TRANSLATING TODAY: A PORTRAIT OF A FEMINIZED PROFESSION. SOME ETHICAL AND WORK-RELATED ISSUES

Abstract

This paper offers data for a debate on the presence of women in
the world of professional translation, especially in literary or
editorial translation. In order to do so, statistics will be given on
the percentages of women at university and as professionals,
according to a variety of study fields and jobs. A diagnosis will be
offered on the situation of women in the job market, emphasizing
issues such as a masculinized work culture, women-related social
expectations, ‘feminine’ qualities, and so on. This will lead us to
conclude that job positions are on the whole sex-segregated, with
women traditionally suffering from both horizontal and vertical
discrimination, which seriously restricts their full participation in
the job market. The ensuing consequences for women will be
assessed. After going through a number of institutional reports on
editorial translation (2010, 2012, 2017) published both by the
Spanish Ministry for Culture and by the ACE Traductores Association,
and which clearly point to translation as a feminized job
sector, some reflection (following Bourdieu 1998, Anker 1998 or
Walsh 2001) is given on the (positive and negative) stereotypes
associated with women, and particularly in the translating
profession.