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Chapter 5

Denying the Right to Speak in Public:

Sexist and Homophobic Discourses in Post-1989 Poland.

Natalia Krzyżanowska

The Poznań University of Economics

Women and Homosexuals as the Other of the Polish Public Sphere

What social categories such as „women‟, „lesbians‟ or „gay/homosexual men‟ have in

common is their generally very limited access to the major areas of the Polish public

sphere. Voices and activities of those groups are also gradually becoming less audible

and visible in the Polish public domain. Their public audibility, as well as visibility,

could enable those social actors to articulate their viewpoints as well as to point to

those mechanisms in the broader society which to date hinder or, in fact, eliminate

them from a proper functioning within the non-private domains. Such public

articulation of their postulates could also help convince the broader society to

undertake change in many of its key areas. However, recent national debates about the

social „other‟ – women and gay people alike – in the context of ant-discrimination

laws, same-sex marriages or improving gender equality (incl. the idea of „parity‟ in

the political domain, etc.) – have shown, Polish society as well as Poland‟s state and

legal system are indeed far from acknowledging even some of the basic rights of the

aforementioned groups.

This chapter aims to point to the major problems encountered in the Polish public

sphere by its standard „other‟ – mainly women, including lesbians, and homosexual

men. The major aim of the article is to show how/where those „other‟ are positioned

in the Poland‟s post-1989 transforming public sphere. The chapter also explores how

the public visibility and audibility of the „other‟ is consequently disallowed or

diminished with the key „symbolic‟ representatives of the suppressed categories

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pushed regularly into the (disrespected) private domains of the society. Presented

below, an in-depth analysis of the discourses surrounding the „Sex-Affair‟ or the

„Jobs-for-Sex-Scandal‟ in the Polish left-wing populist Samoobrona (Self-Defence)

party (cf. below, for details), provides a very good example of the widespread

approach to women as standard „others‟ of the polish public sphere. As it is argued,

homosexual men and women are positioned in the Poland‟s public domain in a largely

very similar way to women at large. Hence, the key highlighted macro-strategies – of

trivialisation, victimisation and denial – of press discourse about the Sex-Affair in

Samoobrona are not only typical for Polish public discourses about women (and their

role in society) but are also very similar to the framing of gay and lesbian people in

Polish homophobic discourses1.

Drawing on the example of discourse about the Sex-Affair in Samoobrona, I would

like to show how the problem of women‟s accidental presence in the polish public

sphere is depicted in viewpoints on, and commentaries about, that event. Further, I

would also like to point that, if/when intensified, mechanisms which disfavour women

1 Victimisation is the most „friendly‟ macro-strategy framing the representations of gay and lesbian

people. However, this strategy also causes that gay and lesbian people are not perceived as „one of us‟

but as Others who are „weaker‟, „inapt‟ and „oversensitive‟ (cf. Osęka, 2008 who describes in such

terms gay people who became successful despite their „oversensitivity‟). Then, the macro-strategy of

trivialisation is often used in the Polish media to ridicule gay people and to juxtapose their „perverse‟

claims with serious events of real value. For example, in ND (cf. Czachorowski, 2009), we read that the

liberal government causes for “all signs of Corpus Christi processions to be wiped out by the parade of

sodomites” [„skrzętnie zatrze ślady po Bożym Ciele, aby przetoczyła się po ulicach parada

sodomitów”]. Thus, we encounter a juxtaposition of „holy‟ events (the annual Corpus Christi

processions) with the unholy „parade of madman‟, who, led only by the values of promiscuity and

sexual freedom, should not be the part of the public sphere. Finally, the macro-strategy of denial is

used in dual way and portrays homosexuality either as „a disease‟ (which, effectively, should be

„cured‟) or as a „perversion‟ (which effectively must be „punished‟). In any case, that strategy helps

arguing that gay rights are not among democratic rights and thus should not be debated in public. In

Polish, the macro-strategy of denial is also visible in the semantic differentiation between a

homosexual („homoseksualista‟) and a gay („gej‟). Whereas a homosexual should be confined o the

private domain (and thus tolerated, perhaps comforted or cured), a gay should be refused any public

rights (since – most usually he – is a pervert and only a copy of Western gay people; cf. Ziemkiewicz,

2003).

