From Female Tractor Driver to Feminist Activist: The Legacy of State Socialism and the Independent Women’s Movements in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s

• In Event: Women's Emancipation in Politics and State Socialism in Central and East Europe

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between the state socialist policy of women's emancipation and gender equality and the emergence of women's movements and feminist thought in the 1980s and 1990s in Poland. While acknowledging that there were no grassroots women's movements in Poland after 1945, and that it was the emergence of the independent trade union Solidarity (NSZZ Solidarność) in 1980 that provided a framework for self-organization, including feminist activists, I argue that official gender equality policies played an important role in the process of developing feminist ideas in Poland. Therefore, my presentation will focus on the various backgrounds of Polish feminist thought, such as socialist ideology, the influence of second-wave Western feminism, dissident concepts of human rights, and national traditions.

Author

• Katarzyna Maria Stanczak Wislicz, Institute of Literary Research, PAS (Poland)