Realism or Nominalism? The Illusion of Agon in Sex Marking

Jabłoński's article, published in Homo Ludens (2023), argues that grammatical gender in Polish is not the same as biological sex, and that the movement to introduce rigid, symmetrical gender-marked forms, known as feminatives, rests on an "agon" or battle-of-the-sexes framing rather than on linguistic evidence. The central thesis is that this push depends on a naive realism that equates grammatical categories with social reality, producing a zero-sum view of gender in which every masculine form must be matched by a feminine counterpart to avoid discrimination.

The analysis tests several working hypotheses, such as the claim that grammatical gender equals sex and that the exclusion of gender-neutral forms constitutes discrimination, against concrete examples from contemporary usage. Its conclusions are that asymmetric forms in Polish are largely the product of systemic neutralization rather than an automatic marker of privilege, and that enforced symmetry frequently yields artificial or contradictory constructions, with terms such as premierka and zastępczyni dyrektorki offered as illustrations. The author further contends that the language's neutral and inclusive patterns do not reveal systemic gender discrimination, and that the hypothesis of systemic sexism in Polish lacks support.

The study's scope is restricted to the Polish language and its lexicon, with attention to media discourse, which the author judges to lack linguistic rigor. It is a linguistic-philosophical critique rather than an empirical study, and it contains no quantitative data; its conclusions rest on argumentation, reasoned analysis, and cited examples. Its evaluative stance is that forcing rigid binary symmetry across the lexicon is an illusory remedy that can generate absurd or exclusionary results.