Defenders of gender language have to be imagined as supporters of linguistic determinism.

What else is the assumption that the generic masculine is discriminatory based on, if not on the basic thesis that language - almost completely - shapes thought?

On public service broadcasting, you now come across many speakers who think they know how to choose the right words.

The broadcasters have formulated gender guidelines, and the television news is now chuckling at places where the generic masculine was previously formulated.

Even with Deutschlandfunk, the word program par excellence, it cannot be overheard.

The majority rejects it

It does not matter that the vast majority of citizens reject this language. For the author Gunther Grabowski, who has a work entitled “Oh you dear German!” From 2013, that was too colorful. He complained first to the NDR, then to the ARD. If we followed the Bild newspaper, he got an instruction from their audience that shows the gap between those who consider gender language to be a moral must and those who reject it.

It was said that dealing with one's arguments was idle, one did not have to bother.

He “obviously has no idea” about the “topic”.

He does not understand "the 'third gender'".

Only when “doctors are no longer exclusively male” does “our language reflect social reality”: “You have certainly been to a doctor before, haven't you?”

The instructed does not allow himself to be dismissed

With these references, the ARD had covered the wrong person in this case, however, as the instructed turned to the ARD program management, which apologized and informed the picture that they had separated from the employee who wrote the gender post. The Grabowski audience can't complain about the tone of the last post. The ARD is "very sorry", so the message, "that your concern about gender-neutral language was not adequately dealt with in the ARD offers. We are not entitled to disqualify your concerns in this regard in such a way. "

With regard to “gender-sensitive” language, there is “no ARD standard”. In the ARD joint program, “different rules are used in different programs”, and all the houses deal “intensively with this topic”. When it comes to the “issue of gender-sensitive language”, it is “important not to exclude anyone from our communication” for the broadcasting network. In the "awareness that our language is on the one hand alive and in constant change and on the other hand is to be protected in its constancy", the viewer is assured that "we are looking for a way to meet the needs of everyone here."

All? How difficult this is is shown in a previous sentence: "Since the ARD makes its offers available to all contributors, all citizens should feel that we are addressed." In dealing with its audience, the “contributors” and “citizens”, public service broadcasting cannot be sensitive enough. Otherwise the impression is established: They do not speak our language and are still imagining it.