[Gendergap] Hardcoded discrimination

[m-blog at manubloggt.de]

Am 07.02.2011 15:28, schrieb Lena ...:
 > On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Thomas Koenig<fossa at gmx.li>  wrote:
 >> JFTR: "Benutzerinkonto" is not a German word, it would look awkward 
to say
 >> the least to any native German speaker.
 >
 > That's right, but that's because "Benutzerinkonto" is wrong German
 > grammar. "Benutzerinnenkonto" would be correct and sounds fine to me.

Some possibilities to solve the problem might be to
-find neutral words whenever this is possible so that you don't need any 
gender markers anymore
- to not use gendered prefixes or markers whenever the sense of a multi 
sense word (like "account") is made clear by the context
- to directly adress the person so that direct speech is employed.

like (instead of user account) only "account" and afterwards the login 
field ; or "your account"
in German, the possibilities proposed above would come up to sth like
Nutzungskonto or Benutzungskonto,
only "Konto" or
"Dein Konto/Ihr Konto"

 >
 >> Besides that, I find all the chatter about grammar, quite tangential.
 >> There is a culture of misogyny in the Wikimedia projects, way above the
 >> level of comparable work or even volunteer environments, which is 
neither
 >> due to the use of grammar, nor can it be adequately fought with a change
 >> grammer rules in the software.
 >
 > 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. :)

Yes, changing a few words may have a big impact, but that does not solve 
at all the beyond structures that ally language, socialisation and society.


 > 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?)

Changing some or even a lot of words is not equal to changing the 
grammar, so - yes, changing some words may have an impact, but as long 
as the language determining grammar structures stay unchanged, the 
effects of changing some words will probably stay limited.
That does not mean at all that we shouldn't change words! - its just to 
underline that, at the end, we also need to analyze and to trying to 
change the underlaying structures.

 >
 > Best,
 > Lena
 >

Best,
Manu