Weronika Grzebalska begins a new
Social Europe column by exploring how the liberal left in Poland has abdicated to the populists the resonant theme of women and defence.
Weronika Grzebalska
Today in Poland, the realm of defence is undergoing a silent gender transformation. So far, the illiberal government has harnessed its momentum. To overcome irrelevance, the liberal left urgently needs to catch up.
When swaths of youth took to the streets in 2020 to protest against the Law and Justice (PiS) government over its abortion ban, analysts proclaimed a social revolution was emerging in the country. Led by young women, and with gender equality at its forefront, this generational rebellion showed that paternalist norms and prior political arrangements no longer matched the ways young people actually lived their lives.
The imperative of a gender-sensitive recovery – Juliane Bir and Aline Brüser socialeurope.eu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from socialeurope.eu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Juliane Bir
If anyone believed that gender equality was close to being achieved, the pandemic has brutally laid bare the systemic inequalities built into numerous aspects of women’s lives from pay, employment and work-life balance to safety at work and in the home. Hard-won gains of recent decades are under threat, due in part to a creeping backlash against women’s rights which was already under way in some countries.
Women have suffered disproportionately during the crisis, due to longstanding failures to tackle gender discrimination and create a fairer social and economic environment for both women and men. The paradigm guiding our economies for the past four decades has led to a crisis of insecurity, hitting women hardest and threatening to reimpose the gender stereotypes of the 1950s.