Center for Socio-Legal Studies on the Situation of Women

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Case 4.

Organised Women's Movements in Poland

Małgorzata Fuszara

Center for Socio-Legal Studies on the Situation of Women,

Institute of Applied Social Sciences,

University of Warsaw

An author attempting to describe women's movements faces all the problems involved in the analysis of social movements. They result first and foremost from fact that, analysed most often in the present-day studies in sociology and political sciences as they are, social movements are nevertheless defined in a vast variety of different ways. These difficulties with definition are caused not only by the researchers' changing approach to social movements which are analysed both as symptoms of "pathological" conditions (Smelser 1962) and as central, most creative and rational elements of social reality (Touraine 1985). Another cause of such difficulties are the inherent features of social movements: diversity and variability. As a result, a variety of definitions are suggested in the literature on social movements. Thus Blumer defines a social movement as a " collective enterprise to establish a new order of social life" (Blumer 1946, p. 3); Wilson stresses the fact that social movements cause changes in the social order by non- institutionalised means ( Wilson 1973); while Smelser states that social movements are "collective attempts to restore, protect or create values or norms in the name of a generalised belief" ( Smelser 1962, p 313). A somewhat more precise definitions has been suggested by other authors, who analyses social movements as "(...) recurrent patterns of collective activities which are partially institutionalised, value oriented and antisystematic in their form and symbolism ( Pakulski 1991, p. XIV). Yet the definitions quoted above actually have many elements in common.

Those elements have also been taken into consideration by Dahlerup who in her work on women's movements in Denmark suggested the following definition of social movements: "Social movement is defined as a conscious, collective activity to promote social change, with some degree of organization and which the commitment and active participation of members or activists as its main resource" (Dahlerup 1986, p.218). Thus in accordance with her definition, women's movements would be only those acting towards change; instead, all the movements for preservation of the status quo, often arising in response to the pro-change movements, would be beyond the scope of analysis.

Additional elements of the definition include, so Dahlerup: the requirement that movement should represent some fundamental interests not included in the routine policies and marginal with respect to the process of political deciding; as well as certain permanence and certain size of the movement. A social movement is a combination of spontaneity and organization. It expresses a protest against the existing values and norms and often attacks the structure of power. Not participating in institutionalised power, it frequently employs direct actions and disruptive tactics.

Dahlerup also stresses the fact that social movements most often avail themselves of movement events. Admittedly, organizations employ such events, too; yet it is chifly the social movements that resort to this measure. It is frequently through the movement events it organizes that a social movements becomes known to broader circles of society.

D. Dahlerup also brings to mind Zald's differentiation between social movements and "social movement organizations" ( Zald 1979 cited after Dahlerup). Being more than just an organization, a social movement usually has many centers and organizations. It aims not only at organizations and activity, but first of all at change: of the way of thinking, political change, change of the everyday life, and - as a consequence - many a time also change of the basic structure of power in society.

Changes in social movements observed in Western Europe and United States throughout the 1980s led to a differentiation between social movements and the new social movements. Features of a new social movement that are mentioned most often include its transfunctional and fluid character, open nature, inclusive, non-doctrinal and non-ideological orientations and absence of formal membership and programmes, socio-cultural character, innovative nature, self-limiting character, non-violent means and discontinuity ( Pakulski 1991). A comparison of the old and new social movements shows the differences between them in at least four aspects. The first such aspect are the actors: in the old movements, there were usually social groups acting as groups of interest. In the new movements, the actors are groups acting on behalf of broader interests. The other aspect of comparison are the issues. In the old movements, these included economic growth, distribution, military and social safety, or social control. In the new movements, we have the environment, peace, human rights, or unalienated form of work. The third aspect are values. They were freedom and security of private consumption as well as material growth in the old movements, as compared to the new movements' values of autonomy identity of individual in opposition to centralized control. Finally, the comparison of modes: the old movements were formally organized large-scale associations. The new movements involve lack of formalization, spontaneity, and small differentiation of positions ( C. Offe 1985).

Just like all the new social movements, the new women's movements emerged in a specific situation asthey were preceded by movements organized by the previous generation of women. Therefore, they could both draw from the latters’ achievements and become engaged in a specific dispute or discussion with them as regards both the fragmentary aims and, chiefly, the ways of achieving those aims. It is worth stressing, though, that the basic aim is something which both the old and new women’s movements have in common: the aim towards change the status of women in society. ( D. Dahlerup 1986, A. Styrkarsottir 1986, J. Gelb 1986).

