[Gendergap] Hardcoded discrimination

[Thomas Koenig]

Hello Lena, hello all,
On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:28:13 +0100, Lena ... <lenarohrbach at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> I agree that grammar is not the main problem, but it might well be the
> one that is most easy to solve! You just need to change a few words to
> maybe have a big impact. :)
> To change the culture is much more complicated and will take much
> longer, although it's admittedly more important. (But maybe changing
> the words is a first step to changing the culture?)

Call me a male chauvinist, but on the question of Karl Marx vs. Judith  
Butler, I still go with good old Marx: "Das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein"  
(I translate that into: "the material circumstances tend to influence the  
ideology, rather than the other way around" (p>.5)). But, then again, I  
certainly would give it a try. Which brings me to a rule on the  
German-speaking Wikipedia:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Namenskonventionen#M.C3.A4nnliche_und_weibliche_Bezeichnungen

A bunch of male geeks has constructed a "consensus" there, that the,  
admittedly actively feminist, but nevertheless quite usual, form with a  
capital "I" is to be banned from the German Wikipedia. Another male,  
Alexis de Tocqueville, would call such a rule "tyranny of the majority".

Thomas/fossa