On 2014-10-06 [ISO 8601], the French MP [en] Julien Aubert referred to the President of the French Parliament (Assemblée nationale [fr]) as Madame le président [fr]. The President, whose gender happens to be female, insisted for him to refer to her as Madame la présidente. He refused, and was punished by a docking of pay [en] of a quarter of his monthly indemnité parlementaire [fr]. Previously, he had already committed the same sin by using Madame le Ministre [fr], and not Madame la Ministre, to address a female Minister.
The case is fascinating because he, in effect, got "fined" for applying the correct rules of French grammar, as maintained by the Immortals:
MINISTRE n. m. {XIIe siècle. Emprunté du latin minister, « serviteur ».}
L’emploi du féminin dans La ministre, et dans Madame la Ministre, qui est apparu en 1997, constitue une faute d’accord résultant de la confusion de la personne et de la fonction.
Thus spake the Immortals. I think it's pretty clear... But remember who rules over French language: they have no legal authority, the French Parliament has.
In 2002 already, the Immortals foresaw that conflict:
L’application ou la libre interprétation de « règles » de féminisation édictées, de façon souvent arbitraire, par certains organismes français ou francophones, a favorisé l’apparition de nombreux barbarismes.
– Féminisation des noms de métiers, fonctions, grades et titres
Barbarisme [fr], yes: a mistake so blatant only a foreigner [en] could commit it (from the greek β α ρ ϐ α ρ ι σ μ ο ̀ ς [el]). And we can presume that by "certains organismes français" [fr], they most certainly meant the French Parliament.
But beyond politics and argumentum ab auctoritate [la] why are the Immortals right?
Because French is a language with grammatical genders [en] and they're unrelated to biological gender of persons. Indeed, the word genre [fr] in French has only that grammatical meaning, and not the biological-male-or-female meaning it has as well in English, which translates as sexe [fr], the same as biological sex [en]. Of course, in English the word also includes "social gender", as in "gender studies", a meaning which neither French word has. Thus, once the "gender studies" crossed the Atlantic, the French witnessed the birth of the anglicism genre, as in "études genre" [fr]. A quite unfortunate turn of events for some, who deride the concept as théorie du Dgendeur [fr], which is the French transcription of the English gender [en]. Usually, the concept is criticized both as an anglicism and, on a deeper level, as being a feminist construct contrary to our genetic programming as either male or female (gender thus being a natural reality, not a social construct), thus neither a valid word nor a valid concept.
Indeed, it's probably no coincidence that feminists try to substitute the social meaning of gender as the only valid one, and in their attempt to do so, try to destroy both the other meanings of the word, that is, the concepts of biological gender and grammatical gender. And therefore, it is no coincidence either that anti-feminists try to defend both the grammatical gender and the natural gender, against the onslaught of social gender.
Anyway, back to grammar. A simple example of grammatical gender is the German Mädchen [de], which is gramatically neuter, although it can designate exclusively biologically female persons. In French, however, grammatical genders are only male or female, not neuter. But like in German, biological and grammatical genders can be unrelated (like for inanimate objects, who can be either gender), or even contrary. Thus, not only are there French masculine words who designate both male and female persons, and feminine words which can designate both male and female persons, but, furthermore, like the German neuter word who designates only females, there are French masculine words which can designate only female persons, and feminine words which can designate only male persons.
A few all-too-quickly forgotten examples will make this a lot clearer:
- personne [fr]: person [en], feminine word which can designate either male or female persons. When you need to talk about a male person, you write cet homme est une personne sympathique [fr].
- thon [fr]: ugly fat woman [en], pejorative word which is masculine but can designate only females. Thus, you write: cette femme est un thon [fr].
- recrue [fr]: recruit [en], especially in the male conscript sense. Since conscription usually only applies to males (of course, that kind of discrimination is much less worrisome than fake grammar issues), it's a feminine word used mostly to designate male persons. (You can't stop "social progress", though: Since the glorious "historic day for equality", Norwegian women are subject to military slavery as well.)
- star [fr]: star [en], an anglicism, and it's feminine. Both males and females will thus write je serai une star [fr] (I will be a star [en]).
- dupe [fr]: to be the dupe [fr] of someone means having been a naïve [fr] person that got tricked by another person. It's masculine, and it can happen to both males and females.
- racaille [fr]: means a group of loathsome people. Recently, the meaning of the word drifted towards loathsome individuals (and not only the group thereof). Is that a synecdoche? Either way, it's feminine, but mostly designates males. When you wish to refer to a female racaille [fr], you usually specify, e.g. [la] fille racaille [fr] (racaille girl).
- mannequin [fr] and top model [fr]: a model, usually female. Both words are masculine, the latter being an anglicism on top of it.
- ange [fr]: masculine word, can designate both males and females. And of course, emphatically, the masculinity of the word does not settle the old question of the gender of angels. (Discuter sur le sexe des anges [fr], to debate the gender of angels, is the French way of saying How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? [en]).
And, we can add last but not least [en], or to wit [en]:
- ministre [fr]: minister [en], masculine word which can designate both male and female politicians, thus you write madame le Ministre [fr].
I wonder, is there even one case of a feminine word having a proposed "masculinization"? Didn't think so.
Therefore, were it not political, those women with nothing better to do would suggest a complete reform of French grammar, in order to make it like English (only more so, since there are exceptions in English), by having a clear separation of neuter for inanimate objects and concepts, feminine for female persons, and masculine for male persons.
Of course, this raises the obvious questions of trangender persons, or hermaphrodites. The next step would then be to avoid gender altogether, and have a gender-free language. That is, a language where grammatical gender doesn't depend on biological sex, since that may be undetermined. Like a language, maybe, where a person's job title doesn't depend on their genitals, that is, they remain "le président" [fr] whether they're male, female, hermaphrodite, or transgender.
Oh, wait.