A letter to the editor on German genderspeak

Original, 11/8/2021
Translated by Miguel Álvarez Sánchez Tlaxcala

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published following letter to  the editor , which was republished on lembeck.de. Author unknown

Gender star

In the German language there is a natural gender (sexus) and a grammatical gender (genus). Feminist linguists like to confuse the two, not to say throw them wildly together. Yet even linguistic laypersons, if their view is not clouded by ideology, can easily recognise the difference. Firstly, there are three genus forms (masculine, feminine, neuter), but only two biological sexes (male and female). Secondly, the genus is also used for objects without any recognisable parallel to the natural gender: the hearth (Der Herd), the street (Die Straße) or the book (Das Buch). The fact that the bosom (Der Busen) is masculine, the glans (Die Eichel) feminine and the member (Das Glied) neuter is also clearly not based on any biological background.

It is similar, for example, with the reader or the customer. While the genus is used intersexually (the guest, the human being, the person, the orphan, the child, the individual), the sexus represents a further splitting into male and female.

We are dealing here with something called "synonymy" in linguistics. Synonyms are words that are the same but mean different things. For example, a "wing (Flügel)" can be the part of a bird, the part of a football team or a piano. Sometimes these synonyms are not so easy to tell apart, and this is where misunderstandings arise, as in feminist linguistics. "Customers"(Kunden) can also mean two things: "people who shop" as well as "men who shop". By claiming that only men are meant by "Kunden", language critics (Sprachkritiker*innen) create the impression that women are linguistically oppressed. They do not focus on what people mean when they say something, but on what they assume they mean: “You only talk about men! Once again you leave us women out of it!”

But that is as nerve-killing as it is wrong.

Also, the article in the singular with the grammatical gender ensures the difference between the (happy) customer (der frohen Kundin) and the customer (dem Kunden) as well as the leader (der Leiter) and the leader (dem Leiter)...

For the very reasons just explained, 99 female teachers (Lehrerinnen) and one male teacher (Lehrer) together are one hundred teachers: namely, the grammatical generic term is used as soon as there is a group that is even somehow mixed. Without such a generic term, which applies to both sexes, certain facts would not be formulated at all (such as "Every third entrepreneur (Jeder dritte Unternehmer) in Austria is a woman." or "We don't even know the sex of the suspect (des Verdächtigen."). A "day" with its 24 hours consists of day and night, just as "the customer" (der Kunde) can be male or female - regardless of its grammatical gender. It is similar with "the cat"(die Katze): The female form stands as a generic term for both the female animal and the male one, which, if we want to specify it more precisely, we call "the tomcat"(der Kater) (just as “der Kunde” (the customer), if female, becomes “die Kundin”). To claim that with der Kunde only refers to men, simply because it is preceded by “der” , is grammatically about as sophisticated as arguing that “die Kunden” ( the customers apparently only refers to women because it is preceded by “die” In truth, of course, neither article expresses the gender: " die " refers to the plural form, "der" to the gender. It is only through the consistent double designation in feminist language of “die Kunden und Kundinnen” (the male and female customers ) that sexism is introduced into the language where it was previously absent through the gender-independent generic term. 

But I also know the difference between genus and sexus. And to be honest, I don't want to be a salesman, a door-to-door salesman... But a man who is happy to meet all women with respect at eye level and hopes that soon there will no longer be a wage/salary difference between the sexes. Because that's the only way to support emancipation - but not with awkward gender speak and write.