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in the public sphere are often used with reference to homosexual men, and in

particular lesbians. The latter are affected by what can be termed as „double public

absence‟: lesbians are not only affected by the public exclusion towards them as

women but also by the often explicit fortification of that exclusion by the particularly

prominent homophobic arguments. As many representatives of the female

homosexual community suggest (cf. Mazur 2009), lesbian relationships are never in

the spotlight of the broader public, with even the aggressive homophobic arguments –

expressed by the anti-gay activists against Poland‟s annual Equality Parades („Parady

Równości‟) – often expressed only against gay men. While lesbians are working

actively towards improving their public visibility in Poland – by means of internet

sites2, publications

3 or other outlets – their public absence is still a case of a norm,

even quite paradoxically, within the gay community (where lesbians are treated as

„women‟) and within the feminist groups (where they are allocated at the „homosexual

margin‟). There are also no recognisable public figures among the lesbian

community4. At the same time, gay men are much more recognised in the Polish

public sphere, not only due to their eagerly mediatised clashes with opponents of the

Equality Parades5, but also due to the high public visibility of several gay celebrities

(writer Michał Witkowski, stylist Tomasz Jacyków, dancer and choreographer Michał

Piróg, or the widely recognised gay couple Tomasz Raczek and Mariusz Szczygielski,

who received the 2008 „Couple of the Year‟ award6).

2 The most widely known such internet sites are http://kobiety-kobietom.com or www.lesbijka.org.

3 The most widely known publication on the situation of lesbians in Poland is „Girls come out from the

closet‟[“Dziewczyny wyjdźcie z szafy”] by Anna Laszuk (2006). The closet is used in the study as a

metaphor of life in hiding which conceals the relationships between women. The general invisibility of

lesbian relationships in public sphere in Poland has further legal implications for their status (e.g. lack

of joint health insurance or inheritance rights, lack of possibility to be treated publically as a couple,

etc.).

4 In Poland, there are very few widely-recognised lesbian personalities or couples of comparable media

status to, e.g., Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi in the USA.

5 The first in Poland and by now the almost unique court sentence for actions against gay and lesvian

homosexual people was issued in Szczecin (north-western Poland) in August 2009. The court

sentenced a 44-year-old woman from Wolin to a 15 thousand PLN fine as a punishment for public

defamation and stalking and of a gay couple from her neighbourhood.

6 Raczek and Szcyegieslki received the award in 2008. The recipients of the award are chosen by the

readers of (mostly women-oriented) monthly „Gala‟. Against many protests and objections, including

166

The Public Sphere

According to Turowski (1992: 13)7

„Many authors consider „public‟ not only what refers to the common good of

all but also to actions which contribute to that good as well as the public

participation in such actions. They write about „the public sphere‟ or about

„the sphere of pubic life‟. They describe the functioning of broader social

groups, of the state, of the global society and public‟s participation therein”.

Some approaches, such as those by Sennett, see „public‟ as “the political life in a

given society, i.e. extra-family social structures and their functioning” (Sennett 2006,

quoted in Turowski 1992: 16). On the other hand, the Habermassian view of the

public sphere sees it “as a sphere between civil society and the state in which a critical

public discussion on matters of general interest is guaranteed” (McCarthy 1999: xi;

Habermas 2007: 98; cf. also Habermas 1992)8. The multitude of such public

discussions links directly to Habermas‟ idea of democracy which is seen as „a modus

of historical consciousness: its openness towards discourse, its multiperspectivity, its

pluralism, and its recognition for its receivers and their multiple aims” (Ziółkowski

2001: 84).

Whereas the fact that women encounter many problems in the labour market has been

discussed widely9, their absence from the Polish public sphere, and especially from

politics, has been even more apparent and even more tacitly accepted10

.

by Sławomir Siwek (the then president of Polish national public broadcaster TVP), the award

ceremony was broadcast live in a nationwide public TV channel.

7 All translations from works and extracts published originally in Polish are mine.

8 For the related, media-centred conceptions of the public sphere in Europe inspired by Habermas, cf.

Krzyżanowski (2009) or Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou and Wodak (2009).

9 Cf., inter alia, Titkow (2003), Domański (2002) or Pringle (1994).

167

As argued by Siemińska „as long as there exists some acceptance towards women as

potential breadwinners whose income is indispensable to families‟ wellbeing, there is

a widespread unease and hostility towards allowing women to hold power”11

.

