# Do Anti-Egalitarians Report Increased Support for People with Language Difficulties when Exposed to Gender-Fair Language?

## TL;DR

This study examines whether anti-egalitarians show more concern for people with language difficulties when exposed to gender-fair language in France.

## Contribution

It is the first research to connect prejudice justification and gender-fair language debates.

## Key findings

- Support for gender-fair language correlates with greater concern for people with language difficulties.
- Anti-egalitarians did not show increased concern for people with language difficulties when exposed to gender-fair language.
- Social dominance orientation was negatively linked to support for people with language difficulties.

## Abstract

In many countries, the use of gender-fair language is heavily debated. In France, some opponents to gender-fair language have argued that it hinders language comprehension for people who have difficulties with language (PDLs). This argument was notably promoted by (far) right-wing personalities and newspapers. The justification-suppression model of prejudice and the concept of ideology malleability suggest that such a defence of PDLs may be a strategy to oppose gender-fair language and promote the status quo. We hypothesized that threatening participants with gender-fair language would lead high-SDO individuals to report greater concern for PDLs. In two experimental studies (ntotal = 1117, France), we did not find support for our prediction. Overall, SDO was negatively correlated with support for PDLs, whereas participants supporting gender-fair language were also more concerned with PDLs. This suggests that contrary to what some conservative commentators have claimed, gender-fair language supporters do not overlook the question of language accessibility, as opposed to anti-egalitarians. To our knowledge, this is the first research to bridge literature on the justification of prejudice and gender-fair language.