Sylwia Bedyńska, PhD, from the Institute of General Psychology at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, explains how negative stereotypes affect gifted women and their education choices.
The aim of the article is to analyze literary images of women who had an impact on the history of Poland in the historical novel Gambit hetmański (2014), written by Robert Foryś. This type of fiction is a popular variety of the genre, its main theme is the conflict between political factions fighting for power. The leaders of the factions are women. The article focus on the answer to the question: whether Foryś creating scandalous portraits of women who reach for power is a threat or a chance for them to recall and preserve their presence in history.
Based upon the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, according to which language influences thought, we may affirm how social stereotypes remain bound by stereotyped usages of language. Hence, speaking is never neutral as it is underpinned by a way of thinking, of communicating, of being. The sexist usage of language encapsulates a function of emphasis at the semantic level and an obscuring function in morphological terms. We thus question what sexism in language means in order to inquire as to how the ways we make use of language may influence our ways of thinking and, consequently, our ways of acting.
The situation of transsexual persons in Poland is not precisely known; there are only estimates determining the scale of the phenomenon. The lack of information fosters stereotypes and, not infrequently, injurious appraisal; fear of the unknown is also produced, and is gradually turning into widespread prejudice. A social analysis of the phenomenon of transsexuality is hampered by the predominance of the hetero-normative discourse, including in scholarly spheres. The basic issue addressed by the author is the acceptance of transsexual persons, viewed from the perspective of their own personal experiences. These observations concern both the sphere of personal life as well as functioning in the macro-social space (school, work, etc.). In each of these spheres, a change of gender produces complications with which transsexual persons must grapple as they strive to live in harmony with their psychologically intuited gender.
Celem badania było sprawdzenie, czy i jakie zmiany zaobserwować można w stosunku młodzieży wobec polityków odmiennej płci. W badaniu wzięło udział 929 osób (454 kobiety i 475 mężczyzn), w wieku od 18 do 25 lat, z wykształceniem średnim (uczniowie szkół maturalnych i studenci). Przeprowadzono serię eksperymentów, w których opisywano fikcyjnych kandydatów – kobietę i mężczyznę – na urząd prezydenta. Manipulowano zakresem informacji o politykach (płeć, afiliacja polityczna, pozytywne i negatywne charakterystyki moralności i kompetencji oraz programu po-litycznego). Zaobserwowano: (1) efekt faworyzacji polityka własnej płci w grupie badanych kobiet, (2) zniekształcenia w percepcji kobiety–polityka; kandydatka na prezydenta wzbudzała bardziej pozytywne albo negatywne ustosunkowania niż kandydat na prezydenta w warunkach prezentacji pozytywnych albo negatywnych charakterystyk.
The reviewed book was written basing on Piotr Szlanta’s habilitation thesis defended in 2015 at the University of Warsaw. It deals mainly with “the Polish question”, by describing the relations between Emperor Wilhelm II and his Polish subjects. The title deals with stereotypes of the Emperor and his Polish subjects, and its evolution during subsequent decades. Piotr Szlanta managed to grasp the ambiguous relation between these two sides. On the one hand, the Emperor sought for acceptance and recognition from the side of “his Poles”, on the other hand, he underlined on almost every occasion the historical role of Germans in civilising east territories and its inhabitants. The last attempt of gaining support of Poles towards his politics and himself was an attempt of creating “The Kingdom of Poland” in autumn 1916. Piotr Szlanta’s book, basing on a broad research in various archives managed to highlight this complicated chapter of Polish-German relations.
The author highly appreciates the fi rst issue of the third volume of the fundamental “Dictionary of folk stereotypes and symbols” (ed. prof. E. Bartminsky), dedicated to the symbolism of plants. This issue presents rich materials (language, folklore, ethnographic) related to cereals, which in the popular perception have a mythological interpretation, the daily bread is God’s gift, endowed with sacred significance.
The next issue of the Dictionary of folk stereotypes and symbols, published in Lublin under the editorship of Prof. E. Bartminski, is dedicated to the theme Flowers. Unlike many types of plants, whose cultural semantics "superimpose" on their practical significance in human life, flowers have an almost exclusively symbolic function – they serve as a decoration of the home space and a means of marking persons and objects that perform special ceremonial roles.
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