The provisions on the use of gender-sensitive language came into force at the beginning of the year, says Nevena Petrušić, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Niš.
The President of Matica Srpska, Dragan Stanić, stated that the Law on Gender Equality "they introduce punitive measures that should be implemented as a form of legal violence".
"It should be state violence against those who cannot with their being accept what is the prescribed way of expression, and that way of expression is judged by the best linguists and those who are dedicated to the issue of language and expressiveness to be hideous and unacceptable," said Stanić on scientific gathering "Serbian Identity, Serbian Language and the Law on Gender Equality" in the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade on January 16.
The gathering was held on the occasion of the entry into force of the provisions of the Law on Gender Equality, which concern gender-sensitive language. The law was adopted in 2021, and the provisions related to gender-sensitive language entered into force at the beginning of 2024.
Stanić emphasized that "they have to fight against that", reports the FoNet agency and added that no one has ever raised the question of a special attitude towards women's rights.
"It should be a concern of all of us and part of legal solutions, but also of broad social action in which we will constantly increase our sensitivity to these and similar issues. Now it's not about that, but about carrying out a form of violence that is part of a group of people with a certain ideological preference," he said, without specifying which group it was. He added that he should "we preserve the family".
The President of the Serbian Language Standardization Committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Sreto Tanasić, said that the Law on Gender Equality "it does not only represent violence and engineering over the Serbian standard language, but it is disastrous on many levels".
Patriarch on 'brainwashing'
The Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, also spoke at the opening of the meeting.
He said it seems that "that law has the potential to divide the individual, the human personality from the inside, dictating under the threat of sanctions to people a completely uncharacteristic way of thinking and communicating that results from such thinking".
"In this way, it creates the possibility that the young generations, through forced pressure and manipulations with what is called 'brainwashing', cease to be what they have become by God's will, what they are by their nature," said Patriarch Porfirije, who had previously criticized the law and gender sensitive language.
The scientific meeting was organized by the Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Matica srpska.
The gathering was attended by Minister of Education Slavica Đukić-Dejanović and Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue Tomislav Žigmanov.
Why does the SPC organize a scientific meeting?
It is extremely unusual for a scientific and religious institution to organize a scientific meeting that does not concern the church in the strict sense, according to linguist Marija Mandić.
"It is not good for scientific gatherings to be organized together with the church and the clergy, unless they concern issues that are closely related to the church, such as church art, liturgical language, and the like." "We have been fighting for the separation of church and science since the time of Dositej and Vuk - whose scientific and cultural work the church at one time was quite 'in the wrong'", explains Mandić, who is also a senior research associate at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade.
Given that Serbian language experts were not consulted in the drafting of the law, as well as that it includes penal provisions, Mandic somewhat agrees with his colleagues who voted against it.
It advocates a policy of recommending and guaranteeing the right of those who wish to have the right to a gender-sensitive language.
"The Serbian language is a gender-sensitive language and this is precisely its tradition, both in folk poetry and literature of the Middle Ages. The law that guarantees gender equality cannot be discriminatory because it guarantees equality, not the other way around," says Mandić, adding that it should not be a cause for controversy.
What can be argued about, according to her, is how to recognize linguistic sexism and discrimination against women in language.
"I, for example, am very concerned about the public insulting of women that comes from public figures such as Vojislav Šešelj, Dragoslav Bokan and others, and which goes without public condemnation and punishment," says Vremena's interlocutor.
Visibility of 54 percent of the population
The provisions on the use of gender-sensitive language came into force because the Law, at the time it was passed, postponed the application of those norms in order to create the conditions for gender-sensitive language to be applied, Nevena, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Niš and former commissioner for the protection of equality in Serbia, told Vreme Petrusic.
This, he notes, is especially true for the fields of education and media.
"Gender-sensitive language is not against anything that people perceive as important, family values. It is the language of gender equality that should make visible women who make up 54 percent of the population, them, their contributions, so that we start thinking in a different way. That everything performed by both women and men should be expressed in masculine and feminine grammatical gender, as are the rules that apply in our language", explains Petrušić.
In order for the provisions to be applied, it is necessary to prepare a whole series of occupations in the feminine gender, so that all of them are expressed in both masculine and feminine genders. However, Petrušić says that this has not happened yet.
"Although the institute dealing with education prepared a document on gender-sensitive language for the field of education, it was rejected and we do not have the prerequisites for the application of gender-sensitive language", says Petrušić.
What does the Law say?
Gender-sensitive language is a language that promotes the equality of women and men and a means of influencing the awareness of those who use that language in the direction of achieving equality, it is stated in to the Law on Gender Equality.
It prescribes the use of gender-sensitive language, i.e. language that is in accordance with grammatical gender, in textbooks and teaching materials.
According to the law, the media are obliged to use gender-sensitive language when reporting and to contribute to the suppression of gender stereotypes by developing awareness of the importance of gender equality.
The law also orders the authorities to monitor the realization of gender equality in the area of social life for which they are responsible, the application of international standards and rights guaranteed by the Constitution in that area, and the use of gender-sensitive language in the names of jobs, positions, titles and occupations.
Anticipated fines for non-compliance with various provisions of the law range from five to 150.000 dinars for government bodies, and from 50.000 to two million dinars for political organizations, the media, and employers.
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