Actual and Potential Gender-Fair Language Use

Kuhn, Elisabeth; Gabriel, Ute

doi:10.1177/0261927x13504297

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Our findings are also consistent with the view that the current extensive use of the masculine only form (Blaubergs, 1980; Parks and Robertson, 1998; Bußmann and Hellinger, 2003; Mucchi-Faina, 2005; Koeser and Sczesny, 2014; Kuhn and Gabriel, 2014) may well-contribute to shaping, or at least maintaining, gender stereotypes. Consequently, enforcing or encouraging the use of pair forms in grammatical gender languages when referring to mixed gender groups or to groups whose gender composition is unknown or irrelevant seems to be an effective strategy to counter gender stereotypes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations

et al. 2015

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Recent studies from countries with grammatical gender languages (e.g., French) found both children and adults to more frequently think of female jobholders and to consider women’s success in male dominated occupations more likely when the jobs were described in pair forms (i.e., by explicit reference to male and female jobholders, e.g., inventeuses et inventeurs; French feminine and masculine plural forms for inventors), rather than masculine only forms (e.g., inventors). To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we systematically varied the gender connotation of occupations (males overrepresented, females overrepresented, equal share of males and females) and measured additional dependent variables, predicting that gender fair language would reduce the impact of the gender connotation on participants’ perceptions. In a sample of 222 adolescents (aged 12–17) from French speaking Switzerland, we found that pair forms attenuated the difference in the ascription of success to male and female jobholders in gendered occupations and attenuated the differential ascription of warmth to prototypical jobholders in male vs. female dominated jobs. However, no effect of language form on the ascription of competence was found. These findings suggest that language policies are an effective tool to impact gendered perceptions, however, they also hint at competence-related gender stereotypes being in decline.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations

et al. 2015

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“…For example, Sczesny, Moser, and Wood (2015) found in a fill-in-the-gap task that gender-balanced forms were used in only 40% of the gaps (Studies 1 and 2). Kuhn and Gabriel (2014) reported similar numbers, also using fill-in-the-gap tasks; in 66% (university students) or 60% (trainees) of their responses, participants used the masculine form only (GM) to refer to persons or groups of unknown gender.…”

Section: The Unsystematic Use Of Feminisation and Neutralisationmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Language competencies may serve as a good initial candidate to explain the unsystematic use of feminisation and neutralisation, as overcoming traditional lexical forms may require both lexical and syntactic flexibility. Kuhn and Gabriel (2014), for example, showed that when explicitly asked to avoid GM terms, participants’ compliance depended on their level of production competence, as measured by the DaF (Jung, 1998), a standardised language test for German.…”

Section: The Unsystematic Use Of Feminisation and Neutralisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutralising linguistic sexism: Promising but cumbersome?

Gabriel

Gygax

Kuhn

2018

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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The generic use of grammatically (or lexically) gender-marked nouns and pronouns (GM) to refer to women and men in Indo-European languages has been criticised as gender-asymmetric since the 1970s. Two main strategies for eliminating asymmetry have been suggested: visibility by feminisation and de-gendering by neutralisation. Feminisation strategies seek to contribute to women's visibility in discourse by explicitly and symmetrically referring to women and men, thus continuing to highlight gender boundaries. In contrast, neutralisation strategies downplay gender boundaries by promoting the use of unmarked nouns and pronouns. We discuss feminisation and neutralisation strategies and review: (a) evidence (from our own work and that of others) on the effect of neutralisation and feminisation strategies on speakers' and readers' mental representations of gender and associated behaviours, and (b) evidence on individual variables facilitating and hampering the successful implementation of a less asymmetric-and therefore more gender-fair-language use. Based on this review, we suggest, in particular, to use feminisation strategies in contexts that are already gendered, and to use neutralisation strategies in nongendered ones (hence keeping the context gender-neutral).

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“…Indeed, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland most women use feminine job titles to refer to themselves, though some women continue to use masculine forms (Schröter et al, 2012), indicating a variability in the gendered forms of professional titles used in reference to women. Importantly, gender-fair language rules were followed especially when speakers’ linguistic competence in German was high (Kuhn & Gabriel, 2014), suggesting that the use of gender-fair language forms signals linguistic competence. On the contrary, violating language standards signals linguistic incompetence, as has been shown in research on the devaluation of foreign language speakers (Giles & Coupland, 1991).…”

Section: Gender-fair Language Across Languages and Its Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Using Feminine Job Titles in German Is Profitable for Women: Ascribed Linguistic Competence Enhances Prospects of Being Hired

Formanowicz,

Hodel,

Sczesny

2024

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

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In German, symmetrical treatment of women and men through gender-fair language is well established and the use of feminine forms is evaluated positively. In the present study ( N = 331), we examined the mechanisms behind this positive evaluation. Female job applicants were evaluated as more linguistically competent and as more competent in general, which translated into more favorable hiring decisions when using a feminine (vs. a masculine) job title. These results illuminate positive effects of successful language reform for women.

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Actual and Potential Gender-Fair Language Use

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations

Warm-hearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations

Neutralising linguistic sexism: Promising but cumbersome?

Why Using Feminine Job Titles in German Is Profitable for Women: Ascribed Linguistic Competence Enhances Prospects of Being Hired

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