According to my understanding of the situation Andalusia and others have been trying to create so-called equality in speech (I favor economy in speech)) by changing the rules for pluralizing or generalizing speech. Some of those would be very tedious and I dislike them.
However, my purpose for blogging today is to share a far more fascinating development in the world of Andalusia. This comes from Article 50.2 of the law for Gender Equality. I will provide the text in the original Spanish and then a translation by your truly:
«Los poderes públicos de Andalucía, en coordinación y colaboración con las entidades locales en el territorio andaluz, tendrán en cuenta la perspectiva de género en el diseño de las ciudades, en las políticas urbanas y en la definición y ejecución de los planteamientos urbanísticos»
The public powers in Andalusia, in coordination and collaboration with local entities in the Andalusian territory, will take into consideration gender perspective with regards to city planning, urban policies, and in the definition and execution of the urban-planning approach (if you disagree with my translation, please tell me. It was tougher than I thought it would be).
The question that Perez-Reverte poses and I attempt to answer is how do you take into account different genders in designing and planning a city. I thought about this long and hard and could not think of an answer. Yesterday I went to school and while I was driving around looking for a parking spot I realized what they intend to do to make an area more gender friendly. Wider parking spots. Seriously.
