‘The Times’ on Saturday had a fascinating article about a stand-off in the world of French linguistics which is pitting
gender-neutral campaigners against the strict traditionalists.
‘Ecriture inclusive’ has been launched to stop the masculine gender dominating written French. It has been backed by the department for equal rights which calls the masculine ending ‘sexual tyranny’. So, a middle dot would be included to make the word gender-neutral. Talking about a group of friends for instance, the French call them ‘amis’ if one male is involved. ‘Amies’ is only used when the group is all-female. The new method would use the term ami.e.s. (Sorry WordPress won’t let me do ‘middle-dots’ ….yet!)
Here are some other examples which I have pasted in:
| intellectuel | intellectuelle | intellectuel·le |
| musicien | musicienne | musicien·ne |
| représentés | représentées | représenté·e·s |
Maybe it is catching on as President Macron’s En Marche party have just adopted the slogan ‘Vos député.e.s en marche’. And apparently next year keyboards will be available with a middle-dot key.
Interested? Read more here: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/10/07/egalite-femmes-hommes-l-ecriture-dite-inclusive-un-sujet-qui-divise_5197770_3224.html
aixcentric 
I know a group of professional now retired Australian women who will embrace this enthusiastically even as they laugh about it. Language is a tool not only for expression but also for cultural exchange and knowledge.