Outstanding article, Sarah!

Profound , ambitious and written with palpable zest - big fan of your work. Your writing seems so personal and effecting and really brings out the angst that am sure many women feel.

As outlined in Caroline Perez's excellent "Inisible Women", French, Spanish and German are a few examples of gender-inflected languages. Guess what the “default” gender is? Yup. Male. The German word for “lawyer” is Anwalt. But the literal translation is male lawyer, not a lawyer. Countries with gender-inflected languages are the most gender-unequal. English isn’t gendered i.e. there is no word for “female banker” or “male nanny” but what gender pops up in your head for astronaut or athlete or professor? That’s the male default. Because seeing humans as men is the default.

I'd appreciate your feedback on my article as I think it's another data-driven companion piece to your wonderful writing, do let me know what you think!

https://medium.com/illumination/men-are-the-default-women-are-the-exception-5fe65880aeda