Giorgia Maloney has become Italy’s first female prime minister, but she chose to refer to herself in the masculine form of her new title, sparking a debate over issues of women’s empowerment and political correctness, Reuters reports.

In Italian, nouns can be either masculine or feminine, and Meloni’s official title “Presidente del Consiglio” was preceded by the masculine article “il” rather than the feminine “la” in the first statement released by her office on Sunday.

A letter from Maloney, read in Parliament on Monday, did the same.

Although she is a trailblazer for women in Italian politics, she leads a far-right party and is not known as a feminist: she opposes quotas for women in council chambers and parliament, arguing that women should rise to the top on merit, and has appointed only six women to her 24-member cabinet.

Her choice of an overtly male article was criticized by Usigrai, the main syndicate of public broadcaster RAI, as well as by Laura Boldrini, the center-left feminist, parliamentarian and former president of the Chamber of Deputies, who was always known as “la Presidente”. “when he held this position.

Maloney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to RAI’s corporate gender policy, the feminine form must be used whenever it exists, and “therefore no colleague can be forced to use the masculine” to refer to Maloney, Usigrai said in a statement.

Boldrini linked the prime minister’s choice of language to the name of his party, “Brothers of Italy” (FdI).

“First female prime minister chooses male form of office… Is using female form too much for the leader of the FdI, a party that already omits sisters from its title?” Boldrini wrote on Twitter.

The Accademia della Crusca, a linguistic research society, has said that using the feminine gender for positions held by women is the correct choice from a grammatical point of view.

However, anyone who prefers to use the traditional male uniform for ideological or generational reasons has every right to do so, its president Claudio Marazzini told Italian news agency Adnkronos.