11:11 Jan 18, 2011 

I agree strongly with Antje - I think the previous part of the sentence, where the different roles are listed, makes it clear enough that "the individual" will be one of either sex, so there is no need to state this explicitly.

08:10 Jan 18, 2011 

You may be right. My experience with German sociology texts is that political correctness is the main reason for distinguishing between genders. For the specific text here I can't be sure, though.

07:23 Jan 18, 2011 

Usually I would agree with you and I was going to put that myself. I think, however, that the point is being made here that the expectations are imposed on both men and women.

07:07 Jan 18, 2011 

I think "on the individual" is fine. The differentiation in German is just for "political correctness". Recreating it in English where no such difference needs to be made makes it sound akward, in my opionion. Too complicated. No additional information is conveyed by writing "either sex". In English it is already clear.

04:53 Jan 18, 2011 

Just as in English, personal pronouns are hard to keep gender-neutral in German. How about "to/on each and everyone"? Imvho the author mainly seeks to differentiate individual roles.

04:40 Jan 18, 2011 

It actually means "an den Einzelnen und an die Einzelne", to address the males and females separately.

04:39 Jan 18, 2011 

replace the "to" with an "on" in order to make it gel with what will be before this segment.

04:35 Jan 18, 2011 

"...to every such man and woman/every individual, male or female."