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Gender-inclusive language has evolved into a much-debated topic during the past years, discussed interdisciplinarily from theoretical to psycholinguistics, sociology, and economy – and by anyone who uses language.
Studies on German that primarily relied on questionnaires (reviewed in Braun et al. 2005), cloze tests (Klein 1988), and categorisation tasks with picture matching (Irmen & Köhncke 1996) disqualify the generically used masculine forms as pseudo-generic – failing their grammatically prescribed function to include referents of any Gender. Gender-balanced expressions (pair and split forms like Lehrer und Lehrerinnen) make explicit reference to female presence and participation, and thus elevate a more equitable interpretation.
Online methods to investigate the processing of Gender-sensitive language are surprisingly rare among research on the phenomenon, except for reaction time measures (Irmen & Köhncke 1996, Irmen & Kaczmarek 2000) and eye-tracking in reading (Irmen & Schumann 2011).
In addition, Gender-neutral language (GNL) has not been focused on in the majority of experiments, and when it was among the stimuli, results were inconclusive (De Backer & De Cuypere 2012) or found such alternatives to be ineffective (resembling masculine generics, Braun et al. 2005), despite the fact that guidelines on non-discriminatory language use commonly recommend these.
Gender-neutral (GN) expressions for personal reference in German include
• nominalised participles; nominalisations in general: Interessierte, Lehrende
• collective singulars: Publikum, Kollegium
• compounds (e.g., with a notion of “-person”): Ansprechpersonen, Lehrkräfte
• paraphrases that background a (gendered) subject: e.g., passives, relatives
In a visual world eye-tracking study, the comprehension of plural generics using masculine nouns and GN forms was tested for roles and occupations.
In complex stimulus scenarios, reference had to be established to referent images presented on a screen. At the end of each item, a question was asked in order to (re)identify the image that matched the referents of the respective setting best. Images depicted 1) a single person (protagonist), 2) an all-female group, 3) an all-male group, 4) a mixed Gender group of female and male members. The group referents were introduced with either a) masculine nouns (die Lehrer), b) female-specific feminine nouns (die Lehrerinnen), or c) one of the upper three nominal GN variants (die Lehrkräfte).
Results confirm the frequent male bias in masculine forms that are used as generics, that is, their male-specific interpretation. Furthermore, stereotypicality of nouns had an impact on responses. The GN alternatives, which are generally known to aim for indefinite reference (“marked” for Gender-fair language) were found to be most qualified to elicit mixed Gender group interpretations. When reference was established with GN terms, an inclusive response was consistently elicited. This was both indicated by eye movements and response proportions, but to a different extent depending on the particular GN noun type. Concepts that abstract from Gender in their linguistic forms (“neutralising” it) appear to be more inclusive, and thus better candidates for generic reference than masculines.
Im Kontext gegenwärtiger, europaweiter Proteste und Mobilisierung gegen Gender und Gender Studies haben Sabine Hark und Paula-Irene Villa (2015) den Begriff des „Anti-Genderismus“ vorgeschlagen, um jene „Anti“-Haltung zu beschreiben, die sich gegen konstruktivistische, postessentialistische Auffassungen von Geschlecht wendet. Die Masterarbeit untersucht dieses empirische Phänomen, das in aktuellen Diskussionen um den Begriff Gender, Gender Studies, Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen oder etwa den Bildungsplanprotesten zur „sexuellen Vielfalt“ in Form von Delegitimierungsstrategien und spezifischen Argumentationsmustern auftritt, die hauptsächlich zum Ziel haben, den Begriff Gender zu diskreditieren sowie Gender Studies ihre Wissenschaftlichkeit abzusprechen. Bislang wurde der „Anti-Genderismus“ im Sammelband von Sabine Hark und Paula-Irene Villa (2015) in die Fachdiskussion eingeführt, jedoch noch nicht ausreichend untersucht. Umfassende empirische Analysen, die das Phänomen aus dezidiert soziologischer Perspektive betrachten, stehen noch aus; bisherige Untersuchungen konzentrieren sich auf die Erarbeitung von Definitionen und Merkmalen des „Anti-Genderismus“ sowie auf die Entkräftung anti-genderistischer Argumentationen. Hierbei stehen die heterogenen Akteursgruppen, wie zum Beispiel fundamentalchristliche Gruppen, antifeministische Männerrechtsbewegungen oder rechte Gruppierungen im Fokus, sowie spezifische Argumentationsmuster, wie zum Beispiel der Ideologie-Vorwurf, die im anti-genderistischen Diskus immer wieder aufgegriffen werden.
