gender star? Me inland? colon? Not with Susanne Brunner (50)! The SVP councilor of Zurich is probably the biggest fighter against gender appropriate language in German-speaking Switzerland. Now she is even launching a popular initiative that wants to ban gender in Zurich.
In the private sphere one should be able to do what one or woman or person wants. But Brunner wants the city council to ban gendering. “Mayor Corine Mauch has now changed consistently, both in writing and orally, she addresses the citizens as ‘Zürcher*innen'”, Brunner is annoyed in the “NZZ”. That does not correspond to the German spelling and does not correspond to what is taught in schools.
The city government misuses the language
For the initiative «Bye Gender Star!» Brunner has also found comrades-in-arms from other parties, including the SP. She also sees the referendum as a response to new language equality regulations issued by the Zurich government in the summer, which require civil servants to treat women, men and non-binary people linguistically equally in city government texts. For this they can use gender-neutral formulations, such as ‘students’ or the gender star.
For Brunner it is clear: gender makes language “unmanageable and incomprehensible”, especially if you exaggerate it. The red-green city council misuses language as a political tool for gender struggle. “But the language does not belong to the Zurich city council, it belongs to all of us.”
She herself suffered from the “gender police”
Brunner himself has already run into problems with these specifications. In 2019, a proposal of hers was twice rejected by the council office of the city of Zurich, because it was not formulated gender-neutral: Brunner always uses the masculine form in the text instead of talking about “squatters” or “occupiers”.
Brunner defended himself against this in court – and was right. In Zurich, which is dominated by left-greens, it remains to be seen whether their citizens’ initiative will be as successful. (sf)
Source:Blick
I am Liam Livingstone and I work in a news website. My main job is to write articles for the 24 Instant News. My specialty is covering politics and current affairs, which I’m passionate about. I have worked in this field for more than 5 years now and it’s been an amazing journey. With each passing day, my knowledge increases as well as my experience of the world we live in today.
