Gender Stereotypes and Gender Inclusive Language

Esslinegn am Neckar (Germany), 3-5 May 2022

Location: Esslingen

Participation: the event involved 58 citizens:  3 participants from Gender Studies

(Czech Republic),2 from the Municipality of Santo Tirso (Portugal),2 participants from the Municipality of Piotrków Trybunalski (Poland), 3 participants from Vienne (France) 10 participants from the Municipality of Parma and SERN (Italy) and 6 participants from the Municipality of Norrköping (Sweden) and 32 participants from Esslingen (Germany). 

Date: from 3/05/2022 to 5/05/2022

The 3-day Seminar “Gender stereotypes and gender inclusive language” was aimed at developing reflections on participants (decision makers, civil servants, politicians and public at large) around two main topics: gender stereotypes and preconceptions in the society and the role of language in combating sexism.

Particular emphasis was placed on the need to adopt a gender-sensitive language and communication, laying the foundations for the development of one of the two outputs of the project Guidelines for a gender sensitive communication. In addiction, the Municipality of Esslingen presented its best practices on equal opportunities.

Programme

Tuesday 3 May
Focus: Gender stereotypes and gender stereotyping
    Equal opportunities in Esslingen, Barbara Straub - Head of Department for Equal Opportunities, Easslingen
    Stereotypes in digitisation , Lina Hanstein - EAF Berlin
    Girls digital camp, Prof. Gabriel Gühring - Esslingen University
    Exchange of best practices
    Exchange with members of Esslingen City Council, Women in - or not in - local municipal policy , Dr. Elisa Deiss-Helbeig

Wednesday 4 May
Focus: Gender stereotypes and gender stereotyping, the role of language in combating sexism: gender inclusive language
    Presentation and workshop (World CafeÅ) on stereotypes in education, training, advertisement, care work, Almut Schnerring
    Welcome Speech, Lord Mayor of Esslingen Matthias Klopfer
    Inclusive language, Dr. Kristina Bedijs
    Role stereotypes and language in theatre at the Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen, Sarah Frost

Thursday 5 May
Focus: The role of language in combating sexism: gender inclusive language
    Diversity of political representation in the municipality and the country, Andrea Lindlohr MdL,State Secretary, Ministery od the development and living Baden-Württemberg
    Inclusive language, Dr. kristina Bedijs and Barbara Starub

Speakers

Progetto senza titolo – 2022-04-28T110839.949

Dr. Kristina Bedijs

Research assistant at the Centre for Gender Studies of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Hannover

"Inclusive language – an international perspective "

Her task is to inform staff of the Evangelical Church in Germany and its member churches on all levels about gender aspects of societal questions. This includes briefings on gender-fair language. She does research on gender-fair language as an instrument of DEI (with a special regard to the Protestant church), about its origins in activism and Feminist Linguistics, implications for intersectionality and barrier-free communication, and international perspectives.
Progetto senza titolo – 2022-04-28T111203.677

Dr. Elisa Deiss-Helbig

Political scientist at the University of Stuttgart (Institute for Social Sciences)

"Explaining women’s (non-) presence in local politics"

In her research, Elisa Deiss-Helbig focuses on political representation (mainly of immigrant-origin citizens and women) and questions of political inequality. Currently, she works as principal investigator on two third-party funded research projects dealing with group representation and political (in)equality by focusing on electoral promises and their fulfillment in Germany and France. Between 2019 and 2021, she also provided academic support for a project aiming to promote the social participation of immigrant-origin citizens (funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration and the bpb).
Progetto senza titolo – 2022-04-28T111419.559

Sarah Frost

Dramaturg at the theatre “Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen“

"Role stereotypes and language in theatre"

Sarah Frost has been working as a dramaturg at the theatre Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen since September 2021. She is responsible for children's and youth theatre productions as well as plays for adults. In addition to production dramaturgy, her work includes collaborating on all of the theatre's publications, working on programmes, selecting the season schedule and maintaining close contact with directors and other theatre professionals.
Progetto senza titolo – 2022-04-28T112241.740

Lisa Hanstein

Senior Expert at EAF Berlin (European Academy for Women in Politics and Business Berlin e.v.)

"Bits & Bias. Stereotypes in Digitization"

Lisa Hanstein works in the field of diversity, unconscious thought patterns and equal opportunities in the digital world. She develops concepts and holds workshops on diversity in IT, on the gender-sensitive development and use of digital applications, on the transfer of unconscious thought patterns in IT and on the application potential of IT for more diversity. Lisa Hanstein herself is a business informatics specialist, she worked for several years as a software developer and trained as a diversity trainer.
Progetto senza titolo – 2022-04-28T112527.691

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gühring

Equal Opportunities Officer at Esslingen University of Applied Sciences, Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology

"Girls Digital Camps at Esslingen University of Applied Sciences - More women for computer science"

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gühring is the Equal Opportunities Officer at Esslingen University of Applied Sciences and supervises numerous projects for STEM students and women in STEM professions (e.g. mentoring programmes for STEM students, Girls Digital Camps, Mathilde Planck teaching assignment programme, ...). At the same time, she is the spokesperson for the State Conference of Gender Equality Officers at Universities of Applied Sciences in Baden-Württemberg and the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (LaKof BW) and is on the advisory board of Mentoring Hessen. Her current publications in the field of machine learning deal with anomaly detection in large data sets and multimodal models of deep learning.
Progetto senza titolo – 2022-05-03T090719.126

Almut Schnerring

author and journalist who studied German language and literature, art history, communication research and phonetics, speech science and speech training (DGSS) in Stuttgart, Paris, Bonn and Aachen.

"Presentation and workshop (World Cafè) on stereotypes in education, training, advertisement, care work"

She is concerned with the return of traditional gender roles in work and everyday family life, as well as their connection to the current shortage of skilled workers, PayGap, CareGap and Mental Load. Her book 'Die Rosa-Hellblau-Falle - Für eine Kindheit ohne Rollenklischees' (The Pink-LightBlue Trap - For a Childhood without Role Stereotypes) has given a name to the phenomenon of unconscious gender stereotypes in everyday life; since its publication in 2014, the #RosaHellblauFalle network has been growing and connecting people who stand up for freedom of choice independent of role models. Almut Schnerring, together with Sascha Verlan, is the initiator of Equal Care Day, 29 February - a day of action for more appreciation and a fair distribution of care work: equalcareday.de. In her current book 'Equal Care. Über Fürsorge und Gesellschaft' (Berlin, 2020, Verbrecher Verlag) she offers solutions for the care crisis.