User talk:2003:DE:370A:E54:2F:C5E6:69B0:40D4

Your changes "can be non-female": diff, diff, diff, diff

Speaking about the Genus: No, these forms cannot be non-female. It could be the case that I'm wrong in assuming that {{female equivalent of}} refers to the morphological derivation when in reality it refers to the Sexus instead, though I don't think that is the case. ^{@-sche, Jberkel, Mahagaja} Fytcha (talk) 10:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure about these specific words, but in general entities like companies can be referred to with nouns ending in -in ("Microsoft ist die größte Spenderin/Herstellerin von..." etc.), so for the sake of consistency it might indeed be better to refer to grammatical gender rather than biological sex here. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:42, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

There's a distinction between the sex of the referent (e.g. female) and the gender of the word (e.g. feminine, cp. also Category:German feminine nouns). Nouns in -in (“feminine suffix”) are always feminine, but do not always refer to female beings. As for these specific words, examples (found with Google Books) were provided in the version summary, see the version history. It's like Mahagaja said. Additionally: In Romance languages too, the gender of words doesn't always follow the sex of the referent:

• E.g. editor m is also used for sexless computer programs.
• The masculine term is also used for unspecified persons or in plural for unspecified or mixed-gender groups (cp. Template:es-note-noun-common-gender-a).
• The feminine form is also used in reference to sexless organisations, institutions, companies or sometimes abstract things (like music, culture), cp. productrice, produttrice, productora, producătoare.

(@Fytcha, Mahagaja) --14:58, 1 November 2021 (UTC)