1

Book chapter published in: Beyond NGO‐ization? The Development of Social Movements in

Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Kerstin Jacobsson and Steven Saxonberg, 2013,

Ashgate.

At the intersection of gender and class: social mobilization around mothers’ rights in

Poland

Renata E. Hryciuk

Elżbieta Korolczuk

Most contemporary research on civic participation in the Central and East

European (CEE) region focuses on the weak potential for collective action (Howard 2003,

Mendelson and Glenn 2002, McMahon 2001). Many studies show that in post-state socialist

countries, including Poland, most citizens do not participate in voluntary organizations and

grassroots initiatives, are not interested in organizational membership in associations and are

less likely to take part in elections than most of their Western counterparts (Gumkowska et al.

2006). Moreover, people display low levels of trust toward non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) and a lack of knowledge concerning their goals, strategies and the results of their

actions (Kościański and Misztal 2008).

The question is whether the existing body of research fully captures the nature

and dynamic of civic activism in the CEE region. The present study contributes to the body of

research demonstrating that there are dimensions of activism relevant to contentious politics

that have not been tapped in the tradition of research that has developed since 1989 (see also

2

Flam 2001, Tarrow and Petrova 2007).1 We suggest that some aspects of social activism

escape researchers’ attention, as they tend to focus on NGOs rather than informal networks

and grassroots mobilizations (e.g. McMahon 2001). An example of such a tendency is the

research on women’s movements in Poland and the Czech Republic, which includes mostly

analyses of formal organizations (Flam 2001, Fuszara et al. 2008, Hašková 2005, Regulska

and Grabowska 2007). Moreover, in the case of Poland, most researchers choose to study

associations and groups identified as feminist or women’s rights oriented (e.g. Fuszara et al.

2008), while other groups and mobilizations, such as numerous Catholic associations and

initiatives, as well as the local activism of economically disadvantaged women, have been

commonly excluded or only recently included (e.g. Charkiewicz 2009, Maciejewska 2010).2

Another underrepresented type of activism is the mothers’ movement.3 Despite the growing

social activism around mothers’ rights in the region, most analyses of mothers’ social

activism concentrate on Latin America, while the initiatives that emerged in the CEE region

have seldom been studied (however, see Charkiewicz 2009, Fabian in this collection, Glass

and Fodor 2007, Hrycak 2002, Hryciuk and Korolczuk 2010, Hryciuk 2012, Jagudina 2009).

Therefore, in the present analysis we have chosen to scrutinize mothers’

movements and mobilizations, which we define as initiatives and actions started by women 1 Our research for this article was supported by grants from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies

(grant 1751/42/2008) and the Swedish Research Council (grant 421-2010-1706).

2 Mobilizations of working women, often economically underprivileged, under socialism were studied by social

historians (see Fidelis 2010, Mazurek 2010) and women’s engagement in Solidarity movement were analyzed by

Kondratowicz (2001) and Penn (2005).

3 In the literature on mothers’ activism the term mothers’ movement refers to women asserting their claims

through movements that mobilize on the basis of motherhood. For further discussion see Goddard 2000,

Jacquette 1994, Molyneux 1985, Werbner 1999.

3

who act in their capacity as mothers to make political statements and claims (Werbner 1999).

These include:

A grassroots mobilization, which turned into the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation

(Rodzić po ludzku) advocating a new approach to pregnancy, birth and perinatal care

(1994 to the present),

A national movement of single mothers for the reestablishment of the Alimony Fund

(the AF movement), most active between 2002 and 2007,

A local mobilization of poor mothers around tenants’ rights in the post-industrial city

of Wałbrzych in 2008.

We conducted semi-structured individual interviews with the social actors involved

(representatives of the Alimony Fund Movement, and the Childbirth with Dignity

Foundation), and carried out an analysis of the media coverage of all three initiatives as well

as the content of the organizations’ websites.4 In the case of the Wałbrzych mobilization we

also used the data gathered by researchers from Think Tank Feministyczny (Charkiewicz

2008, Gawlicz and Starnawski 2009, Maciejewska 2010).

In this chapter we analyze factors determining the outcomes of civic

participation of mothers in Poland. Thus, we have chosen to consider the cases of motherist

mobilizations, whose effects vary significantly: while the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation

has been very successful both in terms of changing attitudes and practices concerning

perinatal care, as well as introducing new legal regulations, the AF movement succeeded only

partially and the protest of women in the Wałbrzych area failed. The first two mobilizations—

4 http://www.rodzicpoludzku.pl/ and http://samodzielne-matki.free.ngo.pl/

4

the Childbirth with Dignity and the AF movement—have been chosen because they can be

considered the most important initiatives focused on mothers’ rights in contemporary Poland,

both in terms of their scope and effects. Both started on a local level, but quickly grew,

engaging thousands of people in different types of actions over time (e.g. signing petitions,

sharing information or taking part in demonstrations). Moreover, in both cases these actions

resulted in legal changes, although many single mothers were not satisfied with the new

regulations and some continued their fight.

The initiative of poor women in Wałbrzych, on the other hand, was a short-term

protest and brought no tangible results. Contrary to the single mothers who began

independently mobilizing in the small, impoverished towns in the South of Poland,

Wałbrzych mothers did not manage to mobilize people in similar situations in other locations,

get wide media coverage or gain social support. We included this initiative though, as it helps

us to answer the main question we focus on in the present chapter: how to account for

significant differences in the outcomes of motherist movements and grassroots initiatives in

Poland. Why are some initiatives successful in terms of influencing both legal regulations and

the mainstream discourses and practices of mothering in Poland, while others are not? Why

were the activities of the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation met with wide social resonance,

while the initial actions of single mothers and the protest of women in Wałbrzych were met

with such a strong opposition on the part of Polish society and the mainstream media

(Charkiewicz 2009)?

