Posts tagged with "occupations"

In Search of the Right Ending…

Posted by Anna No Comments
Feb 6 2010

Today I would like to introduce to you our brand new guest blogger – Adam Blomberg. He will be helping me out with the Polish Blog this month, because I think that after all this time of mostly Anna, you all must be hungry for something exciting and fun. And a new (and male at that!) point of view should make things fresh and interesting.

This is Adam’s first contribution to the Polish Blog, and after reading it I am sure will enjoy his posts as much as you do mine. If not more. (Yes, he’s that good!)

So, please put your hands together for Adam!!!

Adam, the floor is yours!

There are some things in the Polish language that you will never get right. You can learn your declensions by heart, you can get the spelling right, but sometimes it just won’t do. It’s when the language, the map that describes our world, actually meets the world… and doesn’t fit. The world is constantly changing while language patterns are deeply ingrained in people’s souls, in our brains, and in our dusty books.

The thing I am talking about here are female names for professions or positions of honor. This subject has been mentioned on this blog before, however in the light of the fact that this issue touches half of the human population (women), I thought it was a good idea to give the readers of this blog some more insight into the matter. In Polish, of course.

The style of addressing a woman-professor, woman-driver, or a woman-judge, woman-prime-minister or woman-MP (etc.) in Polish could be one of the trickiest things, even for native Poles. Sometimes it’s balancing on a thin line: someone might get offended.

It all began in the past, when as in most of the Western world, it was believed that men and women were created to perform different roles, and so they did. Men conquered the world, or pursued high-flying careers. Women rocked the cradle and provided domestic service. These prehistoric conditions have long since changed. But the language hasn’t changed that much – just yet – to fit them.

Therefore the Polish language is inconsistent with those profession names. Various occupations have only one generally accepted gender version:

  • for instance: prezes (company president), premier (prime minister), sędzia (judge), pełnomocnik (legal agent), kierowca (driver, note – not tram/train driver), referent (sub-species of office worker), górnik (miner), doktor (PhD holder) – have no apparent female version
  • and przedszkolanka (kindergarten teacher) – has no male version.


Joanna Senyszyn – europoseł – EU Parliament Member

There are of course several solutions, some more popular than others. The tricky bit is, that usually women strongly prefer one of these: either because of their strong feminist views or because of version sounds more respectable. And the style one chooses to use also might reveal their political stance on the issues of feminism. As it were the feminists who stress this matter and point to the need for female naming conventions.


Henryka Bochniarz – prezes – company president (Polska Konfederacja Pracodawców Prywatnych
Lewiatan – Polish Confederation of Private Employers)

Solutions:

1. The most popular thing people do, is to add the word pani (lady, or Mrs) before the positions of prestige or use the male form altogether: so we would have pani prezydent, pani sędzia, pani premier, pani pełnomocnik, pani doktor, pani poseł. As the male version sounds prestigious most people use the male version even if a female word does exist – so that it sounds better: for instance: pani psycholog (psychologist), pani stomatolog (dentist), pani nauczyciel (teacher);

2. Some women prefer, and some feminist periodicals promote, the use of – let’s call it the “-ka” type of endings, that are based on a pattern already used in the Polish language for some female positions (nauczycielka) and extend it: prezydentka, prezeska, premierka, doktorka, posłanka… and we have a problem with sędzia – they would probably use the word sędzina (usually means the wife of a judge).

Many women however would not use these words as they sound and look like diminutives. As if a woman president was not a proper president but “little president”. A prezzie. Some women argue that these words will no longer sound like diminutives if we do use them and get used to them. Others point that prezydentka is actually a direct equivalent of prezydentek (little president, dwarf-president) – rather than prezydent. And this conclusion was the basis for solution number three.

3. The third solution is the least popular one (as it introduces a completely new thing), but is the most complex, and is argued to be the most logical, without any prestige loss. It proposes adding letter “-a”: prezydenta, prezesa, doktora, sędzia, rzecznika, referenta, psychologa, górnika, posła, nauczyciela.

I will leave with you with this question: Who is Anna Ikeda?
- bloger?
- pani bloger?
- blogerka?
- blogera?

Which version do you prefer? And why?

PS. Anna’s comment – the third solution reminds me of how it works in Spanish: señor-señora, profesor -profesora.

PS2. Wasn’t it an awesome first post?

Gender and Occupations, continued…

Posted by Anna No Comments
Mar 28 2009

Remember when I mentioned that the EU head honchos in Brussels want us to stop using gender specific names for professions? I also said that it was something I agreed with.

Wow! I never thought that that particular post would provoke so many emails. Both for and against.

But you see, we already have many nouns for occupations and professions that are gender–neutral. Or at least they are now, because the same form is used by both men and women.

I have a friend, a female friend, who works on a cargo vessel. She refers to herself as “marynarz” (sailor). Another young woman I know lists her job as “pilot”. And I don’t mean here a tour guide (known in Polish as “pilot wycieczek”), she is a real pilot flying planes for a shipping company.

To that, we can add tons of other women, who can say they are:

  • inżynier – engineer
  • oficer – officer
  • kierowca – driver
  • lekarz – doctor – even though, there is a female form – “lekarka” most women doctors I spoke to agreed they preferred the masculine version – “lekarz”
  • weterynarz – veterinarian
  • architekt – architect
  • strażak – fire fighter
  • redaktor – editor – same as with doctors, ladies who do this job, refer to themselves using the male term – “redaktor” and when necessary add “naczelna” making “redaktor naczelna” if they are editors-in-chief. (I actually called several magazines to ask their editors about it.)

