Well, that's the thing about Polish tongue (and many other too). Every single word does have a gender and you can't run away from it - in theory, masculine could represent gender-neutral meaning, but it would be very awkward to say (in Polish) "student" in one sentence and "Agnieszka" (Agnes) in the next one.

I don't find any emphasis on the sex of the person in question in the Polish text. It's only about experience and skill of the poor soul. Translations are hard because cultural context.