is an extension of a long history of exclusion. Language was not created in a vacuum; it was shaped within patriarchal societies that viewed men as the center of everything, and women as mere dependents, mentioned only insofar as they were related to men. Thus emerged the rule that “the masculine prevails over the feminine,” as if masculine presence were the norm and women’s presence an exception that can be overlooked.

The erasure and exclusion of women’s existence at the linguistic level has accumulated over centuries, from pre-Islamic times to the authority of jurisprudence and religious discourse, from social practices to the formulation of laws, grammar, and proverbs. All of this has reinforced a single idea: that a man’s voice suffices to represent everyone, and that women are implicitly included, even when this so-called “inclusion” actually conceals their existence entirely instead of acknowledging it.

In this way, the Arabic language has become a mirror reflecting a long history of inequality, and a tool that reproduces it daily in every discourse, in every sentence we hear or read. When women are not named, they are not seen. And when they are not seen, their exclusion becomes a naturalized matter that attracts no attention. What happens linguistically also happens socially. Masculine address is a linguistic detail, but it is also a prelude to an entire mode of interaction that places men at the forefront and women on the margins. When this pattern is reproduced even within institutions that proclaim their commitment to equality, the feeling of nonexistence is intensified.

Yes, we are in need of a genuine linguistic revolution, and of a conscious reform that confronts the masculinity of language which amputates the essence of women and weakens their presence. This reform is a necessity to restore balance and to rebuild a reality that recognizes us as we are: steadfast, present, and deserving to be named, to be seen, and to be. Without a conscious and radical linguistic reform, women will remain linguistically absent in the Arabic language, and consequently politically and socially absent as well. We need a language that recognizes us, names us, and addresses us. A language that rebuilds our presence instead of erasing our existence.