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#MeToo: You Speak German? You're A Sexist

phdhorn

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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#MeToo:  German has too damn many masculine nouns, results in 1) wimmenz being dickscriminated agin' and 2) wearing silly costumes and always trying and failing to take over Europe (well I threw the second one in for free!)

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#MeToo movement targets German language as sexist

Austin Davis, Special to USA TODAYPublished 5:30 a.m. ET July 9, 2018
 
AFP AFP_16P8Y0 S SOC LIF DEU

(Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL, AFP/Getty Images)

BERLIN – Most Germans consider themselves in the vanguard of the gender equality movement. Exhibit A: Their female leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been in power for 13 years.

Yet the reality is that women continue to lag behind men in the workplace, and one of the biggest obstacles to their advancement is the sexist nature of the German language itself, women's rights advocates contend.

In English, a doctor is a doctor and a lawyer is a lawyer, regardless of whether they are male or female. But in German, professional titles and nouns reflect the gender of a person. A male doctor is an Arzt, while a female doctor is an Ärztin. Most job vacancies use only male nouns, and the national anthem pays homage to the "Fatherland."

Now as the #MeToo movement hits Germany, the language has been catapulted to the center of a national debate about gender equality. 

Gender bias finds its way into "every nook and cranny of society," said Luise Pusch, a German linguist specializing in feminist speech.

The predominance of male nouns describing job openings means “girls often have a hard time imagining that they're also being sought out," said Pusch. "They're not only being shut out grammatically, but also through their own image of this profession." 

 "Germans tend to see themselves as very progressive when talking about things like maternity leave," said Senta Goertler, an associate professor of German at Michigan State University. "But looking at the language and statistics about equal opportunities for men and women, they really aren't."

German women are still paid 21 percent less than men, slightly worse than the pay gap in the United States, according to government statistics, and many Germans oppose the idea of working mothers. In addition, women's pensions average only about half that of men, according to a 2017 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s the greatest discrepancy of the 37 countries in the organization. 

So far, fights by activists to make German more gender neutral have mostly fallen flat.

Germany's Council for Orthography, which sets rules for spelling and grammar, recently shelved a highly anticipated debate about the issue. In March, a woman lost a lawsuit against the German bank Sparkasse for the right to be addressed using female-only nouns.

Even Merkel proved unhelpful to the movement by dismissing calls to change the national anthem to refer to the "homeland" instead of the "fatherland," even though neighboring Austria, another German-speaking nation, omitted similar language from its anthem in 2012.

Such roadblocks are unsurprising in Germany, said Michigan State's Goertler. "People here don't seem to be very conscious of that connection" between the language and sexist behavior.

"I think that the gender balance in the German language is completely fine," said Swetlana Soschnilow, 33, an entrepreneur in Berlin. "It should be everyone's goals to have conversations about equality, but we need to make sure that things don't get carried away."

By contrast, Sandra Pravica, 40, a university researcher and philosopher on maternity leave who struggled for years to break into a male-dominated field, said changes in the language would greatly expand women's job opportunities.

"These feminine forms (of nouns) suffer from the fact that they weren't ever used for years and years and weren't ever considered to be on par with the masculine form," she said. "It would make a lot of sense if schoolchildren could learn that there are two forms of nouns from a young age."

The fact that a debate over making German more gender-neutral is happening at all is something to celebrate, said Pusch. "They used to call all of us crazy," she said of those who advocated language changes decades ago. "But now the issue has arrived into the mainstream of society."

 

Mein Gott(ie)!!

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Superhero

Superhero 8826

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Good.

i lived Germany during my high school years. The grammar is easy enough (probably because I learned Afrikaans before), but the der, die, das always confused the hell out of me.

Should adopt the Afrikaans ‘n for all nouns.  So much easier. 

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Cheeseweasel

Cheeseweasel 26438

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7 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Good.

i lived Germany during my high school years. The grammar is easy enough (probably because I learned Afrikaans before), but the der, die, das always confused the hell out of me.

Should adopt the Afrikaans ‘n for all nouns.  So much easier. 

Lekker mon.

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DocZaius

DocZaius 65

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1 hour ago, Superhero said:

Good.

i lived Germany during my high school years. The grammar is easy enough (probably because I learned Afrikaans before), but the der, die, das always confused the hell out of me.

