23. Gender-Fair Language in the Context of Recruiting and Evaluating Leaders

In many languages, masculine forms are still used as generics to address both women and men, although a variety of gender-fair forms (e.g., feminine-masculine word pairs) are available. The following chapter first gives a short introduction to the field of gender-fair language. This is followed by an overview on empirical findings revealing which chances gender-fair language provides for achieving more gender-equality in the leadership context. The ramifications can be found on several levels: For instance, when leadership positions are advertised with gender-fair forms (instead of masculine forms), both female and male individuals are more willing to apply, they are equally likely to be hired, and organizations are perceived more positively with regard to gender-equality. Moreover, implications for society are discussed and some brief recommendations how to use gender-fair language in German are provided.