Lady Liberty, Lady Justice and Lady Luck: Abstract nouns are grammatically and psychologically feminine
Carmen Cervone, Andrea Scatolon & Anne Maass (University of Padova)
Grammatical gender generally implies disadvantages for women (e.g. the use of generic masculine leading to real-life invisibility of women). Diverging from this idea, we here argue that abstract concepts (such as justice or democracy), arguably reflecting the most sophisticated expression of human thought, are associated with feminine gender. Two archival studies (Studies 1 and 2) show the greater frequency of feminine gender among abstract nouns across 7 (out of 9) Indo-European languages. Study 3 shows that feminine nouns are envisaged as female. This is confirmed by Study 4 using a voice-choice paradigm. Study 4 also shows that feminine gender solicits super-humanization. Together, our studies show an association between abstraction and grammatical gender, which carries psychological meaning through the gender congruency effect and the super-humanization of abstract nouns. Whether the abstraction-femininity link will ultimately aid or hinder women in real-life situations is an open question for future research.
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