Our study shows that an important factor in determining the outcomes of

women’s social movements in the specific cultural context of Poland is the framing of

mother’s rights in relation to prevailing gendered cultural legacies and the neoliberal character

of Polish transition (Glass and Fodor 2007: 326, Williams 2008). The activists who frame

5

mothers’ rights as civil rights are more likely to gain wide social resonance and support than

those who fight for social and economic rights. Mobilizations of poor mothers in post-state

socialist Poland failed because they undermine both the dominant discourse of successful

transformation, and the new ideals and practices of mothering, based on neoliberal values

such as individualism and consumptionism.

Most debates concerning citizenship and rights use Marshall’s (1950) division

between civil, political and social rights as a starting point. In our paper, however, we follow

the feminist critiques of Marshall’s concept (Hobson and Lister 2001, Lister 2003). Thus, we

define civil rights in terms of struggles for recognition of mothers as a group who are entitled

to equal access to the public sphere and to legal protection from the state. We characterize

social and economic rights as rights related to access to social provisions and services, as well

as fair distribution of economic resources.

Towards a more integrative approach to social movements

Traditionally, in explaining the results of social movements, researchers have

been polarized between different paradigms such as the resource mobilization and “political

process” models (McAdam et al. 1996, McAdam 1982). In recent years the theoretical

development has moved towards a more integrative perspective that advocates analyzing a set

of factors including available resources, strategies used and broadly defined political

opportunity structures, as well as cognitive processes, emotions and transactional mechanisms

(McAdam et al. 1996, Petrova and Tarrow 2007, Williams 2008). We adopt such an

integrative approach considering the types of framing the protesters use, and their access to

resources (e.g. cultural capital and personal contacts with media representatives) and political

openings (e.g. elections). We focus especially on the resonance that specific types of framing

gain in the Polish context, given the long-term effects of the post-1989 transformation and the

6

shape of institutional and cultural contexts, especially the workings of gendered cultural

legacies.

The notion of cultural context and culture in general has meant many different

things to many scholars. Rhys H. Williams points out that there is no right answer to the

question of what culture is, but certain approaches work better than others to shed light on the

dynamics of social movements (2008: 98). He proposes to think of the cultural context as

“cultural environment” defined in terms of “boundedness” and “resonance”. The former

relates to what is “in the culture”—what is culturally relevant and what falls outside the

boundaries of the legitimate, while the latter refers to what is more important and more

effective within a given context and period of time. Consequently, it is “the intersection of

boundedness and resonance [that] in effect creates the conditions we can think of as a cultural

environment. There is variation in—but some limits on—the opportunities that culture offers

to collective actors.” (Williams 2008: 101).

Social actors have to consider the boundedness and intelligibility of their claims,

as only the message that is understandable and perceived as valid can be accepted within the

public sphere. The protesters have to frame their claims and mediate their public image

according to what is considered comprehensible and legitimate to “activate adherents,

transform bystanders into supporters, exact concessions from targets, and demobilize

antagonists” (Snow 2008: 385). Furthermore, as the cultural environment changes, the leaders

and participants have to transform the collective frames on an individual level, and/or on a

collective one. David A. Snow (2008) points out that such transformations can be domain

specific, e.g. when specific groups or activities are constituted as social problems and the

target for social movement activity, or they can have a more generalized character, as in the

case of the women’s movement or the civil rights movement, which promulgated novel views

7

on women and people of color respectively, in order to gain social resonance for their claims.

Consequently, cultural environment can be interpreted as a set of ideas, values and practices

that are, to some extent, fluid and open to change, but can also be a source of constraint on the

ways movements frame their goals and beliefs.

Notably, rules and ideas concerning gender constitute an important part of the

cultural environment. The gender order, defined somewhat simplistically as the way in which

society is organized around the responsibilities, activities and roles of women and men, not

only sets the limits on what is acceptable for individual men and women, but also comprises

the normative foundation for the development of policy making (Glass and Fodor 2007).

Thus, it needs to be considered as an important factor that not only affects the shape of

institutional context, but also determines the level of social responsiveness to ideas and claims

propagated by social movements, as “elements of culturally specific ideas about gender shape

and are reflected in all social movements, including those movements that are not explicitly

about reinforcing or challenging gender arrangements” (Einwohner et al. 2000: 694).

