Adriana Valdés: "There is something that can not be changed with the will, that's the language"

Adriana Valdes was 75 years old and was about to retire when she was hit by a powerful wave that, with almost unprecedented strength to run the barrier of the possible. It is the emergence of a new generation of feminists in Chile – but not only – hegemonized by the youngest among the young, who she decided to take a step forward and apply for the leadership of the Chilean Academy of Languages, a position that has never been occupied by a woman in less than 133 years of history. And Valdes did not only dare to introduce himself; He also won.

"If I started writing about feminism in 1980 and now, almost 40 years later, it's that force that drives ideas that we thought very few people shared, How will I subtract? Then I decided that I would not be subtracted, and when I had the opportunity and credited credentials, I decided to stand for election and present the situation in a very simple way, saying that I thought I was qualified, "said the essayist, author of the bestseller Redefining the human: the humanities in the twenty-first century (University of Valparaíso, 2017) and Angels and nymphs. Conjectures on the image in Warburg and Benjamin (Orjikh Editores, 2012).

This is why, when visiting Buenos Aires for the International Book Fair, this writer explains that her appointment is a phenomenon that far exceeds her. "I'm not here to be a woman, but to be an academic and to be called to take charge"said the day of its inauguration on January 9th.

His years of studies at the Catholic University, his duties as an official at the UN and his literary criticism and art theory work gave Valdés the badurance that She was fit to hold this position even though she thought beyond her personal appointment as something good both for the academy and the Institute of Chile – who also chairs and brings together all the academies of science and human sciences in the country -. It is actually one of their top priorities at these institutions: open them, bring them closer to society, modernize them. "The choice of a woman has taken away a little the aura of a gentleman old regimewhich is an idea that persecutes us.

It is therefore not surprising that Valdés became, during his term of office, a kind of media star. "The media interest for me is like a surfing wave that goes up and up and one day it'll fall, I've chosen to go up and grabbed the opportunity to sail before it takes off", she also says while having fun that she likes and is very active in the Twitter social network because she never liked "that to be locked up in the tower d & # 39; ivory ".

It may be because the letters are in itself conjugated to feminism, or that his position does not correspond to closed rejections or uncritical celebrations, but Valdes became in the last time, reference when thinking about dilemmas around inclusive language.

-Each book has, in addition to a narrator, a reader. In the nineteenth century, it was very common for a novel to say things like "Dear reader: you who sit by the fire reading this novel, you may ask yourself such questions …" or & # 39; You who quietly smoke your cigar while you read these pages. And one day, I realized that this showed that the implied recipient of this story was probably not a woman. And that the common sense of this novel probably did not apply equally to women. That's why feminist readings are so valuable. read against the current. Read not thinking from the subject that is implicit in what one reads, but instead of a subject that can be differentiated from it. It is a reinterpretation of all the literature, based on the fact that this literature probably represented a culture to which we did not belong. One of my first articles on feminism, published in Mexico in 1983, had a phrase that said, "What have words, we have already gone out," because I knew the word had already been constructed by d & # 39; other.

-When we talk about gender and language, I read that he had said that to the extent that the inclusive use of the language extended, then the academy should l & # 39; adopt. This implies that there is not something that is "right" or "wrong" in the language, is this correct?

-I will quote Andrés Bello, who tries to say what it is to speak well, and that explains that the good language is the language that the educated people speak at a given time and place. If educated people speak in a certain way, this sets a standard for the rest of society. Following this criterion, inclusive language may become generalized, although I do not think it will happen.

-Because there is a kind of quite significant confusion between the grammatical genre and the sociological category of the genre. The sociological category of the genre, Gender studies The United States – our approach to the subject is quite colonial – they have nothing to do with the neutral gender in English, which we miss in Spanish. The grammatical gender does not depend on the ends o and a, and so words like dentistor Prophetfor example, they end up in a but they do not distinguish bad, there is even a prophetess against Prophet. This shows that the grammatical genre and the sociological genre are very different things. And the formation of an artificially inclusive language that avoids o and the a It's a pretty big form of violence. If I tried to talk like that right away, I would get a pretty hectic interview.