Women‟s low participation in the Polish public sphere is even more undeserved

providing their pivotal role in the strive for Poland‟s independence before 1989, be it

as co-founders of the Solidarność, as key members of the Polish underground

opposition, or as main editors of key samizdat publications and periodicals (cf. Penn

2003; Kondratowicz 2001). As it seems, the women‟s contribution to the eventual

system transformation in late 1980s and early 1990s is silenced and omitted in many

publications or reports which focus on „key figures‟ of the independence movement.

Women, quite paradoxically, are never or very rarely among those key figures. Such a

perception of the Polish system transformation is not only characteristic for male but

also female authors as in, for examples, Jankowska‟s (2003) extensive interviews with

key fifteen pre-1989 opposition leaders (unfortunately, all male).

As far as gay and lesbians are concerned, the situation seems to be quite parallel if not

the same. Whereas the opponents of the so-called „promotion of homosexuality‟ (a

slogan used widely in Polish politics and the media) consequently argue that they do

not have anything against homosexuality in private, they persistently oppose any

displays of homosexuality in the public domain including the media, the city spaces

(exhibitions „Let us be seen‟ [“Niech nas zobaczą”], annual Equality Parades) or in

art galleries.

Hence, both women and homosexuals must face many obstacles towards or, in fact,

fight for their right to be seen and heard in the Polish public sphere12

. Their common

10

This phenomenon is described at length by, inter alia, Graff (2001), Montgomery and Matland

(2003), Siemińska (2005) or Fuszara (2006).

11 Quoted from a report on European Parliamentary elections published at www.oska.org.pl/ep in July

2004.

12 Indicated by, inter alia, Fuszara (2006) or Siemińska (2005), the absence of women from the Polish

public sphere has also become apparent in the research on the first Polish electoral campaign to the

European Parliament in 2004 (cf. Krzyżanowska, 2006).

168

struggle for visibility and recognition of many common postulates is well depicted

through the actions of the Manifa, the annual demonstration organised jointly by the

Association for Women March 8t („Stowarzyszenie Kobiet 8 marca‟) and Campaign

against Homophobia in Poland („Kampania Przeciw Homofobii w Polsce‟). Sadly,

despite its growing attractiveness for the media, Manifa has not so far caused any

legal changes nor contributed to the increase of the number of women among the

figures who influence Polish socio-political reality (cf. also below).

Women are largely absent from, and definitely invisible in, the key democratic

processes in Poland, where allegedly all candidates have equal chances. We rarely

hear or see women in the context of parliamentary elections (be it at the national or

European level) where they tend to be marginalised and to receive less favourable

places on the electoral lists or far worse campaign support. One reason for such a

situation might be the widespread (post-transformation) perception of politics as a

field of hard struggle where (the apparently weak) women do not belong. Similarly to

(hetero- and homosexual) women, gay men are also excluded from democratic

processes where „the true men‟, also to protect their image, are reluctant (at best) to

compete with homosexual candidates perceived as „weaker‟ and „not fit‟ for the harsh

political competition.

Paradoxically, the roots of such ways of thinking, particularly with regard to women

(as emphasised in many instances of social research and election results), date back to

Antiquity and to the Aristotelian thought. In the latter, the public domain (agora) was

seen as reserved solely for men, whereas women – similarly to slaves – were

supposed to be confined only to the private areas of life (Aristotle 2001: 43).

Particularly in the light of the aforementioned „acceptance‟ of homosexuality in the

private domain only, such a vision of social order (still widespread today) seems to be

at the basis of social status-quo which restricts women and gay people (male and

female alike) into the private sphere.

The highly unequal Aristotelian perception of the public sphere has been contested by

many of its modern theoreticians such as Arendt (2000) or Habermas (1992 and

2007). Looking for the sources of the „patriarchal character of the public sphere

169

itself” Habermas points to the projection of the relationships of the small family

model onto the public domain (cf. Habermas 2007: 10, 97), yet and points to the

necessity of changing such status quo. As he argues, “the public sphere is articulated

in discourses joined by (...) the feminist movement in order to effectively change

those discourses – as well as structures of the public sphere itself – from inside”

(ibid.: 13). It seems that the array of movements which, while joining discourses of

the public sphere can also change from inside its structures, includes not only feminist

movements as such but also the homo- and bi-sexual LGBT activists whose goals are

in accordance with the so-called third wave of feminism. The latter started in the USA

with the so called gender quake (the 1991 argument between Anita Hill and Clarence

Thomas, cf. Wolf 1993:6).