Mobilizations of mothers in post-1989 Poland: political and cultural contingencies

Before we move to the analysis of the Polish cases, it should be noted that

mothers’ movements first emerged in nineteenth century England and the United States, but

developed in various geographical and cultural contexts, especially in Latin America during

the 1970s and 1980s, usually triggered by worsening life conditions and revisions of social

policies that accompany political, economic and cultural changes (Goddard 2000, Haney

2002, Hrycak 2002, Molyneux 1985). They provide an interesting case for the analysis of

gendered dimensions of social movements, as the protesters often subscribe to essentialist

notions of gender roles and responsibilities, valorizing maternal qualities and building

collective identity around motherhood, while simultaneously challenging other aspects of

8

gender order, such as the exclusion of women from the public sphere. The participants often

strategically,5 use essentialist notions of motherhood as the vision of mother as the bearer of

cultural differences and reproducer of the nation sometimes helps to legitimize the protests

and strengthens their position vis-à-vis the state (Jaquette 1994, Werbner 1999). Employing

“strategic essentialism” has proven to be effective in cases of movements that focus on such

areas as access to social provisions or the economic stability of families with children, which

Maxine Molyneux (1985) terms as women’s “practical interests.” That has been the case of

motherist movements in some Latin American countries since the early 1970s, while not

necessarily in contemporary Poland. Our analysis shows that in the Polish context the

resonance of the claims concerning mothers’ rights is sometimes limited and that even if the

protesters’ claims fit in the boundaries of what is generally legitimate, the cultural

effectiveness of specific types of framing varies (Williams 2008).

It needs to be stressed that in the case of Poland the democratization process and

transition from a command economy to a neoliberal regime brought about significant changes

within the cultural environment in relation to gender order in general and the practices of

parenting in particular. It stimulated the revival of nationalism and increased the political

power of the Catholic Church, which in turn led to a local form of backlash against women’s

rights (Graff 2008). Along with massive redundancies in state enterprises and the dismantling

5 “Strategic essentialism” is a term originally introduced by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1993). It is a strategy

employed by the members of marginalized groups, who consciously “essentialize” themselves and put forward a

homogeneous group identity in order to legitimize their claims and achieve political goals.

9

of the system of childcare, women’s reproductive rights were severely limited 6 (Funk and

Mueller 1993, Titkow 1999). On the discursive level the post-1989 transformation was

imagined as a return to “natural” gender order. Therefore, a “backlash against women's rights

was legitimized within a narrative of return to normalcy and national sovereignty. Traditional

gender roles became a guarantee of stability in an otherwise unstable world” (Graff 2008:

202).

Local gender ideologies played a major role in policy formulations, symbolized

by the figure of the Polish Mother (Graff 2008, Janion 2011), which epitomizes the

hegemonic discourse of motherhood highlighting women’s traditional roles as mothers and

wives at the expense of their participation in the labor market and political life. The

idealization of women’s sacrifice, promoted by the state and the Catholic Church, along

/combined with the neoliberal model of “intensive mothering” (Hays 1996), worked

discursively to reinforce the ideal of women as mothers first and foremost, imposing

extremely high standards on the quality of mothering.

The process of reconstructing “natural” gender relations during the post-state

socialist period also influenced the emergent family, maternity and childcare policies. Those

tendencies, termed as “retraditionalisation” or “refamiliarisation” of gender regimes (Gerber

2011, Glass and Fodor 2007, Saxonberg and Szelewa 2007), were reflected in regulations that

strengthened the vision of women as belonging to the domestic sphere and, more broadly, the

model of the nuclear family with a man as the breadwinner, e.g. extending of paid maternity

6 In 1993 restrictive laws concerning reproductive rights were introduced that make abortion illegal with three

exceptions: severely damaged fetus, pregnancy caused by rape or incest, danger to life or health of the pregnant

woman.

10

leave from 16 to 26 weeks, introduced in 1999. What needs to be stressed, however, is that

such legal solutions, which the power holders presented as beneficial for Polish women, in

reality resulted in “private maternalism … in which the market and the family have become

the primary institutions of welfare provision” (Glass and Fodor 2007). Not all Polish women,

though, were eager to re-embrace the ideal of the Polish Mother in the symbolic sphere and to

accept the politics of “private maternalism” in everyday life. Moreover, these policies exclude

other family configurations, e.g. single parent families.

Mothers’ rights as civil rights: the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation

The most successful case of mobilization around mothers’ rights started in 1994

when a nationwide media campaign entitled “Childbirth with Dignity” was launched. The

main issues raised by its initiators included changing the quality of perinatal care and

establishing progressive standards in this area to be implemented in Poland’s public hospitals.

The first collective action undertaken by a group of activists was to organize a national

conference on perinatal care. It gathered activists, some medical personnel and experts,

including Sheila Kitzinger, the renown author of many books on pregnancy and childbirth.

According to the foundation’s president, Anna Otffinowska,7 it was Kitzinger

who first came up with the idea of evaluating birth clinics in a fashion similar to Michelin

guide books. The suggestion was followed and the readers of the most popular parenting

magazine, Twoje Dziecko, were encouraged to send letters describing their experiences in

Polish birth clinics, but the campaign aimed at encouraging women from all over Poland to

send in letters and questionnaires giving accounts of their childbirth experiences took off on a

mass scale only after the help of the popular daily Gazeta Wyborcza was obtained. Based on

7 Based on an interview conducted in autumn 2011.

11

those evaluations the organizers produced a guidebook to maternal wards in Poland, giving

each hospital “stars” reflecting not only the quality of professional assistance but also the

staff’s attitude towards patients and their families. The action got nationwide attention among

women, medical personnel and the media. Thus, in 1996 the Childbirth with Dignity

Foundation was established and a one-time campaign turned into a long-term project.

