In the last few years, Germans and other German-speakers have been embroiled in a debate over das Gendern, or “gendering.” Anyone who has tried to master the German language knows that, unlike English, all nouns in German, not just proper nouns, are capitalized and have one of three genders: feminine (die), masculine (der), and neuter (das). This is called “grammatical gender.” It does not always agree with natural gender, aka sex. For instance, the word for “girl” in German is das Mädchen (neuter, “es/it”), related to English maiden. Mark Twain had a lot of fun with this aspect of German in his famous essay, “The Awful German Language” (1880, as Appendix D in A Tramp Abroad). Twain: “In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl.” Grammatically, a car in German can be either neuter or masculine: das Auto or der Wagen (Volkswagen). It really has nothing to do with natural gender.

But the German gender controversy is more about “gender sexism” and “gender neutrality” than linguistic or natural gender. In fact, the German debate has some parallels with the long-running debate over sexism in forms of address in English (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, and the newer Mx.) and terms related to occupations. It’s about traditional (i.e., sexist) male linguistic dominance in both German and English, meaning that the vocabulary (nouns and pronouns) tends to ignore females and favor males. One could argue that German was more successful in this regard when Frau (Mrs.) began to replace Fräulein (Miss) as a term of address in German in the early 1970s. “Ms.” has never really gained the wide acceptance in the US that dropping “Fräulein” for women over 16 or so did in Germany. And call me a caveman, but I had never heard of “Mx.” before researching gendering in German for this post. It’s been in the Merriam-Webster dictionary since 2016.

To some extent the gendering issue has sparked a negative reaction similar to that seen during the early days of Rechtschreibreform (German spelling reform) introduced in 1996. Although there are still a few diehard holdouts who refuse to write “dass” rather than the old “daß” (this IS Germany we’re talking about), for the most part, spelling reform is a non-issue for Germans in 2021.

But then there’s the Verein Deutsche Sprache e.V. (VDS), by far the most strident “defender” of the German language. In fact, when it was founded in 1997, the association’s original name was Verein zur Wahrung der deutschen Sprache (“Association for the Preservation of the German Language”; three years later it adopted its current name). At the time, the VDS cause célèbre was the scourge of German spelling reform. That, and warding off the growing encroachment of English. Although its own newsletter has been published using the new German spelling rules since fall 2008, the VDS is now ranting about gendering. We’ll get back to the VDS and the GfdS, the two main activist language organizations in Germany, below.

Gender bias in English
If you think the English language, without grammatical gender, is immune to male gender bias, you just haven’t been paying attention. Even before the early 1970s, people began pointing out sexism in English. In 1971 Kate Swift wrote an article published in Ms. Magazine titled “Desexing the Language.” She was joined by other linguists and writers, including Deborah Tannen, Robin Lakoff, Janet Holmes, and others. By 1980 Swift and Casey Miller teamed up to publish The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing: For writers, editors, and speakers (Amazon.com, updated in 2001) with practical suggestions for making the English language more inclusive.

Before we get back to German, a few examples of gender bias and neutrality in English:

• Star Trek (1966-1969): “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of… To boldly go where no man has gone before!” This famous phrase was later changed in the 1980s for Star Trek: The Next Generation to the more inclusive “…where no one has gone before!”
• The Declaration of Independence (1776): “…self-evident, that all men are created equal…” and “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” Since white males ran almost everything, and were the only citizens who could vote at the time, Thomas Jefferson probably never considered any other term than “men.”
• Actor vs actress: Contemporary female actors in the English-speaking world now prefer to call themselves “actors” rather than “actresses,” considering it more inclusive. The term “best actor” is less restrictive than “best actress,” since an actress can only be female, but an actor can be both genders. Note: There is some resistance to this practice among older “actresses.”
• Doctor, lawyer, architect: On the other hand, if I tell you I talked to my doctor or my lawyer, you are far more likely to think of a male in that profession. In German that can’t happen. German does not allow a non-gender-specific noun in the singular: Arzt (m.) or Ärztin (f.) for doctor or any other profession/job. By the same token, if you mention your “friend” in German, it can’t have the ambiguity of English. It’s either Freundin (f.) or Freund (m.).
• Mankind vs humankind: The German for man/mankind is more neutral, using the words Mensch (human being), Menschheit (humankind, humanity), as well as die Menschen (pl., humans, humankind).
• Stewardess, policeman, fireman: Terms for some occupations formerly dominated by males, or by females, have been replaced by gender neutral terms. A steward/stewardess is now a flight attendant. A policeman is now a police officer. A fireman is now a firefighter. A male nurse is still called precisely that, since nurses used to be only female, and “caregiver” is not the same thing.
• King/queen, duke/duchess, prince/princess: Titles of nobility have always reflected natural gender, and they still do – in English and German.

The masculine generic plural in German
In the 1970s German-speakers were still using the masculine plural to refer to two or more people, even if one or more of them happened to be female – as in die Lehrer, the (male) teachers, a profession that often includes more females than males. The so-called “male generic plural” was the norm. But norms change.