As argued by many feminist activists and as emphasised through many quasi-negative

reactions to the scandal, it seems that the Polish gender quake has been caused the

Sex-Affair in Samoobrona. The analysis of media discourse about the Sex-Affair is

guided by the conviction that “the media can, through means of presentation and ways

of their analysis, influence the ways of seeing the worlds and, by informing, they can

become elements of educating and thus of breaking or reinforcing divisions between

people” (Kevin 2003: 35). Hence, looking for the reasons of women‟s limited

participation in the public sphere, I am looking for strategies and ways of constructing

the image of women in public discourse on the example of discourses about the Sex-

Affair in Polish key dailies incl. the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, the left Trybuna and the

conservative-right Nasz Dziennik.

The Sex-Affair in Samoobrona

The Sex-Affair became public in the late 2006, at the time when the populist-left

Samoobrona was a member of the government coalition led by the populist-right

„Law and Justice Party‟ („Prawo i Sprawiedliwość‟, PiS) supplemented by the radical

right „League of the Polish Families‟ („Liga Polskich Rodzin‟, LPR). At that time,

Jarosław Kaczyński (PiS) acted as the prime minister with deputy prime-ministerial

posts held by Andrzej Lepper (Samoobrona) and Roman Giertych (LPR).

170

On December 4th

, 2006 a set of materials gathered by investigative journalists – most

notably by Marcin Kącki – was published in the Polish key liberal daily Gazeta

Wyborcza (GW). On that day, a GW supplement featured a report entitled “Jobs for

Sex in Samoobrona” (“Praca za seks w Samoobronie”) which accused the

Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper, and his deputy Stanisław Łyżwiński, of sexual

harassment towards female members of the party and of offering jobs in the party‟s

field offices in exchange for sex. Based on the materials published in GW, a state

prosecution against Lepper and Łyżwiński is initiated on the same day.

On December 5th

, 2006, the central figure of the Sex-Affair Aneta Krawczyk (at that

time known to the public as Aneta K.) – a former employee of one of Samoobrona‟s

field offices in central Poland – declared that Łyżwiński was the father of her

daughter. Łyżwiński denied those allegations and underwent DNA test on December

9th

. After a few days, on December 11th

, the results of the tests denying Krawczyk‟s

earlier claims (and Łyżwiński‟s fatherhood of Krawczyk‟s child) were made public.

On the very same day, Samoobrona informs the national intelligence and security

agency (ABW, entrusted with the aim of „preventing crimes against the Polish state‟)

about the attempted coup d‟état by claiming that the actions of Krawczyk were not

against Lepper‟s party but against stability of the Polish government and the state

system as a whole.

On December 14th

, 2006, another set of allegations against Samoobrona became

public when it was revealed that Łyżwiński‟s personal assistant was trying to bribe

and threaten some of the witnesses crucial to the state prosecution against Lepper and

Łyżwiński initiated earlier in December. While Lepper expelled Łyżwiński from the

party on the very same day, another Samoobrona activist subsequently came forward

and testified about several further instances of sexual harassment in the party. Until

December 15th

, the state prosecution received testimonies of over fifty witnesses

including eight women who were sexually harassed.

In August 2007, Polish Sejm (lower chamber of parliament) deprived Łyżwiński of his

parliamentary immunity. Łyżwiński was subsequently arrested on several charges

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including rape, sexual harassment and instigating a kidnapping. In February 2008,

after over fourteen months of investigation, the prosecution office in Piotrków

Trybunalski received the prosecution documents which proved all the earlier

harassment statements against Łyżwiński and Lepper, by both Aneta K. and other

female activists of Samoobrona (cf. Kącki 2008). However, despite all of her

allegations proving right, Aneta K. remained untrustworthy in the public eye as she

did not know who the father of her child was (cf. also Mrozik 2007)

Analysis

Description of the Empirical Material

The articles put under analysis are stemming from three key Polish newspapers

representing different viewpoints and ideological positions. Thos newspapers include:

Gazeta Wyborcza (GW), Poland‟s most widely read newspaper of central-liberal

orientation. GW was founded in 1989 as the main daily newspaper of the dissident

movement and is headed ever since by one of the pre-1989 opposition leaders

Adam Michnik and retains an intellectual orientation.

