Fe-Male, der männlich-weiblich-Effekt / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Fe-Male, der männlich-weiblich-Effekt.

Gettin' creative

fiend 14 Nov 2007 17:50

Hello Folks

as those of you, who know german, french, italian, espanol, hebrew, arabic etc etc etc may be aware to, the usual form to express, that male and female persons are talked about, is to just use the male form. I don't like it. Me, as a german speaker, am constantly trying to be creative in always new approaches regarding that effect. It is always a 'dance on the wire' between the readability and the flow of the writing at one hand, and the -in my opinion- necessary explicit mentioning of females in some way at the other hand.

In german, there are some -more or less sophisticate- approaches in use by people trying to be pc, but all of which seem in one or the other way poor, miserable, stiff and/or not fun.

Others claim, well, of course we mean also females, what is the fuss about…

Sure. Just, if you are (incidently) a male person, and you symphatize with this claim, just for fun try a little exercise: Replace the male form with the female form in any arbitrary text, read it, and find out if 'of course' you feel meant, too. I am curious about the result, you're welcome to share it at this place…

And you are welcome to share your opinion as well as any other thoughts, ideas, suggestions, critics etc about the subject, considering the german or any other concerned language (english doesn't seem to be so much affected, is that right?)

Looking forward to your feedback and to a developing discussion, which, in the best case, hopefully may even lead to a better solution…

~ Walk in BeautY ~

Re: Gettin' creative

namzezam 15 Nov 2007 00:34

hi, well it is getting warmer here, i already like it :)

could you please, let to non-German speaker, as me, to understand your solution for German speakers and to make it with reference to the other-existing such solutions in German.

ps, i do think it is very important issue

---

me:) + 99occupy + yes i am angry! + yes again we can + pile + comcomist <= namzezam :)

Re: Gettin' creative

fiend 19 Nov 2007 18:51

Hello,
thanks for recognizing relevancy of the subject.

Well - for answering this question, I have to give you a little backround regarding the structure of the german language. There exist three different articles, one for each male, female and neutral, in both cases, determined as well as undetermined ('the' and 'a'). That is how each mentioning of a person is identified as either male or female. This distinction is continued throughout all the grammar, for pronouns, adjectives etc.

In addition, the female form of any specification of a person (such as e.g. shareholder) is expressed by the suffix 'in', so that a female shareholder would be a shareholderin, which for plural then reaches the form of shareholderinnen.

Now the solutions in use keep grammatical correctness and usually function by ecplicit mentioning of both, the male and the female form, applied in one of several ways, such as e.g.: "shareholder and shareholderin" or "shareholder/in" or "shareholderIn" etc. Of course then, according to the grammar, this duplification has to be continued throughout all the sentence.

The solution, which the translator applied, acts differently. Intentionally it breaks the rules of grammar insofar, that consequently it uses the (male) basic form of the specification (e.g. shareholder), but combined with consequently using the female article and the grammatical female form of the sentence. That is, we talk about a she and her shares, but we do that using the usual and common and simple (and male) form of the person's specification (shareholder).

The advantage is to avoid mutations, such as e.g. Each(m/f) shareholder/in holds his/her shares until his/her membership extends and he/she decides to become a(m/f) member/in., where the concentration is constantly trapped in the slashes. Also, but this is my very subjective feeling, the suffix in always lets me feel like some kind of handicapped person, i am not only an electrician, i am an insisted electricianin, i must get this tail to anything, just to exist. So I found, that happily I can be called an electrician, as long as I am referred to as a she - which is exactly, what I am doing in my way of translation.

The slight irritation, I feel, can be easily overcome, where soon you get used to this form. And how do you (german speaker) feel it?

Re: Gettin' creative

okarina 13 Apr 2010 07:46

I,
as a female german,
enjoy very much
this beautyful thinking
of you.

Thank you for doing so.

To find an enjoyful solution
together
as fe-and-male,
to come out
of this
seperation/isolation,

because
both,

female- and male-energy
is human-nature,
as wo-and-man.

The conscionousness of it
will bring us
in the direction

of ending
man-woman-fight,
woman-woman-fight,
man-man-fight

and also
open up for
making peace with ourselfs

and
bring it into the world
as a NEWBORN
growing
and
growing up
to a peaceful
ADULD and ELDER,

to continue in
our healing-way

and share
the BEAUTY OF LIVE,

together
in a WORLD WITHOUT WAR.

WITH OUR CHILDREN,
TOGETHER.

LET US CREATE
THIS PEACE-WORLD,

TOGETHER,

whom ever you are,

what ever you are

and

where ever you are.

C O M C O M - THE TIME IS N O W !

AHO - this is my saying. I hear it with my heard.

Last edited on 13 Apr 2010 08:04 by okarina Show more

Find

okarina 14 Jul 2010 15:43

I found - thanks for this big gift.