Which genus do I use for neutral expressions in German?

Question

If I want to express myself gender neutral I always use the male version of nouns, as this feels to me to be the "default".

My colleague in the office is always nice.

Mein Kollege im Büro ist immer nett.

My question now is if there actually is a rule in the German language about using the "male version" of the word as the neutral/default expression.

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This is not about being politically correct but rather because I want to know if there is a default version for neutral expressions or if I should use the according genus of the word appropriate to the person talked about even if it is not relevant for the context.

Example: A female colleague help to implement a certain feature.

Diese Funktionalität wurde, mit Hilfe einer Kollegin, implementiert.

Diese Funktionalität wurde, mit Hilfe eines Kollegen, implementiert.

Which would be the proper expression, in regards to the fact that this is a professional environment and the gender is completely irrelevant?

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Answer 1

Oh boy, you just opened the box of Pandora as this is part of an ongoing discussion in Germany. I'll give an answer without politics first but I feel that this answer also needs to take a look at the political side because some people might feel offended which may cause problems at a workplace for you.

w/o politics

Generally speaking, German has the generic masculine i.e. every noun that exists in both male and female versions, is neutral by default in its male version. On the other hand using the female form automatically assumes that the person is female.

Ich gehe morgen zum Arzt. I go to the doctor tomorrow.

Ich gehe morgen zu meiner Ärztin. I go to my female doctor tomorrow.

If you want to emphasize that a doctor is male you can use pronouns or use both forms in a sentence.

Ich gehe morgen zum Arzt. Ich war schon länger nicht mehr bei ihm. *It's been a while since I last went to him.

Ein Arzt hat sich mit einer Ärztin gestritten. *A male doctor had an argument with a female doctor

In plural the male form is also generic while the female form is exclusively for all female groups. You can again use both forms of you want to clarify male gender. Still, it feels more natural to point out that they are male if you want to emphasize the difference.

Meine Kolleginnen im Büro sind nett aber meine (männlichen) Kollegen nicht. My female colleagues in the office are nice but my male colleagues are not.

Note from the comments:
If you're talking about a specific female person you should use the female noun instead of the unspecific general masculine:

Meine Kollegin Julia hat mir erzählt.... *My (female) colleague Julia has told me....

Instead of

Mein Kollege Julia hat mir erzählt....

w/ politics

That being said, especially but not only in formal letters/emails, people might feel offended if you do not use both forms.

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen. Dear female and male colleagues.

This creates really cumbersome sentences, I'll just list some examples of general practices:

Separation:

Jede/r Mitarbeiter/in ist für ihr/sein Geschirr verantwortlich. Every worker is responsible for their own dishes.

Binnen-i:

Jede/r MitarbeiterIn ist für sein/ihr Geschirr verantwortlich.

More information about gender neutral speech can for example be found here:

[[Leitfaden Uni Köln]][1]

[1]http://www.hf.uni-koeln.de/file/7466

Answer 2

First, as others pointed out already, it is highly unlikely you will be able to completely stay out of politics on this one.

But ignoring politics, you need to understand that German has a grammatical genus for every word that has nothing whatsoever to do with biological sexus. Only certain political factions ignore linguistics and pretend that genus and sexus are the same.

You can find not only the Generisches Maskulinum (generic male form), but also generic female and generic neutral forms (Generisches Femininum und Generisches Neutrum).

For example, your boss can be:

• Der Chef (generic male form)
• Die Führungskraft (generic female form)
• Das Chefchen (dimunitive neutral form, insulting, not recommended, used here only as an example for generic neutral)

We even have examples of generally male or female persons marked with generic forms of a genus not identical to their sexus. "Das Mädchen" is always a girl, but grammatical neutral ("sächlich"), because all dimunitive forms are neutral in German.

Or if you're talking about the soldier guarding the gate at the barracks, the German word is "die Wache" - generic female form, despite until recently there were no female soldiers.

So if you want to express yourself gender neutral but also grammatically correct, the best you can do is vary the words you use and it is likely that you will sometimes hit upon a generic male, sometimes a generic female and sometimes a generic neutral form.

