Austrians’ approval of gender has declined in recent years, according to a survey by the Linz opinion research institute IMAS, the results of which were published on Friday. Almost a third have never heard of gender-neutral language, and this topic is probably the most important for young women.
62 percent – up six percentage points from 2016 – have heard of gender-neutral language, 32 percent have not, six percent do not know. In any case, there is no careful gendering: 52 percent say they never use gender-neutral language, twelve percent say they ‘rarely’ and ‘sometimes’ do so, and only four percent say they ‘always’ do so.
The rejection increased significantly
Specifically, the 1,025 Austrians who were personally interviewed in January and February were asked whether “these initiatives (on gender-friendly language use, please note) and the associated changes in the German language, for example the use of a colon by all gender groups, are also” “The inclusion of personal names between male and female, for example ‘students’, is developing in the right direction overall.” While in 2016 27 percent answered yes, this year it was only 19 percent. In return, the number of people who rejected the proposal rose from 46 to 63 percent.
65 percent of respondents think that gender equality has no meaning for strengthening all gender groups in our society, 25 percent do. In general, women and higher educated people think about it slightly more than men and people with less formal education.
Older women are also skeptical
However, the gap between young and older women is particularly striking: while 33 percent of women under 50 consider gender important, only 20 percent of women over 50 are therefore more skeptical about gender-neutral language use than men over 50 25 (young) or 23 (old) percent.
The pollsters also subjected their subjects to a practical experiment: half were asked to spontaneously name famous athletes, politicians, and pop musicians, the other half were asked for “athletes,” “politicians,” etc. Conclusion: The names mentioned hardly differed in the two groups.
Source: Krone
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