Gender and E.U. Accession in Poland
In the period preceding and immediately following Poland’s accession into the European Union (01.05.2004) Polish media were overflowing “gender talk.” On the radio one would hear randomly placed banter about “natural differences between the sexes” (in fact, a new station (FM 94), was established in 2002 with “real men” in mind). Almost any event discussed on the evening news could be commented with a “this is what women are like” or “men cannot help but be men.” Magazines and newspapers provided an abundance of images featuring manly men and womanly women, as well as departures from such norm (most notably drag queens from gay pride parades in Western Europe). What follows is a reading of a selection of gender-focused cover stories published by three mainstream political weeklies – Polityka, Wprost, and the Polish edition of Newsweek between spring 2003 and the summer of 2004. My aim is to suggest a link between the intensity of “gender talk” in the media and Poland’s E.U. accession.
The three weeklies ask a number of more or less worried questions concerning gender roles, sexuality and reproduction in Poland. Here is a representative sample of cover stories: “What does a man want today? To remain themselves, men increasingly take up femininity” (Newsweek, 21.04.02); “She works, he does not. How the shock on the labor market destabilized the traditional Polish family” (Newsweek, 01.06.2003); “How to raise a child on weekends. Working mothers besieged by good advice” (Polityka, 07.02.2004); “Special protection for women. Who needs the government gender equality program? ” (Newsweek, 07.09.2004); “More freedom – but what about sex? New research on the erotic life of Polish women” (Wpro...
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...n, the consolidation of traditional gender ideology is quite typical for societies in transition.
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