Gender Politics of "Illiberal Pragmatics" in the Polish Defense Sector

Since 2015, the illiberal Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]) government in Poland has engaged in campaigns against "gender ideology," rolling back several equality mechanisms and provisions, and mainstreaming traditionalist values into state policy. Following from this, scholarship has predominantly addressed PiS gender politics through the concepts of anti-gender backlash and gender backsliding. Against this background, Polish defense policy constitutes a puzzling realm that significantly escapes these frameworks, revealing instead a mix of backsliding, institutional and discursive continuity, and positive gender change. While the displacement of the Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment office has erased similar bodies in the defense sector, the government has swiftly created a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, strengthened the Armed Forces Women's Council, and continued prior policy and discourse on women's service. Meanwhile, the increased defense preparations following the war in eastern Ukraine have doubled women's percentage in the armed forces, partially regendering the very idea and practice of defense. To explore this ambiguity, the article draws from feminist institutionalism and multi-sited sociological methods. It proposes to move beyond backlash towards the analytical concept of illiberal pragmatics - a complex, gendered logic of governance which seeks to balance illiberals' dedication to national sovereignty with pragmatic political, security, demographic, and economic considerations. Under illiberal pragmatics, women's interests are pursued within a more conservative framework, with gender norms simultaneously upheld and destabilized across different realms. Nevertheless, the key feature of illiberal gender politics lies not in backsliding, but in a pragmatic balancing act between national integrity and structural pressures for change

What does the future look like - home hemodialysis

Home hemodialysis (HHD) is a discovery from 1961 that is now experiencing a revival. It is a convenient and modern method of renal replacement therapy that allows the patient to undergo hemodialysis sessions at home. Due to the growing interest in home hemodialysis, we decided to present the potential of this renal replacement method, show both its benefits and complications resulting from its use. Undoubtedly, HHD has many benefits resulting mainly from the possibility of regulating the duration of the sessions and increasing their frequency. However, this method is also burdened with numerous complications. There are training courses in the use of HHD for patients who have just been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease as well as for patients undergoing dialysis using other methods. Appropriate patient selection is an important factor for the success of home therapy. There is a fierce battle in the home hemodialysis machine market. Manufacturers are outdoing each other in innovative technologies to ensure ease of use, trouble-free operation and minimize complications. The costs of home hemodialysis include more components than the dialysis treatment itself. Home hemodialysis gives patients comfort and independence above all. This is part of nephrology that undoubtedly requires a lot of work and development, but is certainly an invention of the 21st century

From False Universalism to Fetishisation of Difference. The History of the Warsaw Uprising and the Revisionist ‘Herstorical Turn’

From False Universalism to Fetishisation of Difference. The History of the Warsaw Uprising and the Revisionist ‘Herstorical Turn’ This text is an attempt to connect the reflection on historiography and collective memory with the perspective of gender studies regarding historical writings on the Warsaw Uprising. The article tracks the various stages or ‘ideal types’ of professional and popular historiography and memory of the Warsaw Uprising seen from the perspective of the visibility and position of women: false universalism of a large part of professional historiography of the uprising and the resulting invisibility of women and their experience in historical works; compensatory works that fill the ‘white spots’ of classical historiography, treating the history of women as a mere addition to the history of World War II; as well as the recent ‘herstorical turn’, characterised by a growing interest in women and the distinctiveness of their experiences. The article concludes with a reflection on the theoretical and methodological pitfalls of the ‘herstorical turn’ and attempts to put the phenomenon in broader socio-political context of current cultural wars in Poland