Why do they prefer the male noun? For exactly the same reason that Russ mentioned in his comment to the previous post on this subject.
Take the word “autor” for example. It means “writer” or “author” or “male writer” or “male author.”
“Autorka”, on the other hand, makes it very clear we are talking about a female.

So if I say that “Moja ulubiona polska autorka to Joanna Chmielewska” does it mean that Joanna Chmielewska is my favorite Polish female writer? Or my favorite Polish writer in general? Or should I rather say that “Mój ulubiony polski autor to Joanna Chmielewska”?

Why do I have to distinguish if my favorite writer is male or female? If I were talking about Bharati Mukherjee for example, we wouldn’t have this problem, simply because most people wouldn’t know anyway. Then why do we do it in Polish? Personally, I would say that “Mój ulubiony polski autor to Joanna Chmielewska”, because I prefer her humorous crime stories to other books by Polish authors, be it male or female. (What can I say? I’m not really into heavy-duty literature. Pity Ms. Chmielewska’s books have not been translated into English yet.)

And then, what do we do with those occupations that have been performed by females for so long that we don’t even think about how they would sound in their male versions? Or if they even have masculine forms at all.

In English it’s simple. A nurse is a nurse, regardless of his/her gender. In Polish, a nurse is definitely female, almost by default – pielęgniarka.
The male form – pielęgniarz just sounds awkward and stiff. I had a hard time finding a male nurse in Poland, but when I finally did, and we chatted on skype last week, I asked him what he preferred to be called.

He said, “you know what Anna, either word is fine, heck, any word is fine, as long as the old ladies in my care would finally accept me as a fully qualified, competent nurse. But still… it must be even worse to be a male kindergarten teacher…”

And yeah, he had a point. Female kindergarten teachers are “przedszkolanki” (singular: przedszkolanka). What on earth do you call a guy? Definitely not “przedszkolak” (kindergartener). :)

PS. The male nurse said that most of the time, everybody, his patients and female co-workers call him “rodzynek” (raisin), meaning he’s the only one of his kind.

Brussels Says – Get Rid of “Pani” and “Panna”

Posted by Anna 7 Comments
Mar 18 2009

What is this I’m hearing about the paper pushers in Brussels telling us to not use words such as “Pani” and “Panna”? Or “Madame” and “Mademoiselle”, “Frau” and “Fraulein” and so on… Seriously, does anyone still even bother with those panna/mademoiselle/fraulein forms?

The great majority of people I know never even use the word “Panna” when addressing a young woman. In my family, the only person who was allowed to call us that was my grandpa, when he was still alive. I only identified myself as “Panna” when asked for marital status on official documents. But that was when I was still a single woman. In normal conversations, people have been calling me “Pani” since time immemorial. Even when I was very much a panna at the age of 17.

So, I have absolutely no idea what the EU’s problem is with “Pani.”

Is it their lack of understanding of our beautiful, but convoluted language?

Back in the olden days “Pani” referred to a married matron, that much is true. But these days it’s just a simple, polite expression to address any and all women and has nothing to do with whether these women are married or not. For crying out loud, there are private high schools in this country, where the staff are required to address their students as “Pan so-and-so” and “Pani so-and-so.”

So, the first part of this language directive from Bruksela is utter nonsense, but I must admit I kind of agree with the second part.

They don’t want us to use the feminine forms of certain nouns describing occupations. Oddly enough, this is something I’ve already been doing for years. And I just know this will not endear me to my Polish-speaking readers, who are rather orthodox about preserving the purity of the Polish language. (As if Polish could be pure. Yeah right!)

Instead of saying, for example, “listonoszka” (female mail carrier) I’ve always been saying simply “listonosz” (mail carrier), or if I wanted to be really specific, then: “pani listonosz”.

Same with “policjantka” (policewoman). I just say “funkcjonariusz policji” or “oficer policji”.

What really irks me is the double standard of how we refer to TV weather people. You know, those types who tell you it will be snowing in morning and smile, as if it was the best news ever. The women doing the smiling and telling are commonly known as “pogodynki” (singular: pogodynka). Comes from “pogoda” (weather).

But the guys are “prezenterzy pogody” (singular: prezenter pogody). Why the difference? What? Guys don’t want to be called “pogodynki”? Well, technically, “pogodynka” is a feminine noun, but what’s the big deal? Just call him “pogodynek” instead. But of course, it would be considered goofy and unprofessional. So it looks like it’s OK to call a woman by a cutesy, unprofessional nickname, but not a guy. Not fair.

My system of using the masculine version for both men and women is also very economical, especially when you’re just learning Polish. Because then you don’t have to think too much about: “what the heck do I call this woman with the dental drill”?

Hint: in my world, she would be “dentysta” (dentist, masculine form), just like a man. Or “a torturer”, depending on the situation. (And did you know that modern dental drills can rotate at up to 800000 RPM?)

Here’s the news blurb about this EU decision (in Polish).

And next week, I’ll give you a whole bunch of those masculine-feminine occupations. You’ll have to wait until next week, because on Friday we’ll be drowning Marzanna. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to drown something. Anything to bring on warmer weather!

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