The scope of foundation activities widened rather quickly. Apart from the

popular annually published guidebook to hospitals, a significant body of knowledge on birth

care in the form of manuals and self-help books was produced. Public appearances of and

interviews with the foundation representatives, most of whom were mothers themselves, and

experts helped to disseminate the message. Moreover, already in late 90s the activists decided

that evaluating the hospitals and disseminating knowledge was insufficient and the change in

laws was indispensable. Therefore, the leaders decided to start political lobbying, and they

systematically gathered data that became an important tool, as the report Perinatal Care in

Poland in the Light of the Action “Birth in a Dignified Way”, published in June 2007,

demonstrates. It identified the main areas that needed improving, included violations of

patients rights to dignity, intimacy and the right to choose the way of giving birth (e.g. the

right to choose the position when giving birth in a hospital, as well as the right to give birth at

home), but the authors also pointed to unlawful practices, e.g. charging pregnant women for

delivery anesthesia or having a family member present during delivery. Their lobbying efforts

became fruitful only several years later, when Jacek Kochanowski was appointed the

Ombudsman for Citizen Rights. He became one of their most powerful and efficient allies,

facilitating access to the Ministry of Health. In several letters sent to the consecutive Ministers

of Health between 2007 and 2009 the Ombudsman stressed that the conditions in hospitals at

that time violated the basic civil rights of Polish women and urged the ministry to investigate

12

the problem and take adequate measures. The first public letters were sent to the Minister of

Health Zbigniew Religa, but after the fall of the rightist government in 2007, a new

government was formed and Ewa Kopacz took over the Ministry. Due to the efforts of the

foundation and pressure exercised by the Ombudsman, a team of experts working on the

perinatal care regulations was eventually formed in October 2007. It consisted of medical

experts (mostly male professors of obstetrics and a few midwives) and two representatives of

the foundation. Working on solutions that would be acceptable to all doctors, politicians and

activists was not an easy task. It should be stressed that while protection of the pregnant

woman and the newborn were relatively unproblematic, the economic aspects were the

subject of heated debates. The neoliberal reforms of the health care system have been based

on the extended privatization of medical care (Kubisa 2009). Thus, the idea that basic services

covered by the state insurance system should be extended to include, e.g. giving birth under

an anesthetic or in the company of a family member, was met with strong opposition from the

Ministry of Health.

The team worked for several years and new birth care standards were finally

approved by the Ministry of Health in 2011. They include the right to choose the place of

delivery (home or hospital), the right to be informed about anesthesia and other medical

procedures and the right to be with a newborn at least 2 hours after the birth. Moreover, it is

stressed that women should be treated with respect, and take part in all decision making

concerning birth.8 The president of the foundation, Anna Otffinowska, believes that it has

been one of their biggest achievements and a big step towards improvement of birth care in

Poland. She claims:

8 http://www.rodzicpoludzku.pl/Standard-opieki-okoloporodowej/Do-czego-mam-prawo-nowy-standard-opieki-

okoloporodowej.html

13

This is the sign that after 15 years our efforts have been crowned with success. I

remain skeptical, though, because in Poland it may remain just a piece of paper.

Especially, since there are no controlling mechanisms. (…) But it is a success,

because we finally have something to start with.9

Establishing progressive standards of perinatal care is undoubtedly the most spectacular

success of the foundation, but the impact of its activities has been much broader. Our analysis

of media coverage of the campaigns, and the interviews we conducted, prove that the actions

undertaken by the foundation have significantly altered Polish mothers’ consciousness. Other

studies confirm such an interpretation as, according to Justyna Kowalska-Leder, thanks to the

foundation Polish women “became aware of their rights being violated on maternity wards.

Secondly, they understand that it should not be a norm” (2008: 251). Experiencing pain and

incapacitation ceased to be an accepted standard, or a necessity. The actions undertaken by

the foundation brought the rights of pregnant women into the spotlight and managed to

challenge the dominant discourse on child birth, as well as influence the practices and

attitudes of medical personnel in many Polish hospitals. Consequently, it increased

consciousness and strengthened the agency of Polish women, who no longer accepted being

treated as passive objects of medical procedures and started to exercise their rights. Clearly,

the fight for “humane birth” is not over yet, but an important step towards the change has

been made.

We claim that what accounted for the success of the Childbirth with Dignity

Foundation was a set of interrelated factors. One important element was the resources the

initiators had at their disposal, especially personal networks and contacts with experts and

9 Based on an interview conducted in December 2011.

14

media representatives resulting from the high social position of the activists. At the beginning,

the organizers managed to gain support from Twoje Dziecko and Gazeta Wyborcza, mainly

through personal contacts with some of the journalists who belonged to the same social strata

of the emerging Polish middle class. The engagement of Gazeta Wyborcza, and the fact that it

co-organized the action during the first couple of years, was essential to the campaign’s

success.10 As a result, when the foundation began operating independently it was already an

established and well-known brand.

Another important factor was that the initiative was launched at a specific

historical moment of abrupt political and social change, characterized by a high level of

expectations and a will to engage in collective actions. In the early 90s many people in Poland

believed that specific areas of social life should be modernized, and they hoped to benefit

from the change. They expected that the quality of their lives would become significantly

better, as they would be able to make individual choices concerning not only politics or

consumption, but also in the sphere of sexuality and reproduction. Otffinowska stresses:

I have been talking about our initiative many times, in Poland and abroad, and

with the representatives of foreign organizations dealing with comparable

issues. They tried to organize something similar but were never as successful as

our foundation. Energetic and determined as they were, they operated under

different historical conditions. Thus, the social resonance and support were

weaker.

10 Gazeta Wyborcza's support was important not only because of its broad readership. It was at that time

perceived by many as the most important intellectual milieu and one of the symbols of modernization of the

country.

