Considering that gender is actually an unimportant topic, the discussion about it is conducted with surprisingly great verve.

The topic leaves almost no one cold.

On the contrary: Opponents get into a rage practically from the start, supporters freeze in the highest moral demands.

They often have nothing but contempt for one another.

Where do these emotions come from, which are often violent, especially on the part of the opponents?

First of all, many are outraged that the suggestion of the gender advocates is based on two fallacies, one linguistic and one ideological.

The linguistic fallacy consists in the assumption that the grammatical gender also designates the biological sex or is at least associated with it.

However, the latter is an assumption and the former is incorrect in terms of linguistic history and systematics.

In older Indo-European, the masculine was a common gender for beings of both biological sexes.

To this day, names for animals or parts of the body in New High German can belong to all three genders and all three genders can denote male and female persons.

Language reflects thought

The ideological fallacy is that it assumes that thinking can be changed through language, when in fact it is the other way around: language reflects thinking.

Only a change in thinking or, for example, new technical achievements bring about a new language.

The example of language creations around mobile phones and computers shows this impressively - and it also shows how easily parts of the population are left behind.

Thirdly, the complete confusion in the discussion itself: gender is often equated with sexual orientation, political LGBTQ aspects shoot into the discussion, although gender research originally only examined the extent to which gender-typical behavior is innate or acquired (it answered this question by choosing between biological and social gender difference; gender roles are therefore social settings and therefore also socially changeable).

A proxy fight

Fourth, many are annoyed by the fact that the discussion is even being held.

Wouldn't it be better to think about how to achieve concrete improvements for women (and others) rather than just on a symbolic field?

Because that's what it's all about: a shift, a proxy dispute.

While it is repeatedly implied that gendering would somehow improve conditions and opportunities for women over time, convincing evidence is lacking.

Fifth, the reverse is also true: The fact that the discussion is no longer being held on the public broadcasters, for example, but that the whole thing is simply being carried out, gets the blood pumping as soon as a radio or television editor uninvited the listeners with a confronted with halting “-inside”.

A new kind of discrimination

So much for the emotions.

But what about the “discussors” themselves?

The main thing that stands out is that, according to a subjective impression that can be corrected, it is mostly men.

Men write against gender because they feel they are being wrongly pilloried, or they write for it because they are pillorying themselves.

In a survey by infratest dimap 2021, 56 percent of the men surveyed and 52 percent of the women spoke out against gender.

However, this relationship is not reflected in statements on the subject.

But why are women less likely to talk and write about gender?

Is that consent?

Indifference?

A typical female reluctance to take part in the often irrelevant discussions?

There may be reasons.

But maybe there is a feeling behind it that something is being sold to them as good, which in reality not only does not help them, but maybe even harms them.

Because it reminds women again and again that they are women - not people who are interested in something, committed to something, fighting.

As if nature weren't doing enough to make you remember this fact!

This is essentially a new kind of discrimination, and not a positive one at that.

As a result, women are repeatedly thrown back into being a woman, which they actually want to overcome through their social emancipation, at least from a social point of view.

They just wish that it would no longer matter that they are a woman, because that was exactly the reason why they were not allowed to do so many things in the past.

The truly universal, truly equal claim should therefore be: to be able to contribute to a society as a human being.

Everything else just splits.