– And what can be done then for women to "appear" in the language?

-What I will always do, that's talk people, I will always say citizenship, I will always say student c & # 39; is to say, I will try to use the criterion so that the many words that Spanish offers me can be used in an inclusive sense. This form has been used, for example, in the Constitution of Chile, where men has been replaced by people. On the other hand, in the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, they are senator and senator, deputy and deputy et cetera, and then the thing is endless, it has 40% more words for that reason, because none can be used as a generic. This goes against what is called the "language economy". The credits could be more economical, but as it currently has this more political connotation, I prefer to avoid using words like "person". And in case these words do not solve the problem or do not work, well, you can use the feminine and the masculine. I think we should be able to find a solution with linguistic criteria, because the abilities of Spanish are.

– Your answer gives the impression that it would arrive with a little judgment, of mind and sensitivity and, nevertheless, the RAE had rather strong answers on this subject, which gave more the impression to close this debate than to open it.

-Not necessarily. I think, for example, to Soledad Puértolas, a highly respected scholar, a great novelist and a member of the Royal Academy. She has posted an inclusive language dialogue on the official website. This is to say that since the Royal Academy, she has published a very different position from the contemptuous position that takes, for example, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and it's very interesting. I think that's partly because she's more sensitive on the subject, that she's more aware of what social life is and does not consider it with that irony. easier, with what other academics or writers are watching. This is why their position is valuable and reflects the fact that the Academy itself is a diverse place where contradictions exist in society.. In other words, some men prefer to reduce the unknown to the known and others more curious about what is happening outside.

-So the debate on inclusive language could bring something enriching for academies …

-I'm what I believe. We, in Chile, are preparing a document and have had several sessions on this subject with remarkable linguists – some younger and some older, many women but also men – with the idea of ​​arriving at a brief and useful formulation. It is very difficult to form syntactically these words with the ending e and that I define as the volunteers, and if there is something that can not be changed with the will, that is the language. I can use these forms, the todesin a ceremony or something, with a value of testimony, and that I respect, everyone can do it. But from there to the impression or that one thinks that the academies can impose it, I think that it is an idea very far from the reality.

– Your role is not, as some people think, that of a kind of police officer of the language?

-It is not my idea nor that of the Chilean Academy for a long time. The old motto of "clean, fixed and gives splendor" who had some detergent and the police was replaced a moment ago with the "unite by the word". The idea is not so much to correct, but especially to give space to the language, to give ideas, to collect the best uses.

-What are the objectives that you have set for the three years of your mandate?

-We finish a stage of a lot and very good linguistic work. I think that what is missing right now is a little more openness to Chilean society and a little modernization in the methods of dissemination of our work. For example, when I was vice director, I started with a program called "Living Chilean Poetry", in which I invited two or three poets and an academic to some public readings, and to this kind of activities filled with people. And we call it so because it was the poetry that was going on at that time.

What opinion do you have about the role of youth? There are few who maintain the idea that young people do not read or that subjects like culture and letters are foreign to them, for example.

-I do not think about new generations -lSo, they did not grow up like us, the book or the magazine being the only way of entertainment – read so little. I think that it is read electronically and that it is written a lot, sometimes badly or quickly, but it is written, and I appreciate the language also when it has other forms. I'd like us to stop teaching humanities as in the days of Gutenberg (the inventor of the printing press) so as to be able to read and leave the very rigid structure created by the book printed in the mind of the man. I mean that reading, which goes from left to right, which indicates that we must first go through the introduction, then through the heart and finally through the conclusion, is a very shaped form of our thinking. In other words, just as the printing press – this tremendous technological support – modeled the spirit in the 15th century, we are now experiencing another technological revolution that models minds and thoughts differently, and that Is a fascinating thing. Neither better nor better, different.

– Theirs is an optimistic reading, then.

In a sense, I chose an ethical option, which is not the complaint, but the celebration of the new possibilities of the human brain. How do we do? I think this interest is fundamental and comes first. That is, we start from the fact that there is a new way of thinking and exercising thought, which is different but that does not stop being thought.