2023-07-27 22:28:39
Issued Friday, July 28, 2023
Innsbruck (OTS) – For the first time in Austrian legal history, the female form is used in a draft law for persons. This makes women more visible. But no fear. Men are included. Naturally.
So far we have always read regarding employees, entrepreneurs or lawyers in legal texts. Women are considered. Now the Green Minister of Justice, Alma Zadić, is turning the tables. In the draft law for the “Flexible Corporations Act” only the female form – i.e. lawyers or employees – is used. Men, as stated in the legal text, are expressly included.
Do we really have no other problems? Yes, we have. Plenty, one might add, if one only thinks of price increases, inflation or climate change. But does that mean that we shouldn’t deal with the liveliness and change of language? The vast majority of the population agrees that gender equality is non-negotiable. Most men feel it is unfair when women earn less than men for the same work. So there is agreement on that.
But when it comes to the linguistic depiction of women in everyday life, we often experience silent and sometimes loud resistance in society. We all know that language changes. Yes, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is at the top of Mount Olympus in German literary history, but nowadays nobody would write like the great master once did.
In German usage, it has always been customary to use the generic masculine, i.e. the masculine form for all genders. But if we speak only in the masculine form, let us only think of men. Why is it still so difficult for us to choose a language that speaks to everyone? Turning away from the traditional is difficult. It’s true, underscores, colons, inside I’s and asterisks are hard to endure. But when we speak of teachers and journalists, we are not using language violence. We create awareness.
For decades, only doctors were spoken of, female doctors had to feel addressed somehow. If only employees can read a legal text, then it becomes clear that there is a complex network of relationships between language, gender and consciousness. Zadić probably wanted to draw attention to that. When we talk regarding workers as a matter of course in everyday life in the future, we will sometimes experience a new normality.
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