It is wrong to state the the default is always male. It is not. "Die Person" (female), "die Fachkraft" (female), "das Personal" (neutral), etc.

If you can't find a generic female form for something, you can always see if you can use a plural form, because all plurals are grammatically female in German. It is "der Mann" (obviously), but "die Männer" (female!)

If the fact that we give a female genus to a group of men (btw. "die Gruppe", female) doesn't make it clear that the whole "generic male form is chauvinism" is pure rhetoric, I don't know what does.

Answer 3

As others said there is an old (but since the 1980s highly questioned) tradition using the generic masculine (Generisches Maskulinum) when adressing a group of people of mixed gender.

But from my point of view that's completely irrelevant for this question, because you are talking about one person in particular. Your colleague is female and therefore the only option is

Diese Funktionalität wurde, mit Hilfe einer Kollegin, implementiert.

Calling her a Kollege the reader will assume she's male. Do you want that? Why do you want to use a "neutral" expression? I think that's rude.

I know it's all about context; and if you insist a gender neutral way you should switch to another really neutral expression like

Diese Funktionalität wurde, mit Hilfe einer weiteren im Unternehmen angestellten Person, implementiert.

Answer 4

It is not part of the German language, nor has it to my knowledge been proposed, that masculine forms are default forms in the sense that you can use them to introduce a referent you know to be female.

When introducing a referent and given a choice between masculine and feminine forms, listeners expect the masculine form to refer to a male individual and the feminine form to a female one. In your examples, listeners will assume you are talking about a man, which is not what you want to communicate.

This is one reason why forms such as the well-known Kollegx are being proposed – they would add a capability to the language that it does not have (a need that can only increase if the rejection of gender binarism keeps growing).

All the debates about non-discriminatory language have always been about what to do when one wants to refer to person whose gender is unknown, or a non-specific individual, or a mixed group. This is were the differences of opinion lie. But you are not talking about such a case.

Answer 5

German is awkward in that often just the male form is applied when indicating a position or function but almost all terms are very gender-specific when applied to individuals. The so/so area where there is a bit of personal choice left is when very strongly referring to an official rank or designation, like "in ihrer Funktion als Sicherheitsbeauftragter unserer Firma hat Frau Müller ...". This can swing arguably either way. Without the extra stress and isolation of function/position "Als Sicherheitsbeauftragter unserer Firma hat Frau Müller" is already borderline offensive and "Unser Sicherheitsbeauftragter Frau Müller" is quite unacceptable.

As a generic task description "Es ist Aufgabe des Sicherheitsbeauftragten, ..." the male form is customary. There is a tendency to coin new terms that are intentionally neutral in grammatic as well as actual gender, so "die Putzfrau" has become "die Reinigungskraft" which has grammatic female gender but no implied natural gender, so "unsere Reinigungskraft Herr Maier" is perfectly standard and inconspicuous use of the female grammatic gender while "unsere Putzfrau Herr Maier" would be considered extremely derogatory even while "unsere Putzfrau Frau Müller" was considered quite normal.

Language perception and logic in this corner of German language are not highly related and it is a moving target that partly is addressed not by trying to change how terms are being interpreted but rather by coining new terms that do not carry the same kind of gender implications as the ingrained terms happen to do.

Discplaimers of the "when I am using gender-specific terms, this does not imply exclusion of members of other genders" kind were employed a few decades ago but are not really considered desirable any more as they can be seen as "you may make it into my workplace but not into my language".

In the examples you gave, it would be quite offensive not to use a female form (namely "Kollegin") to refer to the specific person: "Kollege" means a specific person here. You can write "wurde mit Kollegenhilfe implementiert" (and "Kolleginnenhilfe" would sound like awkward gender speech since it drags an individual into a context where a class is implied) but not "mit Hilfe eines Kollegen": that would require to be "mit Hilfe einer Kollegin" since it refers to a particular individual rather than a class of people.

So the language currently is undergoing tectonic movement in that area and you can expect to easily trigger eruptions. Check back in a few hundred years.