Trybuna (TR) which, founded in mid 1940s (then as Trybuna Ludu), was until

1990 the key daily newspaper of the Polish Communist Party (PZPR). After 1990,

TR remained its clearly leftist and most commonly anti-establishment orientation

though its readership declined very radically, particularly as of mid 2000s (with

the departure of the last former-communist politicians from key positions in the

left parties).

Nasz Dziennik (ND) a radical-right daily published since 1998 and known from its

nationalist and, inter alia, strong anti-Semitic opinions. The newspaper is owned

by and associated with the equally radical nationalist-catholic Radio Maryja,

whose (mostly elderly and lower-educated) listeners are also among the key

devoted readers of ND.

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The analysed articles from GW, TR and ND (cf. Table 1) are coming from the period

between December 4th

, 2006 (the first major GW publication on the Sex-Affair) and

December 18th

2006 (when Sex-Affair ceased to be reported on the front-page of GW).

Notably, TR and ND ceased to report on the Sex-Affair much earlier and, in general,

devoted less attention to the scandal (cf. Table 1). The most active day in reporting the

Sex-Affair was Monday, December 11th

, 2006. That was the day of publication of

Łyżwiński‟s DNA tests (eventually denying his fatherhood of Aneta K‟s child, cf.

above) when all three analysed dailies reported extensively on the scandal. The

attention paid to the affair on that day not only proved that the „fatherhood‟

accusations were pivotal in the case but also that this matter influenced the perception

of the affair in the studied periodicals. On that day, the Sex-Affair ceased to be the

matter which concerned sexual harassment in one of the political parties and became a

matter of anti-government activity or even of a coup d‟état. Equally, Aneta K. ceased

to be the victim (the subject) and became the tool (the object) of those who allegedly

wanted to remove the PiS-LPR-Samoobrona coalition.

Trybuna (TR)

Gazeta

Wyborcza

(GW)

Nasz

Dziennik (ND) Total

04/12/2006 - 2 - 2

05/12/2006 4 7 1 12

06/12/2006 2 9 - 11

07/12/2006 2 8 2 12

08/12/2006 2 9 2 13

09-10/12/2006 3 8 3 14

11/12/2006 4 10 4 18

12/12/2006 3 7 2 12

13/12/2006 2 8 - 10

14/12/2006 - 2 2 4

15/12/2006 1 5 1 7

16-17/12/2006 2 - 3 5

18/12/2006 - 4 1 5

Total 25 79 21 125

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Table 1: Frequency of Articles in the Press Discourse about Sex-Affair in

Samoobrona

(chronologically, according to analysed newspapers)

Methodology and Key Categories of Analysis

The analysis is embedded within the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) in

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The latter assumes that “discourse reproduces

society and culture as well as being reproduced by them” (Fairclough and Wodak,

1997: 258; cf. also Wodak 1996 and 2001; Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2008; Reisigl

and Wodak 2009). While in the broader CDA perspective discourse can be viewed

widely as „text in context‟ (van Dijk, 1990), the DHA perspective provides a more

narrow definition and defines discourse as “mainly understood as linguistic action, be

it written, visual, or oral communication, verbal or nonverbal, undertaken by social

actors in a specific setting determined by social rules, norms, and conventions”

(Wodak 2008: 5).

My research concentrates on one of key DHA categories of analysis, i.e. discursive

strategies, used widely in analyses of discriminatory (incl. racist, anti-Semitic or

sexist) discourses. The strategies are understood here as “a more or less accurate and a

more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) adopted to

achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim” (Reisigl and

Wodak 2001: 44). Also defined as „strategies of self- and other-presentation‟ (cf.

Reisigl and Wodak, 2001; Wodak, 2001), the following discursive strategies are

followed in the analysis (incl. the respective research questions):

a. Referential and Nomination Strategies (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001: 45) - („how are

persons named and referred to linguistically?”, ibid.: 44);

b. Predicational Strategies (ibid.: 45) - („What traits, characteristics,, qualities and

features are attributed to them?”, ibid.: 44);

c. Argumentation Strategies (ibid.: 45) - („By means of what arguments and

argumentation schemes do specific persons or social groups try to justify and

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legitimise the exclusion, discrimination, suppression and exploitation of others?”,

ibid.: 44);

d. Strategies of Perspectivation, Framing or Discourse Representation (ibid.: 45) -

(„From what perspective or point of view are these naming, attributions and

arguments expressed”, ibid.: 44); and

e. Intensifying and Mitigation Strategies (ibid.: 45) - („Are the respective

discriminating utterances articulated overtly, are they even intensified or are they

mitigated”, ibid.: 44).

