[Gendergap] Wikipedystka

[Risker]

On 5 October 2011 13:10, patricia morales
<mariadelcarmenpatricia at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
>  *From:* patricia morales <mariadelcarmenpatricia at yahoo.com>
> *To:* Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects <
> gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 5, 2011 12:51 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Gendergap] Wikipedystka
>
>   It seems to me very kind, but not related to the ethymology nor the use
> of the words (I have not information about Polish).
> In English you have the male suffix -ian and the female suffix -ienne :
> comedienne <http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/comedienne>, equestrienne<http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/equestrienne>,
> tragedienne <http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/wiki/tragedienne>.
> At the same time you have the suffix -ist for both gender (coming from
> -ista (Latin) and -istes (old Greek)
>
> In Spanish and other langues with differentiaded articles we have:
> El artista y la artista
> La wikipedista (female editor) and el wikipedista (male editor).
>
> In Spanish and other languages it is sometimes used amig at s for having a
> gender sensitivity.
> We could use wikipedist@ , explaining that.
>
> best regards,
> Patricia
>
>
>

I confess that this post made me smile. Back in the day when my feminist
streak was first being nurtured, the differentiation of men and women doing
the same job by the use of suffixes was a major thorn in the side of most
feminists. Over time, there was often a complete change in terminology, e.g.
steward/stewardess to flight attendant, or "manholes" becoming maintenance
accesses since not everyone working in them was a man. Some occupations
dropped the 'feminine" suffix entirely, usually as that was the preference
of the women who worked within that field. ("Comedian" and "actor" are
particularly noteworthy examples.)

It seems we may be coming full circle, in that an increasing number of
feminist women are seeking to return to the sex-differentiated terms.

I will note that this is a separate issue from those languages in which
there is a genuine linguistic variation between the masculine and the
feminine; examples above include Polish and German, and I suspect it would
also apply to other languages. But  in English Wikipedia content, we've
taken to using the term that the subject of an article uses to describe
herself.

Risker/Anne
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