Don’t Tell Me Language Isn’t Unfair

Hear is a zine published by and featuring the work of female and non-binary artists and authors. It was assembled during a time of quarantine and halted work for each of the collaborators. Rather than wait for uncontrollable outside forces to publish our work, we chose to band together and create a platform for our creativity. The topic of language and communication felt appropriate to focus on during a season of isolation. Gabrielle Marcy spearheaded the publication as editor and fellow illustrator.

I was invited to illustrate a complementary piece for a poem penned by Pati Morales Chang, titled “Don’t Tell Me Language Isn’t Unfair.” Pati’s poem examines systemic sexism within the Spanish language. They observe that a group of women are described with feminine words, but if one man is present, the language changes to masculine. Pati poses the question of why one man’s presence entirely changes the way women are spoken of.