'Gender' named buzzword of 2013

Photo: Glowimages

“In 2013, the word gender shot into the lexical repertoire of many Poles of various ages, backgrounds, milieus and regions,” commented panellist Professor Halina Zgolkowa of Poznan's Adam Mickiewicz University.

“It's surely here to stay.”

Last October, Gender Studies were hotly discussed in the media after Archbishop Jozef Michalik, head of the Polish Episcopate, criticised the “new ideology of gender” at universities, in the wake of a paedophilia scandal in the Church.

“You have heard of adults abusing children and this kind of evil is not to be tolerated, but no one asks about the causes of this,” he said.

Besides gender studies, he also blamed pornography, divorce and “the most aggressive Polish feminists who scoff at the Church and years of traditional ethics, who promote abortion and struggle against the traditional model of the family and marital fidelity.”

The remarks prompted criticism from academic circles.

Academics from the Polish Language Foundation and the Institute of Language from Warsaw University analyse buzzwords in the media on a continuous basis, with competitions for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and Word of the Month.

Members of the public can submit nominations, and according to the regulations, “the Word of the Year does not have to be the most common word, or one that only appeared this year, although both factors are very important.” (nh)

Source: PAP