On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 7:51 AM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 6 February 2011 16:32, Lena ... lenarohrbach@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with you. It should absolutely be the users own choice. But right now, you don't have a choice. If I want to get a user account, it says "Benutzerkonto" (German: Account for male users)
Wow.
So just to make sure I'm understanding this: on for example the German Wikipedia, not only are all registered users identified as part of a male category (Benutzer, "male user"), but the actual invitation to register in the first place is itself also gendered (Benutzerkonto, "account for male users")?
Hmm. It is a bit more complicated that that. When you translate it into English, "account for male users" sounds terrible, but in French (or German, for that matter) having to sign up for a "Compte d'utilisateur" or a "Benutzerkonto" does not sound that bad, at least not to me. Maybe it's because I'm used to it, but as Naoko pointed out, the "plural" as well as the "neutral" tends to take a masculine form in the grammar, so I find it's ok on that level, becasue "utilisateur" at this stage is rather a neutral thing.
However, the fact that pages display "Benutzer:Delphine" or "Utilisateur:Delphine" is, in my opinion, more problematic. As a matter of fact, I've had "utilisatrice:notafish" displayed on my fr.wp page for ever, although the link is still gendered: "http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Notafish". :D
I think Debora has a point, there are lots of things that could be done to avoid the gender in some hard coded things, without being detrimental to the comprehension. Giving the choice between "utilisateur" or "utilisateur" might be an option. Next I see though, is people refusing to choose one or the other (a legitimate wish, imho), where we'd probably get stuck :)
It is in the end a very tricky subject, in France, people have been fighting for a long time to impose female versions of words that didn't have one, such as "professeure", or "auteure". I personally find these words ugly, but then, I'm rather conservative when it comes to language :)
As for the The Screen Actors Guild example, I could never ever imagine having the French give up the word "actrice", or it even suggesting that an actrice is anything less than an actor. Different countries, different gendered cultures...
Delphine