15

Birth care was one of the areas that needed improvement, as low quality of care

in birth clinics, lack of childbirth education classes and a demeaning attitude of medical

personnel, had been a collective experience for many generations of Polish women despite

their social positionality. Contrary to other issues concerning women's reproductive health

and rights, such as access to abortion11 or to affordable contraception, claims centered on

perinatal care were generally considered legitimate by the power holders on both sides of the

political scene. Mainly due to the pressure of the Polish Catholic Church the issue of abortion

became particularly highly politicized and controversial. Already in the early 1990s it turned

out to be the key social problem that had to be effectively resolved (Zielińska 2000).

According to Eleonora Zielińska: “several moral, demographic and practical concerns

underlined this belief (e.g. the need to protect conceived life, the need for increased

population growth, and the need to resolve transition-related labor force problems by

redomesticating women—that is by sending them ‘back to the home and children’)” (2000:

24).

It could be assumed that the quality of the perinatal and, more generally, the

gynecological care system, is by definition less controversial and more prone to be

manipulated politically than abortion. Katalin Fabian's study of the Hungarian context

demonstrates that it is not necessarily so. While in the Polish context the new standards of

perinatal care, which include the possibility of giving birth at home, were adopted without any

11 Access to abortion was already severely limited in 1993 in spite of massive social resistance. Over a million

signatures were gathered demanding the referendum on the right to abortion to be held. This initiative was

ignored and despite continuous efforts of the feminist and left-oriented groups and organizations, abortion in

Poland is permitted only if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, if the fetus is severely damaged or if the

pregnancy endangers women's health and/or life (Zielińska 2000).

16

opposition, in Hungary the issue of home birth turned out to be highly controversial. Fabian's

analysis makes it obvious that issues related to childbirth can become a battlefield for

different political forces as they bring “to the surface many important and previously taboo

cultural and political themes.” Among them “gender relations in health care, especially in

obstetrics-gynecology, and the right of individuals to address what appear as scientifically

based health care policies” (Chapter X, this volume). Thus, we should look for a more

culturally grounded explanation of why, in the Polish context, the fight for improvement of

the quality of perinatal care remained relatively uncontroversial and the efforts of the

foundation were successful, while other reproductive rights were restricted (the right to

abortion) or marginalized (access to affordable contraception and sexual education).

We believe that framing of the claims was crucial for the success of the

foundation (Snow 2008). First of all, the activists presented the improvement of the quality of

perinatal care in terms of giving women their dignity back, as part of the process of

“normalization”. Moreover, pregnant women’s rights were framed as civil rights, and

improving the quality of parental practices as part of the process of “civilizing” all spheres of

everyday life. That resonated well with the dominant vision of transformation as progress in

all aspects of social life, which was propagated by the mainstream media (Dunn 2004,

Kowalska-Leder 2008).

We wish to underline that the proposal for establishing regulations concerning

standards of perinatal care not only gained the support of liberal circles, but also the backing

of some of the right-wing parties’ representatives, who were relatively more critical of the

outcomes of the post-1989 transition and were against gender equality. The Ombudsman

Janusz Kochanowski, who supported the foundation’s efforts, was appointed by the extreme

right government, whose representatives also aimed at introducing a total ban on abortion.

17

Our analysis of the sources demonstrates that framing pregnant women’s rights as civil rights

was perceived as relevant and legitimate by the politicians representing a more conservative

worldview, because it fit the nationalist discourse on motherhood. In an official letter to the

Ministry of Health, Kochanowski justifies the need for improving the quality of perinatal care

as follows:

In Poland motherhood is under special legal protection. (...) Due to the intense

processes of depopulation, providing full protection of mother and child should

be prioritized, as it is in the best interest of the Nation and the state.12

In other words, the state should secure the civil rights of pregnant women and mothers in

order to encourage them to reproduce the nation (Yuval-Davis 1997). In this respect,

supporting the issue of mothers’ rights to dignified birth went in line with the

“retraditionalization” of the local construction of a gender regime (Gerber 2011) and

implementation of the politics of “refamiliarization” privileging mothers over working

women (Saxonberg and Szelewa 2007), that already became evident in the 90s.

Our analysis suggests that the framing of women’s rights as civil rights was of

crucial importance as it allowed for the accommodation of the foundation’s claims by both the

liberal and right-wing oriented parts of the society. Consequently, the agenda of Childbirth

with Dignity turned out to be both intelligible and legitimate to the general public and power

holders (Williams 2008: 102). That strategy has been used by, and has proven to be efficient

in, the case of other Polish organizations raising the issue of mothers’ civil rights (e.g. MaMa

12 The quote is from the official Letter to the Ministry of Health from 18th of December 2008, pages 384-388,

available at http://www.rpo.gov.pl/pliki/12456696400.pdf. The word Nation was written with the capital N in the

original.

18

Foundation),13 as well as groups and mobilizations that take up problems such as women's

participation in politics and the public sphere (e.g. Kongres Kobiet).14 Nevertheless, as our

further analysis demonstrates, not all mothers’ groups use this type of framing, and the social

resonance to women’s claims may be limited, when they are made by economically

underprivileged groups.

Mobilizations around economic and social rights: The Alimony Fund movement and

protest in Wałbrzych area

In the previous section we examined a case of women mobilizing around

mothers’ civil rights. We will now examine two cases of mobilizations around economic

rights/interests: the Alimony Fund (AF) movement and the protest of poor women in

Wałbrzych. The first one emerged in 2002 when the government made public its plans for the

liquidation of the AF. The fund provided financial help for a single parent in case the other

parent did not or could not pay child support. The announced changes were to affect the lives

of nearly a half million people, mostly single mothers and their children, who were already

heavily burdened with the costs of transformation (Desperak 2008, Korolczuk 2012).