Should adopt the Afrikaans ‘n for all nouns.  So much easier. 

My mother's German and when I expressed some trouble with der/die/das, she told me that the only way to keep it straight is to commit the article to memory along with the noun.  So if you learn a new word, learn it as "das Luftkissenfahrzeug" rather than merely "Luftkissenfahrzeug."  

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SDG

SDG 3319

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In English, a doctor is a doctor and a lawyer is a lawyer, regardless of whether they are male or female. But in German, professional titles and nouns reflect the gender of a person. A male doctor is an Arzt, while a female doctor is an Ärztin. Most job vacancies use only male nouns, and the national anthem pays homage to the "Fatherland."

Actor/actress, waiter/waitress...

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elfenix

elfenix 34221

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1 hour ago, DocZaius said:

My mother's German and when I expressed some trouble with der/die/das, she told me that the only way to keep it straight is to commit the article to memory along with the noun.  So if you learn a new word, learn it as "das Luftkissenfahrzeug" rather than merely "Luftkissenfahrzeug."  

so is it der ggg, die ggg, or das ggg?

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Macanudo

Macanudo 12974

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3 hours ago, DocZaius said:

My mother's German and when I expressed some trouble with der/die/das, she told me that the only way to keep it straight is to commit the article to memory along with the noun.  So if you learn a new word, learn it as "das Luftkissenfahrzeug" rather than merely "Luftkissenfahrzeug."  

Yeah, that works until it's not the subject of the sentence.   try it when it's the indirect object.   Dem can kiss my ass.

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ChickenSandwich

ChickenSandwich 9824

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 7/9/2018 at 8:46 AM, phdhorn said:

#MeToo:  German has too damn many masculine nouns, results in 1) wimmenz being dickscriminated agin' and 2) wearing silly costumes and always trying and failing to take over Europe (well I threw the second one in for free!)

Mein Gott(ie)!!

This is what happens when you make up new fields of study like "diversity studies."  They HAVE to find outrage to keep their jobs, without their hill to die on, they have no job.

Edited by ChickenSandwich
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Lhorn

Lhorn 4907

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1 hour ago, ChickenSandwich said:

This is what happens when you make up new fields of study like "diversity studies."  They HAVE to find outrage to keep their jobs, without their hill to die on, they have no job.

We’ve given some people the idea that their opinion is more important than it really is.  It’s not a bad thing to tell someone to STFU when they express opinions too stupid to dignify with a legitimate response. 

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52-80

52-80 19142

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13 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

What about nurse. There's not a masculine version of the that.

 

 

the modern term now is Krankenpfleger  , so literally sick-carer.  (as opposed to the traditional sick-sister Krankenschwester)

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TexArcher

TexArcher 37761

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Posted (edited)
On 7/9/2018 at 2:58 PM, SDG said:

Actor/actress, waiter/waitress...

Derived from French, which still differentiates genders in titles.  Masseur/masseuse, etc.  Don't most languages do this?

And the male/female doctor differentiation in German has actual utility.  Many people prefer to seek out one gender or the other for that service.

I'm all for equality, but this is fucking stupid/stupide.

Edited by TexArcher
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Bevo

Bevo 13559

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On 7/9/2018 at 2:53 PM, DocZaius said:

My mother's German and when I expressed some trouble with der/die/das, she told me that the only way to keep it straight is to commit the article to memory along with the noun.  So if you learn a new word, learn it as "das Luftkissenfahrzeug" rather than merely "Luftkissenfahrzeug."   


die Fotografien
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Lhorn

Lhorn 4907

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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Derived from French, which still differentiates genders in titles.  Masseur/masseuse, etc.  Don't most languages do this?

And the male/female doctor differentiation in German has actual utility.  Many people prefer to seek out one gender or the other for that service.

I'm all for equality, but this is fucking stupid/stupide.

Well when you run out of new real racism (not that real racism isn’t still around, just that they’ve already been attacked/addressed) you gotta make up some shit to keep the narrative going that we are still living in pre civil war Alabama and that Hashtags are anything more than an avenue for horrible people to shit on someone else under the guise that they are fighting for equality. 

Edited by Lhorn
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