Frau or Fräulein?

Once you have asked a woman this question you are already deep in trouble. I will now tell you the story behind and then you will understand why Fräulein is for the vast majority of women a real insult.

You don't have time to read the whole bla bla bla? Okay, the short version: forget about Fräulein, it is not part of German language any longer. If you want to know more, keep on reading.

The ending "lein" indicates something small in the German language. This is one reason why women are not friends with that word, but this is not all. In German constitution man and woman are equal. Then it took a while until this became part of the Zeitgeist. Do we have a special term for "little men"? Of course not. This is where you get in trouble. Does anybody care wether a guy is married or not? So, why make a woman's marital status public? (I truly hope you are frozen in the "... eh....." now.)

In other languages it was more more evident. Let's take Dutch: juffrouw. OMG! In German that would be "Jungfrau", virgin. But this is where also the German idea stems from. Can you imagine that somebody says to a woman "Virgin Smith, can you tell me what time it is?" ? It is pure language sexism. The Dutch also banned juffrouw like the Germans did. If I recall correctly some other nordic countries did the same.

I grew up with this. I think I was 14 when I started getting letters addressed to "Frau Stein". The first actions were taken in the 1950s and the new feminism in 1970 finally helped implement the change forever . Many years later I moved to Spain and it shocked me how often I was asked "Señora o señorita?" It really upset me. At that time I did not understand that people did not want to be nasty, it was simply a normal question to them. And they could not understand when I told them that I want to keep my marital status to myself. "¿Qué?"

So, when you are in Germany and you really want to use the word Fräulein, you better target kindergarteners, they don't mind and it is even okay.