The conditions of emergence of a new women’s movement that are most frequently mentioned in literature include:

1. pre-existing communication network to the new ideas;
2. susceptibility of this network to the new ideas
3. a situation of strain or crisis that actually triggers off the movement; and
4. international diffusion of ideas ( Dahlerup 1986, pp 220-221).

Analyses of women’s movements in Poland should from many reasons embrace women’s movements, organisations and initiatives in the broadest possible interpretation. This need results first of all from the hitherto small number of analyses of such movements and organizations. The other reasons for broad scope of such analysis is the fact that nearly all of the Polish women’s organizations are new to an extend: even those which revert to traditions from before World War II were for many decades prevented from acting be the communist regime. Moreover, in many cases it is difficult to say which any certainty whether or not they act towards social change: despite their reference to tradition and promotion of broadly conceived status quo ( with respect e.g. to traditionally defined status of women), the aims many of them set themselves are those traditionally adopted by feminist circles of numerous Western societies ( as. e.g. struggle against pornography).

When analysing women’s movement’s in Poland, both their socio-political background and their history have to be taken into consideration. The reason is that the analysis of a modern social movement must necessarily answer many questions, such as: in what societal types does the movement occur? What continuities or discontinuities exist vis-a-vis the past? Which institutions are the issue? What are the general political stakes of the contestations? And what are the developmental possibilities culturally available to collective actors? (J. Cohen 1985). Thus the analysis of a women’s movement has to answer such as: to what needs of the women does the activity or women’s organizations, movements and informal initiatives respond? What steps towards change are suggested? What changes are desired? Besides, I will try to answer the question whether the Polish women’s movement can be called a social movement and whether it bears the traits of a traditional or new women’s movement.

What acquires special importance in the analysis of women’s movements in post-communist countries is the fourth of D. Dahlerup’s factors influencing the shaping of a new women’s movement, that is international diffusion of ideas. Women from post-communist countries – activists of organizations or merely those who take interest in women’s problems – now have contacts with women’s movements and organizations from a great variety of other countries: Scandinavia, Great Britain, USA. As a result, we can see most clearly the differences between those movements as regards e.g. their fragmentary aims or current achievements. The great progress made in Scandinavia in the area of women’s participation in power and the resulting social changes in those countries stand in contrast with the extremely low women’s participation in the USA in the same time, despite the actual strength of the American feminist movement, of the aim towards increase of the participation. Instead, a stress on trailing and fighting sexual harassment is particularly great in the USA and found much less often elsewhere. These are but the most perceptible of the many differences, it is most difficult to analyse similarities and dissimilarities between Polish women’s movement in the making and its mature counterparts in Western Europe and the United States: one can hardly choose one women’s movement from one Western country to serve as a model with which to compare women’s movements in post-communist countries.

The difficulties in comparing women’s movements result also, or perhaps chiefly, from the different situation of women at the moment of emergence of such movements in Eastern Europe as compared to the situation that accompanied the formation of analogous movements in the West. In the post-communist countries, Poland included, women’s movements aiming at a change of women’s status emerge in entirely different times and political conditions; different is also the history of those movements; and first and foremost, the experiences of East-European women differs greatly in many respects from that of Western women both at the moment of emergence of women’s movements and today. A great many aims of Western women’s movements at the moment of formation were for many decades of no immediate interest to the women in Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. This is true of issues such as abortion or women’s employment. A succession of generations of Polish women took high level of education and employment of women for granted. Access to abortion was in fact quite easy; although not defined this way by legal provisions, it bore many traits of “abortion on demand”. Abortion was chiefly a problem resolved individually by those concerned: the women and possibly her partner. As for other phenomena, such as e.g. pornography, they were fought against for many decades by the communist regime and prohibited by communist censors. This means that the regime made them political which still affects society’s attitude towards them today.

At the same time, a communist state something of a welfare state in respects of importance to women, offering paid maternity leaves, leaves to take care for a small child where the women’s job remained secure until after the leave, and other such facilities. Interestingly, though, women in the West and in communist countries had many problems in common. They included among other things inequality of wages ( women’s wages being 30 – 40% lower then men’s), and a low participation of women in power. Such problems, however, could never be analysed in a regime which officially propagated equality and non-discrimination. Also never discussed seriously were other problems whose large scale was known to everyone, such as violence in the family, and nobody ever tried to find solutions to those problems other than penalisation and other ineffective procedures.

