Linguist Maria Pober on the new gender debate
Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) has spoken out in favor of a gender ban in administration. Linguist Maria Pober is a guest in the studio and talks about the current gender debate in Austria.
Gendering doesn't let anyone:n called – Gender is a political issue?
You can see all three videos and other articles by Maria Pober on her website:
Video: Our team contributed in various senior positions over the past
Chancellor Nehammer wants gender with Binnen-I and other gender symbols such as the gender gap, Asterisk and colon in administration, banned in universities and schools. He only supports binary double mentioning, analogous to the example of the German state of Bavaria.
It's very surprising, that a ban is being imposed on something here, but in which there are no prescriptions from the proponents:inside gendering, but only recommendations. Because the traditional German grammar was only slightly changed in this way, that it can now also be said in the equation A woman is an employee, instead of A woman is an employee. However, all other masculine rules still apply, like the generic masculine, that can encompass all people. The sentence All employees were present means all people, and even though it only represents the masculine, It is considered grammatically correct and is still the most common representation of all. On the other hand, should All employees:inside were present today for the legal and social recognition of all genders, Gender identities and sexual orientations will be state of the art. Today, a clearly grammatical masculine designation can no longer apply to everyone.
Back to the past
If the binary dual designation is to be reintroduced and at the same time the internal I is to be abolished, the generic masculine is reinstalled as an umbrella term. Because in contexts, in which gender is not relevant, The generic masculine is usually used. This maintains heteromale supremacy and at the same time the dual gender order in language and society. What does that mean? The masculine remains as the universally human, to which all others are hierarchically subordinated. This reconstructs a historical reality at the end of the 70s and 80s of the last century, which is clearly not up to date.
Half a century has now passed and everyone, and not just the straight man, legally have full personal status. The binary couple form is intended to create a heterosexual desired world linguistically and thus socially, that fools us, that the world just out men and women consists, with the man at the top. But being human also includes everyone else, like lesbians, gay, Trans- and interpersonal, to name just a few.
Why does this topic continue to upset us so much??
It's completely understandable, that we all have our own language, that we use every day, don't want to use it like a foreign language. That means, We don't want to think about it too much, how we speak, but on us that what concentrate. And don't forget, we want to use them the same way, like we learned in our school days. Despite this legitimate desire of many, This is the task of language, as precise as possible, everything that is in the world, to depict.
In addition, the pair form has a fundamental cosmetic flaw, it contradicts the principle of linguistic economy. Repetition of the masculine noun agentis Employees in the appropriate pair form employees undermine this. By the way, it is also considered “bad style”. For these language-practical reasons, the Binnen-I Colleague invented in the 80s, which is placed in the word gap between the masculine and feminine. Because it only depicted binary people, Today it is replaced by gender symbols, because this refers precisely to the entire diversity of humanity and not just to men and women.
Maria Pober studied German, Romance studies, philosophy and history. She is a lecturer at the University of Vienna, Advisory board member of the Austrian Society for Legal Linguistics and author – Most recently her book “Redefining the Hypernym Mensch” was published:in in German. Gender, Sexuality, and Personhood“
