• Frogodendron@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    A bilingual person would to a certain extent. I’ve noticed a tendency of English-speaking societies to gradually eliminate the gender from professions, while the languages with grammatical gender, like Russian or German, tend to incorporate previously missing feminine suffixes to the words that previously were male-gendered only.

    Though your question (a rhetorical one I guess) regards English only, I suppose, and then yes, the combination is weird.

    edit: from what I gather, German is already content with the use of “-in” suffix, so not much change needed, except the push for the use of a “gender gap” or “gender asterisk” (Genderstern) for language to be more inclusive when using plurals [looks extremely clunky to me, but I get the spirit]. In Russian, however, even the suffixes meet significant resistance, both from society and, especially, government, to the point that feminitives are considered “LGBT propaganda”, and since “LGBT is an extremist organisation”, that is extremism apparently. Anyway, “gender gaps” (usually as underscores) are also used in more “left” (for lack of a better label) communities, but are absolutely not accepted and misunderstood be the wider audience.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      Yeah there is a lot of discussion about it in Germany but generally lawyers, professors, and doctors had to fight for their feminine terminology to exist so any attempt to take it away now would be met with severe backlash.