Quote Originally Posted by Vidu View Post
...I know that this is totally not adding to the discussion at hand, but just on the off-chance that someone is intrested in why "Mädchen" is gender-neutral in german: "-chen" is a special diminutive ending that you can put together with a noun. It automatically makes the word "gender-neutral" or at least gives it gender-neutral pronouns/the gender-neutral article "das" ("der Fisch" - "das Fischchen").

"Mädchen" is most likely derived from the word "die Magd" (maid; but also just a young, unmarried woman) - so: Die Magd - Das Mä(g)dchen. And it just ended up sticking as the word we're using for girls now.

But you're correct - everything in german is highly genderd, even when it makes little sense... our dogs are all male (der Hund), cats are all female (die Katze) and children simply have no gender (das Kind).
Gender-neutral options pretty much dont exist - sometimes I envy the english language for having "they". Not so much because of the topic at hand but more so because that way I can refer to people ingame without knowing their gender. Personally it doesnt bother me when someone refers to me as "he", but I may also not react to it, because as female I'm obviously not used to being adressed as "he" ("Oh, you were talking about me? Yeah, sure, sure can do that")
Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.