While analysing many of such strategies in the press discourse about Sex-Affair at the

micro (textual) level, I am also attempting to fit the strategies into broader

argumentation frames which I define – somewhat parallel to van Dijk (1984 and

1988) – as macro-strategies. With respect to the analysed newspapers, where the

overall argumentation patterns differed quite significantly according to those

newspapers‟ global (liberal vs. conservative, left vs. right) viewpoints, I identify

macro-strategies: of victimisation (GW), trivialisation (TR) and denial (ND). Hence,

whereas the discursive strategies are defined at the level of analysis, the establishment

of macro-strategies takes place at the interpretative level and on the basis of the earlier

analyses of textual material (those relations are depicted in Figure 1). Thus, the

discursive strategies must be seen as elements of the broader macro-strategies which

reveal the analysed newspapers‟ perception of the analysed Sex-Affair, and, in a

broader perspective, of the role of women in the public and private domains. Here, a

particular attention is paid to the ways in which social actors – of whom the central

one in the reporting remains Aneta K. – are either deprived of or endowed with

agency, especially in their actions within and in relation to the public domain.

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Figure 1:

Relations between discursive strategies and macro-strategies

in the analysis of press discourse about the „Sex-Affair in Samoobrona‟

Due to limitations of space, the presentation below includes only selected examples

characteristic for the respective newspaper-specific macro-strategies, and for the

corresponding discursive strategies. In order to provide contextualisation of the

analysis, the examination also includes a brief overview of structural characteristics of

newspaper-specific corpora as well as an indicative description of their contents.

Gazeta Wyborcza (GW)

The corpus of articles published in GW – the largest of all analysed corpora –

included altogether 79 articles. The corpus comprised short news-stories (in most

cases initialled by the authors), larger commentaries, reports and interviews. Of all

GW articles on the Sex-Affair, thirteen were authored by women and 47 by men.

Altogether, 43 images were published along with the articles. Of those images, three

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depicted Aneta K., six Łyżwiński and nine Lepper. No pictures of Aneta K. were

published after December 11th

, 2006.

According to its contents and foci, the GW corpus can be divided in two distinctive

phases:

(a) Phase One (between December 5th

and 10th

, 2006) - when the majority of

attention was paid to Aneta K. and other (female) sexually-harassed Samoobrona

activists. At this stage, women were in the centre of reporting and the majority of

the expressed voices (of key actors and/or commentators) referred to the problem

of sexual harassment of women at work (in Samoobrona and elsewhere);

(b) Phase Two (after December 11th

, 2006) started with the publication of

Łyżwiński‟s DNA tests denying his fatherhood of Aneta K‟s daughter. As of this

moment, the whole affair became an incentive to construct conspiracy theories

with the credibility of GW and its reporting (onto which the „proven‟ lack of

credibility of Aneta K. was projected) also questioned and subsequently revoked

in GW reporting. As of this moment the Sex-Affair ceased to become a debate

about women and their role in society (public sphere) and became a politicised

topic concerning government politics (incl. Samoobrona). Considered as lacking

credibility, Aneta K was not anymore depicted in any images nor quoted in any of

the articles of the second phase. In the absence of Aneta K. in the reporting, the

main actor-oriented attention was paid to Lepper and Łyżwiński who, quite

paradoxically, were from then on the only key actors of the affair given the right

to speak.

The main strategies which supported the GW in construction of its macro-strategy of

victimisation were strategies of argumentation as well as reference/nomination and

predication. All of those strategies helped construct the clear dichotomy between the

victim (Aneta K.) and the predators/attackers (Łyżwiński, Lepper, Samoobrona, etc.).

Within that dichotomy, the predators clearly retained an active role (and a high degree

of agency) whereas the victim was portrayed as passive and as only undergoing the

activities undertaken by predators (i.e. what van Leeuwen 1996, defines as processes

177

of activation and passivisation). One of examples of such „attack‟ or „domination‟ of

predators over the victim was Lepper‟s revelation of Krawczyk‟s surname which

broke her anonymity guaranteed by the journalists interviewing her and investigating

the case. By revealing not only Krawczyk‟s name but also her address (both activities

illegal in light of, e.g. Polish data protection laws), her personal security was also put

in danger13

, while, even if only symbolically, she was clearly threatened by the

„predators‟.

