"How many genders are there and why?" – Report on the summer school 2019
This article was originally published in German. The English version is an automatic translation and may contain errors. The German original is authoritative.
It is cold and grey up at Hubland and the wind sweeps eagerly around the administrative buildings of Universität Würzburg. So on Monday it almost carries the participants of its own accord towards the Children's and Family Centre. Small signs bearing the inscription "summer school 2019" lead past the office of the University Women's Officer, all the way to the event room of the Catholic University Chaplaincy. Alongside a piano, comfortable sofas and the modern kitchenette, the room is furnished with table and chair arrangements that suggest group work…
This year's summer school was organised by the gender forum at Uni Würzburg. As a platform, the forum offers various opportunities for researchers and students who engage scientifically with the topic of gender. For two years now, the gender forum has provided exchange and networking amongst those involved. The summer school, which is also taking place for the second time since the forum's founding, is one of the offered formats. On the topic "How many genders are there – and why?", lectures and workshops by many different researchers took place in the second week of October. 18 students had the opportunity to learn about the concept of "gender" from the perspective of very different academic disciplines. It quickly became clear how early a construction of one or two gender roles emerges: with Dr. Lars Burghardt, for example, the participants had the opportunity to analyse children's literature themselves. The doctorate-holding educational scientist clearly explained his research on the gender-pedagogical significance of picture books and also explained how the analytical tool works that he and his colleague had used for 133 picture books. Alongside pedagogy, lectures from literature and cultural studies, law, sports science and biology followed, which in their intensity and wealth of ideas would probably have provided material for half a year. What made the discussions considerably more difficult became apparent already in the naming. The overarching question was: How many genders are there? – Then topics such as gender as an identity category or gender marketing were discussed and presented. In some cases, no distinction was made between sex and gender, which is why a clear definition of sex and gender was not always given in the individual lectures. Differentiations and sensibilisations, which are still being developed and are far from being staged and polarised as powerfully as, for example, masculinity and femininity. So these categorisations continue to run through research design as given and natural even today, and thereby reinforce traditional views and clichés.
Given the diversity of approaches to thinking, one lecture did stand out somewhat from the rest: Lann Hornscheidt comes from linguistics and gender studies, taught at Humboldt University, but has since resigned from the professorship there out of conviction. In the introduction round, Lann Hornscheidt explained to the participants that they wanted to be addressed without pronouns and how that would be possible. Language is not just words. It is action. If we were to use gender-neutral language, we would avoid genderism and could end gender discrimination. And it must be noted with restraint that the participants were able to observe most strongly from Lann Hornscheidt's example how deeply constructed ideas and ordering systems are anchored in language and in ourselves. At the same time, Lann Hornscheidt explained how important categorisations are in order to highlight abuses – conversely, a category also makes discrimination possible in the first place.
A very intensive week that will resonate for some time to come, but which has also already found its way into the studies of the participants: whether it is about gender research itself or gender-neutral conduct in the research field. Gender is a cross-cutting issue that is worth not only being investigated scientifically, but also being questioned just as critically. With the course participants and speakers, people were thus again released from the discussion to continue discussing elsewhere and to sensitise their environment to this topic in everyday conversation.
And to the question "How many genders are there – and why?" there was fortunately no clear answer. A quintessence of the week did form nonetheless: sex and gender can rather be understood as a process. Categories whose characteristics change culturally and gain value solely at one's own discretion. For each person, then, the question arises: Who do I want to be? And in what world do I want to live?
Information on further events can be found here:
Luise Stark