There are already many excellent posts on LinkedIn about the Bavarian state government’s gender ban with creative suggestions.
Katja Berlin comments with her wonderful cakes – one of them here: https://lnkd.in/eBdb8DYq
Elke Gober says: “Great. Can we then please #consistently make all official communications, legal texts, and leading media #accessible in #plainlanguage and #easytoread?”
Thomas Gericke: “Let’s vigorously use gender-neutral language in every visit to authorities.”
Andrea Grundmann: “If it were really about the clarity of language, then outdated bureaucratic German would have been abolished long ago, wouldn’t it?”
Franziska Schleuter addresses “dear Mr. Söder” directly: “I would like to express special thanks for pursuing such a creative strategy with the introduction of the gender ban. It seems you are employing reverse psychology to promote the generic feminine. This measure could indeed be an important step towards a more inclusive language. Thank you for your efforts!”
Lisa Zimmermann: “I guess in my future messages to Bavaria, out of protest, instead of ‘researchers*’ I’ll just write ‘researchers, scientists, and researchers who do not identify with the binary gender order.’ After all, readability must be maintained. Any more nice wording ideas?”
And Lisa Zimmermann sums it up nicely:
“The issue of gender has become a cipher for what conservatives fear: a world in which hegemonic masculinity is overcome. And where one has to engage with and consider the voices of people who are different from oneself. No one has talked more about gender than conservatives like Merz, Söder, or the #afdnee. The goal was clear: Gendering is an unnecessary, ugly eccentricity. And by constantly harping on this actually small issue, they ridicule major feminist issues such as abolishing the marriage tax splitting, Paragraph 218, combating the gender pay gap, or femicides.
Posted by herCAREER,
published on LinkedIn on 20.03.2024
