In 1996, second-wave feminist Marlies Krämer took a stand against this prejudice. German identity cards require the “holders” signature on them. In Krämer’s day, only the masculine version of the word was on the card. She felt this was not a reflection of her identity, so she did not sign it. After lobbying for both versions of “holder” to be on the card, Krämer succeeded in convincing the government to add the feminine version of the word. ID cards in Germany now state: “Unterschrift der Inhaberin/des Inhabers”, meaning “signature of the [male] holder/[female] holder”. This may seem like a small victory, but it made German women feel as though they had a place in their country. 

Krämer’s campaign didn’t end there. In 2018, she sued a German bank for referring to her as a "Kunde" (male customer) rather than "Kundin" (female customer). She stated that she has "a constitutional right to be recognised in speech and writing as a woman”. This is a fundamental issue the language now faces—people have a right to be recognised by their preferred genders, however, this is a challenge to inclusivity when gender is intertwined in language. Unfortunately, Krämer’s case was denied, as DW reported, ”The three male judges and two female judges said the state's gender equality law did not give a woman the right to be addressed with the female form.” This decision stung the German feminists. 

As a general rule, in order to feminise a word in German, the female suffix ‘-in’ is added to it. Are two letters really too much to ask for? This practice of adding a suffix in order to feminise a word is a symptom of the oppression women have and continue to face. Since women were not historically lawyers, doctors, or anything other than housewives, when women began breaking the tradition, female versions of male dominated careers needed to be created, hence the addition of the suffix.

Many European languages put male versions of words at their forefront , which reinforces the idea that feminists have been fighting for centuries—that men are more significant than anyone else. This is a running issue for feminists throughout Germany as, usually, the male version of a noun is used during the discussion of mixed gendered groups. It does not matter how many women there are, even one man means the male form of the word is used. This specifically applies to job titles, doctors, teachers and the like. Having a male-dominated language in the workplace, where women are often already unrepresented and deal with less respect, places a higher importance on the presence of a man in a group. This contributes to workplace sexism,  enforcing the idea that no matter how many qualified women are in a room, regardless of position, experience or rank, one man can change how they are viewed and represented. While this alone is not responsible for the culture of sexism, it contributes to the idea that women are less worthy of being acknowledged. 

Journalist Christine Olderdissen has studied women in male-dominated fields through the lens of gendered language for several years. She argues that women are more likely to engage with careers that have female versions of the job, as it enables them to connect with it more. She states that “it has been proven that female school students feel more attracted to typically male-dominated jobs, such as a car mechanic, if the job title also includes the female form, i.e.‘Automechaniker’ (male form)/‘Automechanikerin’ (female form).” The male language unintentionally places a gap between women and specific careers. Perhaps unconsciously, women feel, as though, they do not belong when they don’t see a female derivative of the career they’re interested in. This is an even larger issue for people who do not conform to the gender binary, as they previously had no way of being referred to. 

Germany has introduced a gender star in an attempt to give recognition to the people who do not conform to the gender-binary. The gender star is an asterisk placed between the stem of the word. For example, “Bürger", which means male citizen, and “Bürgerin", which mean female citizen, becomes “Bürger*innen”, referring to citizens regardless of gender. Currently, this only applies to written language, and is not widely accepted throughout Germany. There are arguments throughout the country about whether non-gendered language should become more mainstream and how it would be included in formal language. The Verein Deutsche Sprache describes its goals as ‘preserving and promoting the German language as an independent cultural language’. They are against the inclusion of gendered language and have been accused of right wing nationalist views. They argue that there is little connection between gender in speech and biological gender. It is an argument heard before by right-wing groups, who argue that it has no impact when it solely affects the marginalised groups, namely the women and the non-binary people. Later,  the Duden dictionary revised its definitions so that the male words referred exclusively to men, rather than people of all genders, and included separate entries for the female forms. Verein Deutsche Sprache criticised the change as a “very selfish, childish need to attract attention.” The Verein Deutsche Sprache narrative diminishes the importance of language and the need to make space for people other than men. There are alternative versions of the gender star; colons and words created for new gender neutral plurals have been invented and put into practice around Germany, even included by the news anchor in Germany’s prime news show. Changing a language is a mammoth task, but prioritising inclusion allows for a happier, more diverse world where people feel accepted, though language is just the first step.