13

Warsaw based MaMa Foundation is another example of an NGO concentrating mainly on the civil rights of

mothers, established in 2006 (www.fundacjamama.pl). Analogous to the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation it

focuses on the quality of the mothers’ life in modern urban environments (access to public space, the right to

breastfeed in public or equal treatment at work). It is also successful in terms of gaining wide social support and

grows in terms of resources and the number of people involved.

14 The Congress of Women (Kongres Kobiet) took off as a two-day conference organized in 2009 in Warsaw by

a group of elite women (mostly entrepreneurs and academics) to celebrate women’s achievements since 1989.

Consecutive conferences on national and local levels were held in 2010 and 2011, and Congress became an

influential lobbyist (www.kongreskobiet.pl).

19

The protest actions against liquidation of the Alimony Fund spread all over the

country, and soon over 60 small associations and informal groups emerged demanding its

reestablishment. The first spontaneous reactions were mostly demonstrations and protests of

hundreds of desperate women, which took place in many Polish cities, especially in the South.

The protesters often used highly emotional anti-government slogans and shocking visual

representations of poverty. A feminist activist, who was one of the supporters of the

contentious actions in Cracow, recalls the first public protest in the city center:

Women who came with us went a bit wild. They brought a lot of gadgets; small

children’s skeletons hanging from gallows, prams with “dead children”... it looked like

a Latin American fiesta.15

During their protests they compared the Minister of Economy Jerzy Hausner to Hitler, and

claimed that President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and his wife enjoyed a comfortable life while

the children of single mothers starved. The slogans included: “We settled accounts with Hitler

and we will do the same with Hausner” and “The left party proposition for single mothers:

God gave you children, God will support them” (Elas 2008). Women were not only

expressing their fear and anger, but they also articulated a sharp critique of the dominant

narrative of the post-1989 transformation as an ultimate success. They highlighted the social

costs of the transition to free-market democracy and attempted to undermine the legitimacy of

the power holders.

Such strategy was not shared by all groups engaged in the protests. Renata

Iwaniec, one of the initiators from the South of Poland, stated in a press interview that she

15 An interview with a feminist activist in Kraków conducted in October 2011.

20

was shocked when she approached an event organized by a local group at the early stage of

the mobilization:

When I went to Krakow and saw their banners I froze. There were children in striped

clothing similar to the ones the people wore in the concentration camps, there were

drawings of skeletons and slogans such as “[the state sends] the children to the gas

chambers!”, “Minister Hausner I’m starving!” We had to tame them. Women from

Lublin are the most radical but also wild (quoted by Ostałowska 2004: 8).

The women organizing the protest in Kraków were conscious of the effect their messages had

on the self-proclaimed leaders from other cities. Moreover, they were aware of the differences

in social status between the leaders and the participants of more radical groups:

I recall that some women who came from Tarnów, they were school teachers,

“aspiring middle class”, and got shocked [seeing our protest], because there were a lot

of really poor people here. It was a class conflict. I think the divisions in the

movement that occurred later originated from the clash between the two groups.16

Although the mass protests gained media attention, they turned out to be

politically ineffective, as on the 1st of May 2004 the Alimony Fund was liquidated leaving the

women with no financial support. Therefore, the protesters were forced to change their

strategy and work out new ways of framing their claims in order to gain the cooperation of the

power holders. Thus, Iwaniec and other lower middle class women who undertook leadership

started to discipline some of the most subversive currents in the movement and to discourage

local groups from organizing anti-government demonstrations. They also changed the

language and started to avoid highly emotional messages and images. More subversive

16 Interview with a feminist activist, October 2011, Kraków.

21

strategies were tamed and a “middle-of-the-road” strategy employed, as stressing women's

rights as rightful citizens replaced highly emotional critiques of the economic and social

results of transformation. The protesters implemented “pervasive transformations in the

projected image” (Snow 2008: 395) of single mothers fighting for the reestablishment of the

Alimony Fund—from suffering, enraged women to righteous citizens. They moved from

highlighting social and economic rights to civil ones, at the same time downplaying the

critique of systemic transformation (Hryciuk 2012).

Such deradicalization of the movements’ public image enabled the leaders to build

alliances with the representatives of political parties and to gain support for popular initiatives

from the Parliament.17 The Alimony Fund was finally restored in 2007, but it was hardly

considered satisfying by the single mothers. Instead of accepting the popular initiative the

government advanced its own project, significantly less beneficial for single mothers (and

fathers), e.g. the payment is mean tested, and the established income limit is very low, which

makes many single parents not eligible. Many single mothers have been aggravated with such

a solution, but they were not able to maintain the mobilization due to a lack of resources and

the growing frustration of participants. Moreover, some of the leaders turned to other types of

social engagement such as self-help groups, e.g. the Warsaw based “We Can Make It” (Damy

Radę), which provides free food and legal advice to poor women (Elas 2008), and some have

been co-opted by political parties (Hryciuk 2012). The populist party Samooobrona was the

most active in co-opting of the local activists before elections in 2005. To be able to present

itself as a party that listens to ordinary people, “Samoobrona tried to attract some of the

17 According to the Polish Constitution a law proposal can be submitted to the Parliament if the draft is signed by

at least 100,000 Polish citizens (www.democracy-international.org). The Parliament then has three months to

start working on the proposal.