Therefore, before answers can be suggested to the question, how is the women’s movement shaping in Poland of the today and in what respects is it similar to the movements operating in the West? and to many other questions formulated above, a brief discussion of the history of that movement in Poland has to be provided and of the major elements of the social situation of women which influence the shaping of its fragmentary as well as farther-reaching aims.

1. Before the communist era: the origins of women’s movement in Poland

What was peculiar to the women’s movement in Poland at its very beginning in the nineteenth century was its connection with the struggle for independence. At the time, that struggle was of prime importance in Poland and no group, including the women’s movement, could avoid expressing an opinion on it. The first organized group whose aim was the improvement of women’s status and education were so-called “Enthusiasts” the best known of whom was a Narcyza Żmichowska. The group operated in Warsaw in the years 1840 – 1850. The Enthusiasts were engaged in the underground struggle for independence and for that reason suffered political oppression. Most of the activists were imprisoned and exiled by Russian authorities, thus putting a stop to the group’s operation.

Despite the division into male and female roles, struggle for independence was a common national experience. In those days, women were already taking part in the struggle, joining underground movements and receiving their share of the persecution and repression suffered by those who struggled against the authorities. The division into countrymen and enemies mattered much more than that into men and women.

And yet the first signs of progress towards equal rights for women could be seen in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was then that the first women’s congresses were held (in Lvov in 1894, in Zakopane in 1899, and in Cracow in 1900 and 1905) to discuss the role and tasks of women. Also in that period, the first self-help women’s professional organizations emerged (as e g. Working Women’s Professional Association formed in 1897) and the first Catholic women’s professional organizations ( e.g. Catholic Female Employees’ Association formed at the Cracow Cigar Factory in 1900). In 1904, Women’s Union was established in Cracow, followed in 1907 by Polish Society for Equal Rights for Women which struggled, among other things, for the women’s right to vote. As opposed to countries such as France or England, the Polish struggle for women’s electoral rights never assumed bloody and violent forms. Awareness of common political aims, shared attitudes towards the partitioning powers, and common bearing of the costs involved in the struggle for independence were probably hardly conducive to a division into women-fighters for their rights bound to end up in prison or get killed in the struggle – and men opposing such postulates. The women’s struggle for a grant, and to some extent for recognition, of electoral rights in the Austrian sector of partitioned Poland proceeded interestingly. Crucial for obstructing all women’s movements in the Habsburg monarchy was the 1867 associations act which stated “no foreigner, woman, or minor shall be admitted to membership of political associations”.

An interesting campaign was launched in 1896 by female inhabitants of the town of Biała in Polish territories who stated that they actually met the requirements of the 1866 municipal government act ( under which a voter had to be a citizen of age, living in the commune for at least one year, and paying a specified amount of direct taxes). The women’s first approached the municipal authorities about having been left out from voters list; when this proved ineffective, they appealed to the Supreme Tribunal of State. The Tribunal was to decide whether the term “ every person” meant both men and women or men only. The Tribunal’s judgement was to the women’s advantage but the electoral regulations were implemented in the most peculiar way: in elections to the Town Council and the National Diet, female voters could only vote through a proxy.

Under the general provisions of the civil code, it was the husband who superseded his wife, acting as her proxy in elections. Also convents had to vote by proxy. There was no possibility whatever to check whether the proxy respected the wish of the woman he superseded ( Walentyna Najdus, pp. 101-102).

In Poland, at the moment of regaining independence in 1918, women acquired the rights of vote and eligibility on the same terms as men. This is not to say, though, that this grant of rights was automatic and required no special endeavours on the part of the women themselves. To begin with, it was no planned to introduce electoral rights of women. Therefore, a congress of this issue was organised in 1917 by activists of the women’s movement. It resulted in the petition submitted to Marshal Piłsudski by a specially appointed delegation of women headed by Zofia Budzyńska- Tylicka, MD, who was to become deputy to the Diet herself in subsequent years ( Pachucka, 1958; after S. Walczewska, 1995).

Women were finally granted the rights to vote in 1918 when Poland regained independence; in the first elections to the Polish Parliament, they not only voted but also ran to and were elected to seats.