Beyond Gender: Is inclusive language a must or complicator?
Anyone who has ever started learning German probably knows the feeling of confusion about ‘Der, Die und Das’. What is the inexplicable logic behind the fact that the German word for ‘girl‘ is genderless (das Mädchen), while an object like a handbag, a door, or even a mobile phone case is considered feminine?
As a native German speaker, these questions don’t naturally occur to you, but they do make you pause and think about how and why language developed this way. What power does it have on society and vice versa? Setting ‘Der, Die, Das’ aside, let’s concentrate on a topic that feels far more relevant in this context — gendered job titles.
Take job titles such as doctor, nurse, or pilot for example. While in English they are all gender-neutral, in German they are stereotypically assigned to one specific gender. The traditional role model of a nurse is clearly female, which is why the direct translation of ‘nurse‘ is ‘sister of the sick’ (Krankenschwester). The official masculine equivalent in German — we added this to our vocabulary, but it’s still used less often — is ‘Krankenpfleger’ (Carer of the sick). On the other hand, the positions of pilots or doctors were traditionally exclusively for men, hence the masculine gender in German (der Pilot, der Arzt).
However, as there have been increasing numbers of women in this profession over time, and it is not acceptable to refer to a female doctor as ‘der Arzt’, feminine forms of these nouns have been created to include women. As you can already guess from the example above, whenever it comes to the female equivalent of a job title in German, ‘-in’ or ‘-innen’ (in plural forms) is added to the word. But does this provide real equality? I mean, if Google translates professions into specific genders, what does this tell us about the way language seems to be gender-biased? Even a doctor’s office (Arztpraxis) will always use the masculine form of doctor, no matter if exclusively female doctors treat patients there. It gets even more bizarre when considering the determination of plural forms. Let’s say, a room is full of female doctors (Ärztinnen) and only one male doctor joins them. As a result, in German, they would be collectively referred to as male doctors (Ärzte). This very same grammatical change of the plural gender can be found in other languages, too, such as French, Dutch, and Hebrew.
It could reasonably be argued that over the decades, and in the course of women’s growing equality, plurals are being widely understood as gender-neutral instead of masculine. But the same cannot be said of the feminine plural. Only recently, a bill in the German Bundestag on the feminine plural provoked fierce reactions. The Ministry of Justice wrote the entire text of the bill in the generic feminine with a disclaimer that it also applied to men. While feminists all over Germany may celebrate the Minister of Justice for this, the Ministry of the Interior objected to the draft bill and wants the grammar of the document changed to the generic masculine. It remains to be seen what the linguistic future of this law will be, so stay tuned!
For us copywriters, a big dilemma arises when we want to explicitly address both genders in an appropriate way. This is particularly relevant for job postings in order to encourage people of all genders to apply. Unfortunately, there is still no uniform solution in German for this. Let’s take the example of a customer (masculine = Kunde): Between all the German gender-sensitive additional forms such as the asterisk (Kund*in), medial capital I (KundInnen), forward slash (Kund/innen), underscore (Kund_innen), parenthesis (Kund(innen)) and plural (Kunden), I ask myself: Why is this so much more difficult than in English? Can’t we develop a solution that doesn’t overcomplicate things, but still is inclusive to all genders?
I first noticed ‘they’ as a gender-neutral singular pronoun in an email marketing text from my former colleague. I must admit, at first I was confused. After digging a little deeper into the subject I found that the debate in English is also neither very old nor ultimately resolved. ‘They’ has long been used as a gender-neutral pronoun. Even Shakespeare used it in his works! Although its gender-neutral use lasted for a long time, in the 18th century ‘he’ became the universal singular pronoun, representing both masculine and feminine (e.g. ‘A writer needs to create a compelling opening scene, so he captures his readers’ attention’). That new grammar change remained to be true for the following few centuries. Then, at the end of the 20th century, people started using ‘he/she’, ‘him/her’, ‘himself/herself’ etc. to better represent women, until ‘they’ eventually made its comeback in recent years to offer a more inclusive option for people of all genders.
Whether in English, German or other languages, there has always been disagreement about the use of new words, terms, or pronouns in the past, which then quickly — intentionally or not — became part of everyday language. And this is unlikely to ever change because the language has always adapted to society and not the other way around. Of course, there are doubts about whether the roots of a language can be so easily changed. But every single copywriter or journalist is definitely able to play their part in pushing for a more equal future direction. And perhaps a vocabulary without gender-neutral language will be unimaginable for our children or grandchildren.