22

women, they were giving them watches, mobile phones, covered the costs of trips. They were

tempting the activists”.18 Thus, by the end of 2011 the once national lively and heterogeneous

movement shrank to less than a dozen associations operating under an umbrella organization

“Dignity and Family” (Godność i Rodzina). Why did they not fully succeed? The analysis of

another grassroots mobilization of impoverished mothers that emerged in 2008 in Wałbrzych

may help to answer this question, as it suggests that social resonance to the movements’

claims depends not only on the types of framing they use, but also on the social status of the

protesters.

Formerly an industrial and prosperous place, Wałbrzych, in the Silesia region, is now

called a “fallen city” since it was severely struck by the transition to a neoliberal economy in

the 1990s when local coal mines and light industry factories were shut down and thousands of

men and women were left unemployed (Gawlicz and Starnawski 2009, Maciejewska 2010).

Most of the state-run daycares and kindergartens were closed as well, making it almost

impossible for the mothers of small children to find jobs (see Glass and Fodor 2007,

Charkiewicz and Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz 2009). To counteract the growing

impoverishment and unemployment the state established the Wałbrzych Special Economic

Zone in 1997, but since then, instead of providing stable and well-paid jobs, it has been

offering local inhabitants shift work for minimum pay in assembly plants. All those changes

led to increased migration from the region, elevated rates of unemployment (up to 20% in

Wałbrzych district), impoverishment, and in turn, severe dependency on social assistance

(11% of Wałbrzych inhabitants are still clients of local Welfare Centers).19 What’s more,

living conditions of a vast part of the population have worsened due to gentrification of some 18 Interview conducted in 2011 in Toruń.

19 See Central Statistical Office www.stat.gov.pl

23

parts of the city, privatization of communal flats and hence a shrinking availability of

municipal housing. Many families, especially women with children, started to illegally move

into uninhabited flats, which was met with punitive actions initiated by the municipality

(evictions, fines or cutting off water or electricity).

The protest action started by poor women (mostly jobless or working poor) in spring

2008 was centered around tenants’ rights. They protested against brutal evictions of families

with small children and the punitive measures undertaken by the municipality. The protests

addressed local authorities, stressing that the state is responsible for providing affordable

housing for poor families, which was framed as a basic social and economic right. The

women took to the streets with slogans such as: “you have the buildings, we have the

basements”, “you can afford delicacies, we have to look for food in trashcans”, “we don't

want your pity, we just want dignity”. 20

The protesters—mostly married and single women with children, some of them

pregnant—stepped forward as the representatives of their families, protecting their “practical

interests” (Molyneux 1985), such as the right to affordable housing. They acted in their

capacity as mothers fighting for the survival of their families and local community. Several

women organized a sit-in at the Municipal Office in one of the poor neighborhoods, after they

had been sued for illegal squatting, some of them were evicted from their apartments and

some had the utilities (water, electricity) cut off. There were just 17 women who took part in

the protest but they represented hundreds of families in the same critical position. After trying

to negotiate with the Municipal Housing Corporation and local authorities was of no avail,

20

See the documentary “Mothers’ Strike: On Young Women’s Lives in Neoliberal City” (English subtitles)

http://www.ekologiasztuka.pl/think.tank.feministyczny/readarticle.php?article_id=404

24

they decided to apply more subversive measures to attract media attention and went on a

hunger strike (Maciejewska 2010).

In spite of the women’s efforts, neither the mayor and vice mayor (both from right

wing parties), nor the Municipal Housing Corporation officials came to negotiate with the

starving women and soon the hunger strike was called off.21 The protesters’ actions met with

moderate social resonance, mostly on the local level. The people who supported the protesters

were local alderman, a lawyer from the Housing Association providing legal and technical

assistance, neighbors bringing supplies, and some tens of supporters rallying in front of the

Municipal Office, mainly trade union activists from the rather small organization “Sierpień

80”. A couple of activists and researchers from the Feminist Think Tank began to support the

protesting women, sharing know-how on how to organize protests and negotiate with the

authorities, as well as spreading information though social media (Maciejewska 2010). These

efforts helped to inform the public of the situation in Wałbrzych, but did not bring about any

significant change.

Significantly, media coverage of protest actions in Wałbrzych—limited as it was—

generated mostly unfavorable comments. Content analysis of Internet forums demonstrates

that the majority of the Internet users considered women's claims illegitimate (Charkiewicz

2009). The protesters—especially the mothers—were perceived as irresponsible, lazy and

immoral, mostly because they decided to have children despite their difficult economic

situation. They were referred to as “pathological mothers”, “post-communist leftovers”, and

some people went as far as expressing the opinion that poor mothers should be sterilized and

their children taken away. Ewa Charkiewicz (2009) argues that the discourse of “neoliberal 21 Information obtained through personal communication with Małgorzata Maciejewska and Magda Malinowska,

researchers and activists who cooperated with protesters in Wałbrzych.

25

racism” was used to delegitimize women’s economic claims. This notion refers to the strategy

of undermining poor people’s human rights on the basis of their “uselessness” to the society

based on the neoliberal economic regime. Thus, poor women in Wałbrzych were treated not

only as unworthy of the state’s assistance but also not fully human.

Significantly, the analysis of the comments that appeared on the Internet after the first

wave of protests against the liquidation of the Alimony Fund reveals a very similar tendency.