Das Phänomen „Anti-Genderismus“ wird in der Masterarbeit nicht nur über die spezifischen Argumentationsmuster und Akteursgruppen definiert, sondern es wird die strukturelle Logik der Artikulationsweise (Laclau) des „Anti-Genderismus“ in den Blick genommen, die Ähnlichkeiten zur populistischen Artikulation aufweist. So kann gezeigt werden, wie der Begriff Gender im politischen Protest des hier untersuchten empirischen Beispiels der „Demo für Alle“ durch Neudefinitionen und Bedeutungserweiterung zu einem strategischen Begriff wird, an und mit dem um Bedeutungen des Geschlechterverhältnisses gestritten wird und politische Forderungen aufgestellt werden. In dem aufgezeigten Analysezugang stehen weniger Delegitimierungsstrategien des „Anti-Genderismus“ im Fokus, sondern die Funktionsweise der Umdeutungen von Gender im politischen Protest.
Durch einen dezidiert soziologischen Analysezugang kann außerdem das Phänomen für geschlechtersoziologische Fragestellungen geöffnet werden: Welche Vorannahmen über das Geschlechterverhältnis und welche „gender beliefs“ (Goffman) können anhand „anti-genderistischer“ Äußerungen rekonstruiert werden? In welchen Deutungsrahmen wird der Begriff Gender im hier untersuchten politischen Protest gestellt? Hierzu werden acht Redebeiträge der „Demo für Alle“ von der Demonstration am 28.02.2015 in Stuttgart transkribiert und in einem sequenzanalytischen Verfahren und offenen Kodieren analysiert und ausgewertet.
Writing an alternative Australia : women and national discourse in nineteenth-century literature
(2007)
In this thesis, I want to outline the emergence of the Australian national identity in colonial Australia. National identity is not a politically determined construct but culturally produced through discourse on literary works by female and male writers. The emergence of the dominant bushman myth exhibited enormous strength and influence on subsequent generations and infused the notion of “Australianness” with exclusively male characteristics. It provided a unique geographical space, the bush, on and against which the colonial subject could model his identity. Its dominance rendered non-male and non-bush experiences of Australia as “un-Australian.” I will present a variety of contemporary voices – postcolonial, Aboriginal, feminist, cultural critics – which see the Australian identity as a prominent topic, not only in the academia but also in everyday culture and politics. Although positioned in different disciplines and influenced by varying histories, these voices share a similar view on Australian society: Australia is a plural society, it is home to millions of different people – women, men, and children, Aboriginal Australians and immigrants, newly arrived and descendents of the first settlers – with millions of different identities which make up one nation. One version of national identity does not account for the multitude of experiences; one version, if applied strictly, renders some voices unheard and oppressed. After exemplifying how the literature of the 1890s and its subsequent criticism constructed the itinerant worker as “the” Australian, literary productions by women will be singled out to counteract the dominant version by presenting different opinions on the state of colonial Australia. The writers Louisa Lawson, Barbara Baynton, and Tasma are discussed with regard to their assessment of their mother country. These women did not only present a different picture, they were also gifted writers and lived the ideal of the “New Women:” they obtained divorces, remarried, were politically active, worked for their living and led independent lives. They paved the way for many Australian women to come. In their literary works they allowed for a dual approach to the bush and the Australian nation. Louisa Lawson credited the bushwoman with heroic traits and described the bush as both cruel and full of opportunities not known to women in England. She understood women’s position in Australian society as oppressed and tried to change politics and culture through the writings in her feminist magazine the Dawn and her courageous campaign for women suffrage. Barbara Baynton painted a gloomy picture of the Australian bush and its inhabitants and offered one of the fiercest critiques of bush society. Although the woman is presented as the able and resourceful bushperson, she does not manage to survive in an environment which functions on male rules and only values the economic potential of the individual. Finally, Tasma does not present as outright a critique as Barbara Baynton, however, she also attests the colonies a fascination with wealth which she renders questionable. She offers an informed judgement on colonial developments in the urban surrounds of the city of Melbourne through the comparison of colonial society with the mother country England. Tasma attests that the colonies had a fascination with wealth which she renders questionable. She offers an informed judgement on colonial developments in the urban surrounds of the city of Melbourne through the comparison of colonial society with the mother country England and demonstrates how uncertainties and irritations emerged in the course of Australia’s nation formation. These three women, as writers, commentators, and political activists, faced exclusion from the dominant literary discourses. Their assessment of colonial society remained unheard for a long time. Now, after much academic excavation, these voices speak to us from the past and remind us that people are diverse, thus nation is diverse. Dominant power structures, the institutions and individuals who decide who can contribute to the discourse on nation, have to be questioned and reassessed, for they mute voices which contribute to a wider, to the “full”, and maybe “real” picture of society.