Gender-Inclusive Language

Critics of gender-inclusive language like to stress the alleged generic meaning of masculine forms in addition to their specifically masculine reading. Psycholinguistic studies suggest, however, that difficulties arise while processing sentences using the generic masculine form in reference to women in a group setting, as women are then not perceived as part of the group in question (e.g. see Misersky, Majid & Snijders, 2019). Similar statements can also be made on the basis of self-paced reading tasks, in which participants generally need a longer reading time to understand a reference to supposedly include women when using a grammatically masculine form (Irmen & Roßberg, 2004; Redl et al., 2021).

Consequently, the masculine form does not seem to encompass women, non-binary people, or people of other genders and thus cannot function as a truly generic form.

References:

Irmen, Lisa, & Roßberg, Nadja. (2004). Gender markedness of language: The impact of grammatical and non-linguistic information on the mental representation of person information. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23 , 272– 307. DOI:  10.1177/0261927X04266810

Misersky, Julia, Majid, Asifa, & Snijders, Tineke M. (2019). Grammatical gender in German influences how role-nouns are interpreted: Evidence from ERPs. Discourse Processes, 56(8), 643-654. DOI:  10.1080/0163853X.2018.1541382

Redl, Theresa, Frank, Stefan L., De Swart, Peter, & De Hoop, Helen. (2021). The male bias of a generically-intended masculine pronoun: Evidence from eye-tracking and sentence evaluation. PloS one, 16(4), e0249309. DOI:  10.1371/journal.pone.0249309

For a more gender-inclusive language approach, it is usually advised to use either gender-neutral or more inclusive noun forms. Gender-neutral expressions can be achieved, for example, through non-personal nouns, (die Studierendenschaft), substantivized participles (die Studierenden), relative clauses (die Personen, die an der UOS studieren).

Alternatively, there are different approaches to visualising gender in the German language.
The best-known inclusive forms are:

• the gender asterisk (die Student*innen, der*die Forscher*in)
• the gender gap (die Student_innen, der_die Forscher_in)
• the colon (die Student:innen, der:die Forscher:in)

All three forms are pronounced with a short pause - the so-called glottal stop - in the place of the sign used in each case.

For more detailed instructions on how to best use them, please refer to the  German guide.

When addressing a group of people, gender-neutral expressions such as “Liebe Teilnehmende”, “Liebe Kolleg*innen” or “Sehr geehrte Kommissionsmitglieder” can be used.

When addressing an individual, we recommend avoiding the use of “Frau” or “Herr” and instead using the first name before the surname or omitting the name completely:

• Liebe*r First name + surname
• Guten Tag (First name + surname, if applicable),

If the gender of the person being addressed is known, greetings appropriate to the gender can be used. Please note, however, that the gender of a person cannot be reliably deduced from their name or appearance.

If you do not know the gender of the person you are talking to, you can use pronouns in a gender-appropriate way by using the gender asterisk (diese*r and jene*r, er*sie).

There are also a large number of gender-neutral personal pronouns that are used in particular by people who do not identify with either the female or male gender (e.g. hen, dey, xier, em, ...). For a gender-inclusive language use, you should give your conversation partners the opportunity to communicate their pronouns. For example, you could state your own pronouns when introducing yourself or mention them in your email signature (“my pronouns are ...”) and encourage other people to share their pronouns with you. In this way, you take responsibility for ensuring that people of all genders can feel comfortable and prevent people from being assigned the wrong gender, having to correct the use of pronouns and thus exposing themselves to the risk of derogatory reactions.

Gender-inclusive forms of address in English function in a way very similar to those in German (see above): When addressing a group of people, use gender-neutral expressions such as “Dear all”, “Dear colleagues” or “Dear participants”.

When addressing an individual, we recommend avoiding the use of “Mr”, “Mrs” or “Ms” and instead using the first name before the surname or omitting the name completely, e.g. Dear First name + Surname, Hello (First name + Surname, if applicable).

If the gender of the person being addressed is known, greetings appropriate to the gender can be used. Please note, however, that the gender of a person cannot be reliably deduced from their name.

Particular attention should be paid to inclusive wording when using personal pronouns. This is achieved, for example, by using the plural or the personal pronoun they. Passive constructions can also be used.

• If students prefer to complete this task on their own, they may do so.
• If a student prefers to complete this task on their own, they may do so.
• This task may also be completed individually if preferred.

In addition to the pronoun they, and similar to German, there are also a large number of other gender-neutral personal pronouns that are used in particular by people who do not identify with either the female or male gender (e.g. ze, xe, ey, ...). For a gender-inclusive language use, you should give your conversation partners the opportunity to communicate their pronouns. For example, you could state your own pronouns when introducing yourself or mention them in your email signature (“my pronouns are ...”) and encourage other people to share their pronouns with you. In this way, you take responsibility for ensuring that people of all genders can feel comfortable and prevent people from being assigned the wrong gender, having to correct the use of pronouns and thus exposing themselves to the risk of derogatory reactions.