Imagine that you are a Brazilian woman, and your profession is to be a Female Racing Driver of 350 horsepower off road cars, in one of the biggest competitions in Latin America. And you are in the same category, in an equal fight with Male Racing Drivers.

But the meaning of your profession in Portuguese, Pilota (Female Racing Driver) means loss, pain, and defeat. Have you ever imagined that? We’ve changed it. That is why this work is so relevant to SDG on gender equality.

In the Portuguese language, you will notice patters, such as the -o ending in most masculine words, and the -a ending in most feminine words. For example, " EngenheirO " (male engineer) for masculine and " EngenheirA " (female engineer) for feminine.

Conversely, today, in the dictionary, the word "pilota" is defined as pain, loss, indisposition, defeat, and the feminine meaning of "pilot" does not even exist. In addition to that, phrases such as "women drive poorly" or "women don't know how to drive" are commonly heard.

But what would you do if you were a car brand, which has been promoting the biggest Off-Road Rally in Latin America for over 30 years and developing Rally teams with dozens of PilotAs (female racing drivers)?

Furthermore, culturally, motorsport in the country carries a strong stigma attached to the male audience. In recent decades, the representation of women behind the wheel has often been addressed in a negative and joking way by comedians, portraying them as inferior drivers compared to men. These aspects contribute to the exclusion of women from rallying and to a great feeling of impotence when it comes to cars.

The brand has been supporting women in motorsport and treating them equally for a long time, using "Pilota" for women and "Piloto" for men. However, it felt the need to transform the perception and recognition of these athletes.

And there would be no more appropriate time to address this than on International Women's Day, a historically day of struggle for female equality in society.

The objective was to change the meaning of the word PilotA in the dictionary that meant Pain, Loss, and Defeat. And we did it.

It is worth remembering that the Mitsubishi brand achieved the biggest victory for a woman in official competitions when Jutta Kleischmidt won the Dakar Rally in 2001 aboard a Mitsubishi Pajero EVO. See the documentary about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCyWcUj3M4k&t=32s

Officially, the term for women who drive racing cars means pain, loss, and defeat. This increases gender inequality and formalizes prejudice against dozens of female drivers competing in Mitsubishi Motors Rally races in Brazil. We’ve changed that. And the meaning of this action is to inspire new generations of girls and women who want to reach their goals on the track and in life.

On Women's Day, we launched a manifesto on social media to highlight the lack of the real meaning of "Pilota" in dictionaries and promote its official inclusion as part of the country's language.

We benefited from the celebration of International Women's Day to raise a fundamental issue of gender pride. We showed everyone, inside and outside Mitsubishi's social media, that the lack of this word in our language only reinforces a social stigma in relation to women behind the wheel, implying that this is not a suitable place for them.

A video and a movement on Mitsubishi Motors brand social media, talking about the lack of the word in the dictionary and how much the brand believes in the power of this word, that is the reason why it has been using it for 30 years.

- Since March 8, 2024, International Women´s Day we have had an

average of 5 articles written per day using the new meaning in the

newspapers (totaling 319 journalistic articles) like CNN brasil,

Veja.abril.com.br, Folha de São Paulo, Portal Uol, TV Banderantes,

Tribuna, Band Fm, Auto +, Portal R7, etc.

- In addition, we contacted the largest media outlets in Brazil sending a

“review note “for the articles published in the last year that used the term

"the pilot"

- On April 8th, we obtained the acceptance of the word and its new

meaning in the Michaelis dictionary. Since then the 4 largest

dictionaries have already been accepted: Aurélio, Michaelis, Dicio,

Priberam; the others are already in the process of releasing the new

meaning.

- Among search engines Google, has already changed the meaning of the

word, as well as Bing, Yahoo, Aol, Ecosia, Duckduckgo, Starpage and

MSN.

Next step is to announce the entry change in the dictionary and reinforce the brand's commitment to having more female drivers in its rally events. We will show the reaction of the brand's current pilots, after the reached change, and we intend to send the physical dictionary to them, with the modified entry. The idea is to implement other incentive programs for female pilots in the coming years, in addition to strengthening the brand's commitment to the cause.

Over the last 30 years, the Brand has been training team leaders, mechanics, rally navigators and, of course, drivers. Through incentive programs such as the “Learning from them” and “Accelerating with them”, Mitsubishi has been teaching women how to join and qualify in the world of motorsport, and the brand aims at keeping on doing that.