Reviewed by: Por un lenguaje inclusivo: Estudios y reflexiones sobre estrategias no sexistas en la lengua española by Tina Escaja y María Natalia Prunes Emilia Alonso-Marks Por un lenguaje inclusivo: Estudios y reflexiones sobre estrategias no sexistas en la lengua española Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, 2021 Editado por Tina Escaja y María Natalia Prunes This edited volume in the Colección El árbol de las palabras, No. 5, that the Academia de la Lengua Norteamericana (ANLE) puts together, provides an overview of the background of inclusive language and research into language inclusivity and gender neutrality, an approach whose practices have met with resistance from the Royal Spanish Academy of Language (RAE) and other associations concerned with the purity and rigor of linguistic forms. Language inclusion is the practice of mindfulness with regards to gender when writing. Academics, writers, teachers and students from different affiliations and communities advocate for implementing forms that avoid linguistic sexism and integrate those in our society today, where women and other gender identities are demanding to have their presence acknowledged and their voices heard. Nevertheless, the language inclusivity initiative has met with resistance, as "invisibility and exclusion continue to permeate the Spanish language for the sake of a tradition that has been questioned in recent years" (17). This tradition is protected zealously by institutions like the RAE, mentioned above, whose founders and followers continue to be mostly men. For the editors, being mindful and intentional about language inclusivity is not a strictly linguistic topic, "but through it, it [End Page 193] manifests in [the language] an explicit political militance" (25). It is a power struggle between the traditional forces that deny the social dimension of language, and the innovation forces that demand an end not only to gender binarism, reflected on the generic masculine as the unmarked gender, but also to blatant gender discrimination forms that still exist in society today. So, the struggle is not only linguistic in nature, but socio-political as well. Escaja and Prunes (2021) have edited a volume containing 10 academic contributions and 10 contributions of free creation into an anthology of critical research studies and reflections about gender inclusive strategies in the Spanish language. The volume does not offer controversial perspectives around the topic of language inclusivity, but rather takes a position clearly pro the use of inclusive language, focusing on introducing alternatives to language inclusion. The short papers are supposed to add an intellectual counterpoint to the strictly academic essays. Accordingly, the 20 contributions have been distributed into two sections. Part I houses the strictly academic contributions, and Part II contains the short, creative pieces. Part I is not organized by themes, theoretical approaches or analytical frameworks. According to the editors, the idea behind this apparent disorganization is for readers "to enjoy the most pluralistic, pleasant reading possible, where interdisciplinarity gets intermingled and complemented" (31). The first study focuses on how language is the vehicle people use to imagine the world. It is used to build "subjectivities," that is, things pertaining to the first person singular. However, one cannot lose sight that language—the word—is a foundational piece of the individual within society; and society utilizes it, among other things, as an instrument to decide what is acceptable or unacceptable, and only those aspects that are deemed acceptable get normalized. The second study centers around the use of gender-neutral forms in the Spanish Constitutions and how these forms meet criteria having to do with linguistic norm and precision on the one hand, and language economy and what is natural, on the other. In the third article, the contributor takes the reader on a historic journey, where the use of language-inclusive forms gets documented through examples found in newspaper articles and teaching files dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century through today. The contributor concluded that it would be ideal to share this experience in Spanish language, literature and culture courses in the USA, so that students could make connections with English and the social movements that have advocated for language inclusivity. Similarly, the fourth study centers around providing the reader a historic overview based on five...