Der Streit um "Gender" und seine polnische Spezifik

Die grundsätzliche Kritik des damaligen Papstes Benedikt XVI. am Konzept des Gender als im Widerspruch zur katholischen Lehre stehend und der Hirtenbrief des polnischen Episkopats, der die "Genderideologie" im Marxismus und Neomarxismus verwurzelt sah, rief in Polen ein heftiges und geteiltes Echo hervor. Auf der einen Seite wurde die Gender-Kritik aktiv unterstützt, auf der anderen Seite wurde sie als eine Bedrohung der Freiheit der Wissenschaft und Forschung und der Erziehung zur Gleichberechtigung bezeichnet und scharf abgelehnt. Den Hintergrund der Auseinandersetzung bildet die relativ fortgeschrittene formalrechtliche Gleichberechtigung der Frau zur Zeit der Volksrepublik und deren von Kritikern beklagte Zurückdrängung im Zuge der Systemtransformation. Ein wichtiger Akteur in der Debatte um Gender ist der im Jahr 2009 erstmals organisierte "Frauenkongress" (Kongres Kobiet), ein Forum der Frauenbewegung, der sich u.a. bei Papst Franziskus für Unterstützung der Frauenrechte und der Gleichberechtigung der Geschlechter einsetzte

Between Feminism and the Catholic Church: The Women’s Movement in Poland

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Equal Rights, Equal Chances. On The Questions of Equality Between Women and Men

The paper discusses the problem how is the basic principle binding in democratic societies being realized, what is citizens’ equality and lack of discrimination in view of sex. Despite many declarations contained in the law binding during the communist period there was no real equality between women and men in Poland. The rate of women, despite that they are better educated than men, and despite that their participation in the labour market is very high, was in the communist period and is now very low at executive posts. Their incomes were and are ca by 30% to 40% lower than men’s incomes. The participation of women in the authorities is also very low, and that both in the local authorities, in the Sejm and in the government. Despite the declaration of equality irrespectively of their sex the Polish legal system contains a series of regulations which introduce inequality between men and women. As an example here we may quote the regulations which define e.g. jobs forbidden to women or allowing only women to take doctor’s leave to take care about the sick child. These regulations are illegitimately called women’s "privileges". In fact they confine the freedom of choice accorded to individuals as regards their job. Parents are also limited in their choice of the person to take care about their child, imposing respective duties on women exclusively. The inequalities created in the old system are accompanied now by the new ones, connected with the new economic system. Women are burdened with the higher costs of transformation of the economic system, to a greater extent they are concerned with unemployment, their chances on the labour market are limited, and women take less part in the formation of the new economic sphere. This situation calls for new strategies which would change this state of affairs. It must be many-sided actions; one of their important elements should be the introduction of the laws of equal chances of men and women

Citizenship, Representation and Gender

The political transformations of late 1980s and early 1990s marked a ‘new political opening’ for Central and Eastern Europe. In each country of the region, a new institutional order was built in its specific historical and cultural context. However, all countries disregarded the problem of gender balance in bodies of power. As a result, the share of women in descriptive representation shrunk considerably throughout the region. Initially, all countries had a low percentage of women at power but the situation began to diverge over time. This paper presents research findings from a study of women and men parliamentarians in Poland, Latvia and Macedonia, focussing on political representation and, in particular, on barriers which obstruct women’s more active involvement in the public sphere as well as actions, such as quotas, aimed to mainstream gender equality into politics. The problem of women’s participation in the legislature as well as barriers to women’s involvement turned out to bring in an interesting differentiation into gender equality discourses in the three countries under study

Patterns of Preference for Dispute Resolution in Poland

This paper presents information from a nationally representative Polish survey in 2014 on the types of dispute resolution preferred by the respondents. It places the findings in the conceptual background of studies conducted since the mid-1970s in Polish sociology of law on the subject of disputes and the use of the courts. The purpose of the analysis was to identify the more general types of dispute settlement preferred in the popular legal culture in Poland, and the socio-demographic variables that correlate significantly with these preferences. The significance of social position, as measured by a version of the Center-Periphery index, has also been confirmed