Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder were lucky again: The “gender language” is still not a “core part of orthography”, as the German Spelling Council has now formulated somewhat awkwardly in Belgian (but German-speaking) Eupen. Whether asterisk, colon or underscore: gender-sensitive writing remains unregulated. After many years of discussion, the Sprach-TÜV now registers that such internal signs exist, but the committee cannot or does not want to create clarity. An understandable non-decision.
We at stern have also been talking intensively about gender for a long time. About whether we want it at all, and if so, how. Do we only differentiate between woman and man or do we also want to mention as many other identities as possible? Gendern Light was just as much a topic of discussion as leaving the handling to the authors themselves. Also: uniform, consistent regulations or those depending on the topic and the discussion partner. There is still a lot going on.
Probably even too much. The Binnen-I first appeared in the 1980s. Then the asterisk and the underscore, meanwhile the trend is towards the colon. So far it hasn’t been all that convincing. stern editor-in-chief Arne Daniels once provided a nice example of the hurdles of gendering: “The sentence ‘Since the end of the Second World War Germans and French have been connected by a strong friendship’ would become ‘Since the end of the Second World War Germans and French have been connected by a friendship firm friendship’ (the term German women does not exist). Or: ‘Since the end of the Second World War, Germans and French: inside have been united by a firm friendship’. Or shouldn’t it correctly be called French: inside?”
In view of such sentences, will there soon be a solution that will satisfy as many people as possible? It’s definitely a matter of getting used to. Only then are there the inevitable grammatical conflicts. Quite apart from the fact that gender-fair writing has degenerated into a veritable culture war in which nobody likes to be on the wrong side. Perhaps the current “gender language” is simply not the right instrument for the desire for more equality. Or the right but wrongly implemented instrument.
At the moment, gender is only a matter of course for a minority: for younger people, for academics, for city dwellers – that is, for everyone who lives in incubators for new terms and ideas. But even there, the new and contemporary must undergo the primal democratic usefulness check. Because nothing is more pointless than a tool that nobody uses.
In other words, when words like LOL, unbreakable, sale or chilling appear out of nowhere and find their way into the German language within a very short time, it is because they are obviously needed. Therefore, the question must be allowed as to why gender has been struggling for so long to reach broad sections of society.
There are many possible reasons. Maybe some people just don’t see the need for gender equality in language. Maybe some women don’t feel left out by male-dominated language, or maybe they don’t care. Or they already live visibility. Or they won’t become doctors even if they say the word a hundred times a day. Maybe kindergarten teachers will remain female for the time being, while construction workers will not. Maybe it’s the clumsy way of expression and spelling or some people simply can’t vary their (native) language as they please.
Ultimately, however, the decision about internal is, colons or underscores should be made with your feet: if gender proves useful, it will stay. If no one can do anything with it, it just disappears. Maybe it will remain a sociolect like it is now. So a formulation that is only used in certain groups (and unfortunately is excellently suited to distinguishing oneself from the “others”). We probably just need to get used to a little more ambiguity. The fact that language development, like a perpetual motion machine, never ends.