Feminists pointed out that the “male generic plural” was not really generic at all. Lazily lumping females into a male plural created a “false generic.” In the 1980s a new trend began: either both genders (Lehrerinnen und Lehrer) or an inclusive collective plural (Lehrpersonen, Lehrkräfte oder Lehrende) were used. But it took Duden, the arbiter of the German language, until 1995 before it even acknowledged the existence of “Bemühungen, eine sprachliche Gleichbehandlung von Frauen zu erreichen” (efforts to achieve equal treatment of women in the language). In 2007 Duden’s 6th edition suggested Teilsynonyme (semi-synonyms) such as Lehrkörper, Lehrkräfte oder Lehrerschaft to avoid too much repetition of Lehrerinnen und Lehrer. By 2016 the 9th edition dropped any references to generisches Maskulinum (generic masculine). Almost all major German newspapers, periodicals, and broadcasters now ban use of the generic masculine plural. In June 2021 all of the major German-language news agencies (dpa, Reuters, AFP, APA, etc.) jointly announced they would “gradually” eliminate das generische Maskulinum, and would now make an effort to write and speak with more awareness of possible gender discrimination. But, when it comes to German, nothing is ever that simple.

Although most people now agree that it’s commendable to use both genders in plurals, rather than the “false” generic masculine plural, the Germans still can’t seem to agree on just how to format it. Beyond the basic but lengthy Lehrerinnen und Lehrer, there is a wide range of formats in use: Lehrer/-innen, LehrerInnen, Lehrer*innen, Lehrer:innen, Lehrer_innen. (The last three supposedly include non-binary, transgender, and agender folks, but that is beyond the scope of this post.) Not only is there no single standard format for multi-gender plurals in German, new formats keep popping up! Two of the latest are the Gendergap (_) and the Gendersternchen (*). This can be more than a minor aggravation.

The blind or visually impaired, and other people who depend on text scans and/or text-to-voice software point out that this jumble of German plural formats confuses the machines/computers that are trying to read them, due to the lack of any standardization. Different publications and organizations use different plural formats, and there seems to be little prospect of a universal standard any time soon.

The resistance
And not everyone is on board the gender-neutral train. There are still many websites, publications, and organizations in Germany and other German-speaking countries that continue to use generic masculine terms. The website lehrer-online.de even does so in its name, despite using Schülerinnen und Schüler, and other dual-gender plurals in its content.

In 2018 Germany’s highest federal court (der Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) even ruled against a woman who sued to demand her Sparkasse bank address her as Kundin (female customer) rather than the generic masculine Kunde in its written communications. The judges ruled that female customers are not harmed by the use of the generic masculine. The court’s decision was sharply criticized by many people and organizations, but the lady’s appeal was denied in 2020.

The GfdS, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache e. V., a German group that “defends” the German language against English and other encroachments, recently posted this online: “Klarstellung: Ja zum Gendern!” (Clarification: Yes to gendering!), an explanation of the organization’s position on gendering. Basically, the GfdS supports linguistic equal treatment of the sexes, but… opposes formats that are difficult to read or difficult to say out loud, confusing, or not grammatically correct. In its Leitlinien (guidelines), the GfdS lists some examples. But, although the GfdS does firmly reject the Gendergap, the Gendersternchen, and some other dual-gender shortcuts, it has failed to propose any truly consistent standard for gender-neutral terms in written or spoken German.

But then, not even Duden has dared to dictate a standard format for Gendern. It only offers some possible options and lots of other advice (“Gendern für Profis”) – some of it a bit over the top, as in: “How do you solve a problem like Besuchergruppe (visitors group)?” The problem being the generic masculine “Besucher,” not “Gruppe.” Answer: “Besuchsgruppe” (visit group).

The VDS, on the other hand, has taken a much more strident, some might even say “sexist,” position on gender neutrality. The VDS’s main slogan is “Rettet die deutsche Sprache vor…!” (Save the German language from…!) Among the many things the VDS wants to save the language from is gendering. Having learned very little from its decades-long quixotic fight against spelling reform (basically admitting defeat in 2008), it now has a new windmill to tilt at: das Gendern. Unlike the GfdS, the VDS doesn’t want to improve gendering in German, it wants to kill it off. If you read the VDS – Gendersprache statement online (in German), you learn that “gendern” is a plot by the broadcast and print media, educators, politicians, and others to brainwash the Germans into using gender-neutral language. The VDS claims it has no basis in law, and even offers its “expertise” in helping with legal steps to rid the language of this horror.

Influences on daily life
I must confess that before I did research for this blog post, I had my own objections and resistance to the gender-neutral bandwagon. I’m still not pleased with various clumsy formulations such as KontoinhaberInnen, EmpfängerInnen (which the GfdS also rejects). But I now have a somewhat softer anti-gendering stance since learning about several practical experiments with school-age children and adults, indicating that language can have a real-world affect on how we humans view gender and gender roles. For example, when young students were asked to name their favorite musician or athlete, using dual-gendered versus non-gendered terms in German, the responses to masculine-only terms produced fewer female choices. When presented with (GfdS-approved) choices such as Lieblinssportler/innen or Lieblinsmusiker/innen, the results contained a higher percentage of female responses. Similar results arose when the pupils were asked which profession they wanted to choose when they grow up. Our language does have an impact on our thinking, and not just in the area of gender.

I also have nothing but scorn for those German politicians who, during the recent 2021 election campaign, took advantage of the gender equality issue by taking an anti-PC stance to score political points. But I do think that until Duden, educators, language organizations, the media, and other arbiters of the German language come up with a standardized, unified approach to dual-gender terms, this controversy will not go away. Consider how long it took for the 1996 spelling reforms to be accepted by most Germans. (The first official alteration since 1901!) Let’s hope it won’t take nearly that long for gendering.

– HF