The French Academy Archive
The Unbearable Rancidity of French Letters
The first woman to be admitted into the French Academy was Marguerite Yourcenar, in 1980. Nowadays, as we’re nearing the Academy’s 400th anniversary, the proportion of women remains dismally low, and the members are overwhelmingly white.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Inclusive Writing?
These are the facts: French is a highly gendered language. Every noun is gendered, and all adjectives follow an agreement rule regarding number and gender.