3 research outputs found
Zrozumieć współczesność
Księga poświęcona Profesorowi Hieronimowi Kubiakowi w 75. rocznicę urodzin.
Tom ofiarowany przez przyjaciół i uczniów
Tradition and modernity in models of women’s roles in Poland
The article discusses the changes in models of women’s role including the period of actual
socialism and new socio-systematic reality after 1989. The main aim is to prove that
discrimination of women in the public sphere is generated by cultural factors, among which
the traditional model appears to be the most powerful. The author presents the evolution
of said model as a continuum constructed specifically for this very purpose. The continuum
takes the form of a trichotomy: traditional model – modernized model – contemporary
model. By extracting features most typical for each of the models mentioned she attempts to
show that they coexist and form diverse configurations and their common feature is a slow
departure from tradition limiting women’s activity to private sphere and approach in the
direction of modernity and full participation in public sphere. Professional activisation, civil
activity and participation in politics become the examples of modernity
The meanders of the women movement in the Polish People’s Republic
Women’s activity in the analyzed period in Poland had many weak points, however, in needs
to be stated that they stemmed more form the political reality typical for the authoritarian
system in which the illusion of democratic freedoms was created than from the lack of the
mobilizing potential of women. In the years 1945–1989 there were no objective frameworks
for women to create and effectively realize other social roles than the one dictated by biology,
namely the family role. Even if an easier access to the employment spheres, which – at least
at the ideological level – was in fact combined with the broadly-understood equality of rights,
was given to the women, it was usually done instrumentally, more due to the economic needs
than the needs of a woman-citizen. Other manifestations of women participation in the public
life were treated similarly by, among others, sidelining women spontaneous engagement in
the early opposition activity and the Independent Self-governing Trade Union “Solidarity”
movement.
The organizational opportunities that were offered by the authorities in the form of the
Women League and the Country Housewives’ Association created a substitute of citizen
activity for their members, however, in reality they were becoming merely – as J. Raciborski would put that – an example of creating an “institutionalized mobilization” of numerous
women by means of “controlled participation.” Although the development of women
movement in that time in Poland was slow and meandric, not keeping up with its western
trend, and even partially missing its ideology, the facts presented in the article that concern
more or less unconventional behaviours of Polish women should constitute an indispensible
reference point for undertaking a wider research on the history of the women movement in
Poland