Many people posting comments on the Internet perceived single mothers as demanding,

irresponsible and indolent. The women were advised to go to work rather than seek social

benefits, and were accused of representing a “communist mentality”. The AF movement

activists soon became aware of the fact that such criticism undermined their chances for

gaining wide social support. Transforming their self-representation—they reframed the

projected image from angry, impoverished single mothers to rightful citizens—can be

interpreted as a way of getting wider social resonance and support (Williams 2008).

The poor mothers in Wałbrzych were not able to mediate their public image and to

transform the stigma of demanding, lazy “welfare queens”. They were deprived of basic

resources, including the cultural capital that middle class leaders of the AF movement had or

the personal networks that women initiating the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation used.

Moreover, the timing was less favorable. In the case of the AF movement, the elections in

2005 turned out to be an important political opening, as the protests attracted the attention of

politicians who wanted to present themselves as sensitive to the problems of “ordinary

people”. No such opening was available to the women in Wałbrzych.

Finally, they were not able to gain any significant social support as the framing they

used did not fit the dominant narrative of transformation as progress and did not resonate with

contemporary dominant neoliberal discourse of mothering based on individualism and

26

consumptionism (Hryciuk 2012). Thus, although the protesters demonstrated agency and

proved a capacity for collective action, the protest failed and the mobilization did not bring

expected improvements in the situation of marginalized women and their families in

Wałbrzych (some of protesters kept their flats while others were evicted, fined or sentenced to

prison for illegal squatting).

Conclusions

The scope of the mobilizations we studied here and their effects contradict the

pessimistic view of the low capacity for collective action in Poland. Our analysis confirms

that the types of activism that develop are strongly influenced by the character of the political

and cultural changes as well as the shape of the institutional setting. Since the power holders

in Poland are reluctant to engage in negotiations with the representatives of grassroots

movements, the protesters have to rely on institutional mechanisms, such as the popular

initiative (the AF movement) or the possibility of influencing the law-making process via

taking part in a special state commission (the Childbirth with Dignity Foundation). The

process of negotiations with the power holders, though, often leads to the de-radicalization of

the claims, which is partly a result of strategic choices made by the leaders and partly as an

outcome of the local institutional setting. The possibility of submitting a civic law proposal

requires close cooperation with people who have the necessary knowledge and expertise, such

as lawyers and experts. That, in turn, requires mass mobilization of participants to frame their

claims in terms acceptable to the elites and being easily translatable into specific legal

provisions.

Furthermore, the cases we analyzed demonstrate that within the Polish context,

the way of framing mothers’ rights is an important factor in determining the chances for

success. Women’s civil rights gain more resonance as they fit in well with the dominant

27

discourse of the successful transformation and modernization of the country. Being treated as

an individual with certain rights and needs at hospitals, in public spaces, at work and at home

became an integral part of the ideal of modern society, at least for the middle and upper class.

Such conceptualizations of contestants' claims mediate negotiations with decision makers, as

it does not challenge the system that emerged from the period of transition, but require just

some adjustments to its current shape. Moreover, when it comes to issues such as perinatal

care, this type of framing is also considered legitimate by the conservative circles, as it fits

well with the nationalistic discourse on motherhood and does not challenge gender order.

On the other hand, the proponents of so called free market democracy (demokracja

wolnorynkowa) associate social and economic rights with the legacy of post-communism and

cultural backwardness (Gerber 2011). It is not a coincidence, then, that both the AF

movement and the mothers from Wałbrzych have been delegitimized and criticized for being

“the leftovers” from the socialist period, who prefer to wait for financial help from the state

rather than go to work and earn the money themselves. Within the dominant narrative of

successful transformation, grassroots mobilizations of impoverished mothers pursuing social

and economic rights seem to have a subversive character as they introduce the problems of

economically marginalized groups into the public discourse. Poor mothers from Wałbrzych

opposing the neoliberal management of municipal resources as well as more radical strands

within the AF movement, went against the hegemonic narrative of transition as progress,

criticizing the character of social change based on the neoliberal model of economy and social

relations. The fact that they had less bargaining power in contact with power holders stems

not only from the lack of resources, but also from the fact that—consciously or not—they

challenged the system. Thus, their mobilizations are more likely to end up co-opted and/or

pacified.

28

Cultural legacies are not only gendered but also bounded by class. Hence, poor

mothers experience double exclusion, as the symbolic potential of motherhood, epitomized in

the figure of the Polish Mother, does not empower all women equally (Hryciuk and

Korolczuk 2012). The motherhood of economically underprivileged women is perceived as an

anomaly, a danger to social cohesion and a burden to the state’s budget. They cannot make

full use of their civil rights because of their marginal social position (Lister 2003), but they

are also deprived of their political subjectivity and disempowered as mothers, as neoliberal

discourse of individual responsibility undermines the value of their mothering (Charkiewicz

2009, Maciejewska 2010, Hryciuk 2012).

Clearly, both the gender and the social position of protesters determine the

strategies and collective action frames available to specific protesting groups, which translates

into their chances for success. Contemporary feminist scholarship demonstrated that gender is

intertwined with class. Nevertheless, as we already stated, most analyses of women's

mobilizations in post-1989 Poland lack a class dimension. Putting grassroots mobilizations of

economically disadvantaged women in the spotlight enables us to bring class back in. Thus,

we conclude that a more intersectional approach should be applied in future research on social

movements.

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