Whereas Aneta K. was clearly deprived of her agency in the GW reporting, the

analysed newspaper was still the most attentive to her as the central female figure of

the Sex-Affair. By paying close attention to Aneta K and her „problem‟, GW clearly

sympathised with the „victim‟ and thus also drew the readers‟ attention to the social

problems which Aneta K. was just a display of (sexual harassment, patriarchal

construction of politics and the public sphere, etc.). Whereas such an „understanding

compassion‟ towards Aneta K – and the related depiction of „predators‟ in a clearly

negative light – may have surely had strategic implications (i.e. by paying attention to

Aneta K. and emphasising related problems GW effectively criticised its political

opponents i.e. Samoobrona), it must still be considered as a positive phenomenon.

Such an attention made GW reporting much different than those of TR and ND (cf.

below) which consequently moved their reporting away from Aneta K. and, by

focussing on the male figures of the Sex-Affair, reinforced the male-oriented

perception of gender relations in the public domain.

The said compassion to the victim was particularly visible in an article „Łyżwiński as

a father‟ („Łyżwiński Ojcem‟, GW, 5/12/2006) in which the author described „dramatic

testimonies of a few women‟ („dramatyczne wyznania kilku kobiet‟) as well as

reported that „feared of her safety, Aneta K. asked for protection‟ („Aneta K. poprosiła

o ochronę bo czuje się zagrożona‟). One can point here to a strategy of nomination:

Aneta K. (not Krawczyk), whose name, though widely known, was not mentioned for

security reasons – felt threatened (by unnamed predators, who despite remaining

unidentified, constituted clear and present danger).

13

Cf. Gazeta Wyborcza (2008)

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Elsewhere, in an interview with Mariusz Strzępek entitled „Almost everybody heard

signals that women were forced to having sex‟ („Prawie każdy miał sygnały o

zmuszaniu do seksu, GW, 5/12/2006) one can read that

„Łyżwiński paws (…) forces women to having sex. And he threatens them that they

will be fired as there are others to take their place. I have been telling them: report

this, go to the district attorney (…) But they were all scared. They kept on saying:

those are people in power, they will consider us prostitutes”. [„Łyżwiński obłapuje

(…) że zmusza do seksu. I grozi, że wyrzuci z roboty bo na ich miejsce są inne.

Namawiałem je: idźcie do prokuratury (…) Ale one były wystraszone. Mówiły: bo to

ludzie władzy, bo wezmą je za prostytutki”].

Here, we can again point to the nomination strategy when the harassed Samoobrona

women are recontextualising nominations used by male figures of the party and

describing themselves as „prostitutes‟. The said nominations exemplify the very low

standing and demeaning approach to women in Samoobrona. That approach is also

emphasised in a quote from a senior (male) Samoobrona figure Janusz Maksymiuk

who jokes that (GW, 06/12/2006):

„The lady agreed to sleep with one guy and the other, perhaps even with somebody

else for only 1200 Zloty [NB: the amount of Krawczyk‟s very modest salary in the

party]. She was so incredibly modest and poor one and they all harassed her and all

that for just 1200 Zloty [„Była taka skromniutka bidulka, że poniewierali ją a jej

wystarczyło 1200 zł?”„Ta pani zgodziła się spać z jednym, z drugim, może z kimś

jeszcze za 1200 zł? Była taka skromniutka bidulka, że poniewierali ją a jej

wystarczyło 1200 zł?‟].

This opinion presents the voice of GW‟s opponents, i.e. senior Samoobrona male

activists. Further to the key nomination strategy (a speculative and ambivalent use of

„that lady‟) we also encounter here further and clearly ironic (and strategic)

nominations and predications. Among them, the reference to a „modest/poor one‟

helps support the overall argument and augments the derogatory presentation of Aneta

K. whom the Samoobrona leaders aimed to discredit in the eyes of the broader public

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(also by implying the aforementioned argument of her consensual approach to having

sex for money). From the point of view of the overall macro-strategy of victimisation,

the quoted example is also central: it presents in detail the victim, as well as the

actions she underwent, without specifying the agents (the predators) behind those

actions. It also shows that, as implied by Maksymiuk, the victim tacitly consented to

the actions of the predators/attackers. A further augmentation of the clearly

„weakening‟ description of the victim is also provided by the description of Aneta K‟s

salary, i.e. of a modest 1200 PLN (less than ca. 300 EUR). The mentioning of the sum

helps showing that the victim was in agreement of the predators‟ actions as nobody

sane would allow to be as mistreated for such a modest sum of money.

