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Languages with grammatical gender, such as French, German, Greek, and Spanish, present unique challenges when it comes to creating gender-neutral language.Unlike genderless languages like English, constructing a gender-neutral sentence can be difficult or impossible in these languages due to the use of gendered nouns and pronouns.
All German nouns are included in one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter.While the gender often does not directly influence the plural forms of nouns, [1] [2] there are exceptions, particularly when it comes to people and professions (e.g. Ärzte/Ärztinnen).
This sign, reading Radfahrer absteigen (Cyclists, dismount), has been vandalized with a gender star to make it gender-neutral. The gender star (German: Genderstern, or diminutive Gendersternchen; lit. ' gender asterisk ') is a nonstandard typographic style used by some authors in gender-neutral language in German. [1]
Gender-neutral language or gender-inclusive language is language that avoids reference towards a particular sex or gender. In English, this includes use of nouns that are not gender-specific to refer to roles or professions, [1] formation of phrases in a coequal manner, and discontinuing the collective use of male or female terms. [2]
The thing described here as "Grammatical Gender" is not called "gender", but "Genus" in German, because it is independent from the described persons gender. There's a footnote stating "Mädchen" (girl) as an example, but this is only the tip of the iceberg: Most German nouns are technically independent from their gender.
In her 1980 essay, "German as Men's Language: Diagnosis and Therapy Ideas" (Das Deutsche als Männersprache. Diagnose und Therapievorschläge ) , she wrote that standard German has a built-in bias favoring males, that this is problematic, and that the simplest solution to the problem lies in partial de-genderization of the language.
The notion of a "genderless language" is distinct from that of gender-neutral language, which is neutral with regard to natural gender. A discourse in a genderless language need not be gender-neutral [1] (although genderless languages exclude many possibilities for reinforcement of gender-related stereotypes); similarly, a gender-neutral ...
The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader (2 ed.). London: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-16400-9. OCLC 635293367; Hellinger, Marlis; Bußmann, Hadumod (10 April 2003). Gender Across Languages: The linguistic representation of women and men. Studies in language and Society, 11. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.