Use feminitives

Feminitives are feminine nouns denoting women, formed from monosyllabic masculine nouns denoting men, and are paired with them. If we were to roughly translate them into English, we would have gendered nouns such teacher and teacheress, author and authoress, historian and historianess, aviator and aviatoress, etc.

Feminitives in the Ukrainian language have an interesting history. Some people do not accept the idea of ​​using femininitives at all, claiming they find them unnatural and unusual. However, throughout its history the Ukrainian language has always had certain femenine nouns, which we are long accustomed to. such as “princess”, “cleaning lady” or “actress”. Unfortunately, it has historically been the case that many fields and professions were previously inaccessible to women, so the more “usual” feminitives are the ones that signify traditionally female jobs and titles.

But language is a flexible and mobile system that adapts to the time and needs of it’s speakers. And now that we live in the 21st century and understand that women can do exactly the same thing as men can, the concept of “forbidding something to protect” has lost its meaning. And the use of femininitives, on the contrary, has become logical and necessary.

We should also add that the Ukrainian language is well-suited to the use of femininities and has specific rules which makes creating such words much simpler. Of course, not all people in our society are ready to use femininitives. Of course, everyone is free to choose how they want to be addressed or described. When in doubt, then, the wisest choice is simply to ask people about their preferences.