egalitarian uses that were out on the street”, that the dictionary “was light years away from society”, that “it dragged an inertia that they seemed to fancy” and that “androcentrism and sexism were topics that contravened reality”. For his part, the academic stated that it was about “the improvement of the Dictionary, not about being less sexist”, that is,” that it state the truth “; explaining that the changes produced had nothing to do with the protests: “What one cannot endeavour to do is to change reality through the Dictionary. If society is sexist, the Dictionary will reflect this. When society changes, the Dictionary changes”. This is limited to reflecting reality taking note of what is happening, but the process cannot be accelerated.

Along the same lines, the statement of the then director of the RAE pointed out:

Blecua: “You cannot blame the Dictionary for the sexist use society makes of language”(20minutos.es, 13-XII-13).

However, when one year later (2014) the new version of the dictionary was released, the statements of both the director of the Academy (José Manuel Blecua, e.g. 10) and his secretary (Dario Villanueva e.g. 11) revealed, explicitly that the RAE had tried to avoid sexism. Blecua admitted that “extreme care to avoid the possible sexist nature of some definitions,” had been taken, that “all articles involving women” had been revised, and they had endeavoured to make sure that “there were no very serious elements that could be denounced immediately” and “it had been meticulously revised to include male and female professions wherever there was a possibility of a woman performing them”:

Blecua: “The RAE has avoided, as far as possible, sexism in the Dictionary” (heraldo.es, 16-X-14).

The Academy has taken “special care” in reviewing entries related to politics, religion, feminism and sexism to prevent definitions, which “coming from a former era and still maintained, are shocking for contemporary sensitivity”, the secretary declared (abc.es, 17-X-14).

Indeed, in the 2014 edition, the controversial definitions of the adjectives feminine and masculine were suppressed, a fact which also became news:

Feminine no longer means “weak and feeble” nor “manly” is masculine in the new RAE dictionary (Nación.com, 16-X-14).

In 2016, the press echoed a new demand, this time by of the Association of Women Judges in Spain (AMJE), which sent a statement to the director of the RAE, Dario Villanueva, requesting the removal of the definition of ‘judge’s wife’ that appeared for the word jueza (female judge). This was a passionate argument, as the collective felt attacked and considered the definition to be an “anachronism” that “perpetuated sexist stereotypes incompatible with an egalitarian society” and was “disrespectful to the dignity of judges in general”. Moreover, it went against Article 14 of Law 3/2007 on Equality, which states that among the general criteria of behaviour of public authorities is the implementation of “non-sexist language at administrative level and its promotion in all social, cultural and artistic relations”. The judges extended their request to other definitions employed by the RAE in other professions (such as fiscala (female district attorney), zapatera (female shoemaker), médica (female medical doctor) or peluquera (female hairdresser), which also appeared defined as ‘the wife of’). The press reported that the RAE had responded assuring them that this would be studied for possible inclusion in the twenty-fourth edition of the Dictionary. The verbs used in the headlines were of great interest, as the descriptive ones (ask, denounce) contrasted with the evaluative ones (rebel, want, correct):

Spanish magistrates ask the RAE to eliminate the definition of jueza (female judge) as “the judge’s wife” (Publico.es, 9-X-16).