Guest contribution by Jayrôme C. Robinet
The new Governing Mayor of Berlin Kai Wegner has spoken out against gendering in the administrative language. This leads to the well-known criticism of people who advocate for gender equality. Because, according to a common interpretation, nouns like “authors” are generic masculine, so that it makes sense to intervene in a gender-fair manner in the ending: authors, authors, authors, and so on . However, there is a contradiction in the commitment against the generic masculine: It completely ignores the fact that the generic feminine runs parallel through the German language. Lann Hornscheidt and Ja’n Sammla propose for administrative regulations and in contracts How do I write diverse? (w_orten & meer 2021) as a gender-free strategy to work with the plural instead of the singular, so that everyone is meant.