Sexist drafting and translation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU

Abstract

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (adopted in 2000 and legally binding since 2009) was the object of criticism during the drafting process on gender grounds, for the use of sexist language, the lack of gender mainstreaming, and for not taking a clearer stance on the support of equality between women and men, among other issues. This article lists the main amendments that were submitted in this respect. The final version of the Charter was modified to eliminate sexist language in the original English text but not in other language versions, as we will see in the analysis. Based on the European Institute for Gender Equality’s definition of non-sexist use of language as the avoidance of the ambiguous masculine gender, we will highlight the appearance of the so-called generic masculine in the Charter’s English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese versions. Finally, a proposal for a non-sexist Spanish translation is included with the aim of demonstrating the functional adequacy, simplicity and need to implement non-sexist translation and drafting of EU texts.