{"id":2703,"date":"2021-11-28T18:48:34","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T17:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/scienceblog\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2021-11-28T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T17:50:06","slug":"changing-language-through-gendering-a-hand-picked-selection-of-artistslivened-upfestival-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/scienceblog\/en\/2021\/11\/28\/changing-language-through-gendering-a-hand-picked-selection-of-artistslivened-upfestival-visitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Language Through „Gendering“: A Hand-Picked Selection of Artists\u00a0Livened up\u00a0Festival Visitors\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or where are all the non-cis men again when it gets fun?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

by\u00a0Katharina (\u2018Kina\u2019) Schmitz, supplemented and translated by Greta Sondej<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fig. 1: Copyright \u00a9<\/span> Ryan McGuire 2014\/ Pixabay\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Surely, everyone has wondered how 99\u00a0Festivalbesucherinnen\u00a0<\/em>(female festival\u00a0visitors) become 100\u00a0Festivalbesucher <\/em>(male festival\u00a0visitors) as soon as one man stumbles into the dancing and partying mob. Poof, all the confidently partying women are just gone.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Annotation of the editorial team: The article was originally written in German. Because of the current debate about the gender forms in German language, the team decided to supplement the article (cursive coloured text) for all those, who want to learn German. The original version of the article is still existing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where does this come from? In German, women are made invisible at the level of the language system through androcentric language use, but also discriminated against through individual language use. Androcentric means that the masculine form is declared neutral for designating persons and is preferred to a neutral, feminine or multi-gender formulation.<\/p>\n

„German language, difficult language“ is a popular phrase German\u00a0speakers\u00a0like to rant when they despair of their own language. It is a way of acknowledging how challenging Europe’s most widely spoken mother tongue can be. And the recent debate about what using the gender form\u00a0in German should look like does not make it any easier. However, a debate is inevitable if one wants to make language and communication more inclusive. Today, anyone who wants to learn German as a foreign language and use it in their profession will not be able to avoid \u201cgendering\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This is problematic because the language we choose also influences our thinking and our perception of reality. Straight out, this means: What I don’t hear or say also becomes unthinkable for me. Even though the masculine form\u00a0of\u00a0 \u201cK\u00fcnstler\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(engl. <\/em>artist) and \u201cFestivalbesucher\u201d<\/em>(engl. <\/em>festival visitor)\u00a0is\u00a0treated as neutral, the double task of this linguistic form pulls our thinking towards the artist as a masculine person who produces art.
\nPeople who deal with written and spoken language have special influence and responsibility here. This group\u00a0of people includes those who communicate, disseminate language in the media or publish texts professionally. Students potentially belong to the latter group as well, because a large number of them will also deal with this in their later professional lives.<\/p>\n

To meet this responsibility, there are various ways of regulating the incongruence of Genus and\u00a0Sexus\u00a0anchored in the language system.<\/p>\n

In German linguistics, Genus refers to the grammatical gender and\u00a0Sexus\u00a0to the natural (biological) gender<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Every noun has a\u00a0\u201cgrammatical gender\u201d\u00a0(Genus), f.e., die\u00a0B\u00fchne\u00a0(engl.<\/em> stage, feminine (die)), das\u00a0Mikrofon\u00a0(engl. <\/em>microphone, neutral (das)) and der Bass\u00a0(engl. <\/em>bass, masculine (der)), but no object\u00a0or item, for example, has an actual gender\u00a0(Sexus). Therefore, the Genus here can only be arbitrary. The situation is different for persons, animal and\u00a0relationship designation\u00a0and occupational groups. These exceptions have an actual gender\u00a0(Sexus), so that the Genus can (and therefore should) follow the\u00a0Sexus.<\/p>\n

There are recommendations on how language can be used to make women (and other non-cis-genders) visible. This is about the fair and symmetrical designation of genders. In addition, there are also steadily rising groups of people who do not identify themselves as belonging to one of the genders, man or woman, or who consciously avoid the binary designation that was intended and is still reproduced in our\u00a0German\u00a0language system. Originally, our language system did not know any designation for their status. But here, too, linguistic structures evolve in the course of sensitisation processes.<\/p>\n

The aim of gender-equitable language is not, as many media representatives would have us believe, to bully us, but to raise awareness of\u00a0gender discrimination in the common use of language or the current language system, and therefore the need to regulate it. \u201cGendering\u201d is a form of intervention in the living, constantly changing language system in order to shape it according to our wishes.\u00a0This is not\u00a0forbidden.<\/p>\n

How\u00a0\u201cGendering\u201d\u00a0can work<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Until\u00a0then,\u00a0there\u00a0are\u00a0two\u00a0ways\u00a0to deal with\u00a0androcentrism\u00a0in the German\u00a0language\u00a0(I\u00a0deliberately\u00a0do not\u00a0list\u00a0avoiding\u00a0it as a\u00a0possibility\u00a0here):<\/p>\n