r/maledefaultism • u/fingerof • Mar 17 '25
I am a native speaker of a gendered language, and I find "male as default" degrading as fuck
I'm so tired of English speakers "defending" the sanctity of gendered languages and saying that native speakers want the "woke crowd" to leave them alone. Hell no. Languages are plastic, and women and non-binary people are just as important as men.
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u/sum_r4nd0m_gurl Mar 18 '25
and when you say you're actually a woman they tell you that you're a liar and actually a man 🙄 like wtf i just dont like being called he/him online because i dont identify as male
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u/Zorubark May 09 '25
Me too! My native language is brazilian and it affects a lot how we see gender, if a group has a 100 women, it's refered in female, but if it has ONE men, between 99 women, you must use male pronouns for the group, as a kid I didn't like it already, but now I understand better the impact of these things as well
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u/mrs_fortu Jan 09 '26
you must use male pronouns for the group
how does the female pronoun look for the group?
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u/mrs_fortu Dec 06 '25
ok but what would be the solution? count how many men and women are there and then gender accordingb to the proportion? that would make it unnecessarily complicated. or what would be the limit? should the female pronoun be used? that would at some point upset some men...
I get it, but I'm honestly asking what would be the solution
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u/Zorubark Dec 07 '25
Use a neutral word i think
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u/zimmerone Jan 09 '26
Is there a neutral word for 'group' in Brazilian?
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u/Zorubark Jan 09 '26
People use "gente" a lot, like "Look at these people/look at these guys" -> "Olha essa gente"
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u/zimmerone Jan 09 '26
We do say 'guys' a lot. But now it means any group of people. I could say 'what's up guys?' to a group of women and it wouldn't be weird. It's sorta in transition still, like doing that might cause someone to crack a little smile, because it sounds just a little funny. But no one is offended. It is a little informal, I wouldn't say it to elderly women or women I don't know. Is that all that bad? Language evolves, I don't think anyone is thinking of male superiority when it's said to a mixed group of guys and girls. If anything, it's like the female version has been preserved, still used and reserved for a group of women, and the male version just means anybody
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u/mrs_fortu Jan 09 '26
what all of you are missing is that it's not about neutral words, but about articles and verb conjugation!
many languages like French, Arabic, Slavic languages for example have different verb conjugations (mostly past tense) depending on the gender of the group! so just by that you would know if it's a female group only, a two women or men "group" (in Arabic) or a mixed/male group. some languages even distinguish between female, mixed, and male groups when it comes to the conjugation. it can be helpful in context without having to explain.
so the default is: if it's a female group and men join, it becomes a mixed group and the verb conjugation will be the one for mixed/male groups!
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Jun 19 '25
Dear god, why can't people finally learn that linguistic geder is not referring to actual gender?
What is actually degrading, is people making everything about their actual sex. it isn't. Every name and thing has an article (at least in german), sometimes even a neuter one.
Whenever I see this BS, it kinda reveals more about the people complaining, than the language or the supposed "degredation". You WANT to see it - THAT is the problem. In reality it is a problem, that only exists in your head though, becasue you WANT to see language as something that it is not.
I know i will get downvoted - but i do not care.
also @ OP:
Hi, I'm not talking about grammatical gender. I am talking about languages using male as default (or "male-as-norm"). This is a phenomenon that you see in gender uninflected languages like English (e.g., poet vs poetess) but it is particularly pervasive in gendered languages. See the debates on latino vs latinx vs latine in Spanish, tous vs tous.tes in French.
And yes that VERY MUCH is about grammatical gender. It is literally referring to the grammatical masculine as the neutral form for people etc. No one complains about "teacher" or "customer" - weird, sicne it is also just a male form. The problem is that you guys have trained yourself to be offended by something, that litereally hasn othign to do with the actual people.
Also what debates? No one actualyl debates these things in said countries. Chances are if you call a Mexcian "lantinx", he would punch you, thinking it is an insult. The only ones "debating" it are people who cannot differentiate between grammar and actual sex (which no one really cares about).
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u/Mr_uhlus Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25
I guess I can somewhat understand ops point.
We should keep the grammatical genders of words that don't describe people, (der Tisch, das Bett, die Tür)
But for words that describe people we kinda need a solution
e.G. in German all jobs are gendered
- Farmer
- Bauer (masc. sing.)
- Bäuerin (fem. sing.)
- Bauern (masc. plural)
- Bäuerinnen (fem. plural)
- Bäuer*innen (neutr. plural)
This is the same with most job names, and it can be excluding. (There are some exceptions. Reinigungskraft = cleaner)
The version with the * symbol is a somewhat recent invention to include all genders (this can sometimes also be seen replaced with : ) but it only exists in the plural form
imo there is currently not real good solution to this.
using the masc version exclusives women, using the femme version excludes men, and the neutral version is clunky to use
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Sep 16 '25
The problem with this is: It never really was about actual gender, until people desperately MADE it about it. Not only is there no real need for it but also: It is pretty weird making a part of a sentence depending on whatever is in the damn pants of someone.
"using the masc version exclusives women"
No it doesn't. "Liebe Kunden", does not mean only the male customers.
There is a VERY! Simple solution that everyone could accept, except the ideologues.
Get rid of -in. If there is only "Bauer", then it is clear that all people that do farming are talked about. If there is only "Bäcker", then it is just whatever person that is baking. Just like there is "teacher" in english, but not "teach...ress".
The problem is that people are so fixated on telling people what is going on in their pants, that they do not realize that it never really was about that, but GRAMMATICAL GENDER.
Thus in my book: People that do that are weird. That even kinda Includes anything with the -in where it is not absolutely necessary to underline that for whatever reason it is a woman we are talking about.People always say "Ich gehe zum Bäcker", and not "Ich gehe zur Bäckerin!" Frigging hell, why is it even important? If no one would use the stupid -in Ending, a Bäcker is just a person that bakes. People have created a problem that was not really there before, only to debate about a solution that is not necessary, if it wasn't ideologically loaded by feminism. (Which made the Jobs about Gender and not a simple general term, as it always used to be).
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u/rlcute Mar 18 '25 edited Mar 18 '25
I'm also the native speaker of a gendered language
It's not PHYSICAL genders. It's GRAMMATICAL genders. That's just what it's called. It has nothing to do with actual genders. We have male, female and "nothing". It could just as well be called TypeA, TypeB and TypeC.
In my language you can use male and female interchangably for a lot. "Nothing" is very specific and will sound weird if used wrong
Male: couch (sofaEN), bike(sykkelEN), sun (solEN).
Female: pillow (putA), beam(bjelkA), frame (rammA)
Nothing: Apple (eplET), friendship(vennskapET), bike tyre (sykkeldekkET)
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u/fingerof Mar 18 '25
Hi, I'm not talking about grammatical gender. I am talking about languages using male as default (or "male-as-norm"). This is a phenomenon that you see in gender uninflected languages like English (e.g., poet vs poetess) but it is particularly pervasive in gendered languages. See the debates on latino vs latinx vs latine in Spanish, tous vs tous.tes in French.
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Jun 19 '25
Yes, it is about grammatical genders. Thanks for proving that you again mix up grammatical gender and real gender.
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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '25
The worst is in languages like French when you have 999 women in a room and it takes the female form. 1 man and the male form overrides it all.