For Dießen municipal councilor Hannelore Baur from SPD, it is incomprehensible that 2022 will have to discuss gender asterisks.
(Photo: Franz Xaver Fuchs)
The fact that she will have to discuss gender asterisks in 2022 is incomprehensible to Diessen municipal councilor and association councilor Hannelore Baur (SPD). The asterisk, pronounced as a glottal stop, is used as a means of gender-equitable language. Office manager Heike Gerl uses the asterisk character in the program booklet of the Ammersee-West adult education center, which was newly founded in 2020. This bothered an association council of the special purpose association of the VHS Ammersee West based in Utting. This includes the municipalities of Dießen, Windach, Eching, Greifenberg, Schondorf and Utting.
At the most recent association meeting in early May, an application from December 2021 by Dießener Michael Hofmann (Bavarian Party) was therefore discussed. He had complained that the gender asterisks used in the program, such as beginners, were “wrong German”. He further justified his written request that “a very controversial ideology” was being spread and that the “zeitgeist” was being bowed to. In addition to the two mayors and four mayors of the six member municipalities, there are also seven other municipal councilors in the association assembly. Surprisingly, the majority of eight votes to four voted in favor of the motion – and thus banned the gender asterisks from the program in the future. Baur comments: “It’s terrible that a local councilor of the Bavarian party is making such a request, but as a woman I can no longer understand that the request is accepted with a majority.”
Diessen councilor Miriam Anton (Greens), who took part in the meeting on their behalf, was outraged that Hofmann is now telling the adult education center how to address these women. Anton had firmly assumed that “this nonsensical application would be rejected”. She believes that the VHS director should decide for herself how to design her program booklet. Utting’s mayor, Florian Hoffmann, who heads the association, personally finds the gender asterisk difficult to read. He favors the pair designation, for example beginners. But the head of town hall, Hoffmann, limits himself to the fact that there will be space problems in the program booklet.
As a rule, women communicate with women at adult education centres. Similar to all Bavarian adult education centres, director Gerl reported a ratio of eighty percent female and twenty percent male participants for the past fall semester. With a slight difference in favor of the lecturers, this also applies to the course leaders. According to Gerl, it was decided for the new program booklet that in the future there will be a note that the chosen wording should be addressed to all people (m/f/d) with the aim that everyone feels addressed equally. Usually such formulations are found when the generic masculine is used.
Many adult education centers are already following the recommendations of the Bavarian Adult Education Association, which recommends the gender star and the variant of the gender colon as desirable when implementing gender-appropriate language. The Bavarian Minister of Education, Michael Piazolo, also recently praised the role of adult education centers in democratic education at the state conference of the Bavarian Adult Education Association. “They clarify, provide orientation and optimize the power of judgement. In this way, the adult education centers strengthen an open, tolerant and democratic society,” said Piazolo. Christine Loibl, director of the VHS Starnberg, sees it as “scientifically proven that the female form is not considered”. A year ago, she introduced the gender asterisk at the adult education center in Starnberg, because “gender-fair language is important”. The gender asterisk is also used at the VHS Herrsching, confirms the director there, Michaela Wirries. “We try to be careful,” she says. According to employee Imke Gloth, there is “not yet a completely consistent line” at VHS Gilching, but in the future the gender asterisk will also be part of it.
But not on the western shore of the Ammersee. There, VHS director Gerl is faced with a difficult task: she has to implement a gender-appropriate or gender-sensitive spelling without using the asterisk character. After all, this is still valued.