The images accompanying GW reporting of the Sex-Affair must also be considered

strategic in the process of reinforcing the GW‟s victimisation strategy. Most of the

images published in that daily supported key arguments and showed women as „silent

victims‟ who had no other option but to accept their limited rights to speak in public

about their repeating mistreatment and harassment. The most characteristic image of

the GW reporting (and of the entire press reporting of the Sex-Affair) was published

on 04/12/2006. The image showed female hands tied by the white-red tie, a standard

symbol of Samoobrona. The image emphasised haplessness of women described in

the reporting, similarly to a related image of Krawczyk (published also in GW of

04/12/2006) who, as if ashamed, turned her face away from the camera and looked

into a window. In both cases, the images did not depict women‟s faces and thus

emphasised the „mute‟ character and anonymity of described victims as well as

suggested that every woman potentially faces similar dangers.

Trybuna (TR)

The left TR published twenty five articles in the period of investigation, mostly by

means of reports with elements of commentary and commentaries. TR also published

several pictures which accompanied its articles and which were usually supplemented

by the overtly ironic headings. Of the published images, four concerned directly Sex-

Affair with two of them depicting Lepper and two Łyżwiński. None of the TR images

featured Aneta K.

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TR‟s macro-strategy of trivialisation was visible in all of that newspaper‟s

publications. The strategy was not only visible at the pictorial level (in caricature-like

images, facial close-ups with ironic headings/comments, etc.) but also, or mainly, at

the textual level. There, the language used by TR to describe Sex-Affair was (strongly)

colloquial with several even vulgar references to the described events, sexual

harassment, etc. For example, the Sex-Affair as such was defined as „A zip-fly coup

d‟état‟ („Rozporkowy zamach stanu‟, TR, 11/12/2006) or an earlier report on the

matter was entitled „Ever More Porn‟ („Coraz bardziej porno‟, TR, 08/12/2006). It

seems that the trivialisation of Sex-Affair in TR aimed to diminish the scandal‟s

importance as well as to clearly delineate it from „more important‟ issues which

should be discussed with reference to national and government politics. The

colloquial language used to describe the Sex-Affair reinforced the macro-strategy and

made the central event into a „private‟ and „everyday‟ matter. Hence, the macro-

strategy helped moving the case away from the public spotlight.

TR‟s stance was particularly unexpected since, as a nominally left-oriented newspaper

that daily should have been close to the matters of gender equality, feminist ideas, etc.

Quite contrary to such expectations, TR did not support feminist ideas and by

trivialising the Sex-Affair, became very similar in its rhetoric to the otherwise anti-

feminist right-wing newspapers such as, e.g., ND (cf. below). Such a stance of TR,

embedded within its overall strategy of trivialisation, was also reinforced in a set of

peculiar texts which, in very unexpected manner, went as far as to even defend the

PiS-Samoobrona-LPR government coalition (!). Such pro-government arguments –

clearly contrary to the popular perception of TR as supporting moderate left politics –

were expressed in such Sex-Affair related texts as „Ritual Cannibalism‟ („Rytualny

kanibalizm‟ by A. Wołk- Łaniewska) or „Methods of Political Struggle‟ („Metody

walki politycznej‟ by the left-friendly philosopher and former parliamentarian M.

Szyszkowska). Similarly, in a TR article of 07/12/2006, one could read a statement

about Aneta K. (who was also forced to undergo an abortion – ordered by a veterinary

– upon Łyżwiński‟s instructions) which says that

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„And she, that lady, allowed them to give her some injections (…) One can

say it is not so bad as – instead of a vet they could have called for an old lady.

The other Kowalczyk lady also says she is so religious – she is as she worked

for Samoobrona‟ [„A ona, ta dama, zgadza się by wstrzyknąć jej coś (…)

Można powiedzieć, że to i tak postęp – zamiast weterynarza mogli zamówić do

niej babę z szydełkiem. Kowalczykowa też oczywiście zapewnia, że jest

pobożna – pracowała przecież dla Samoobrony”].

Deployed here, the discursive strategy of perspectivation aimed to create an ironic and

derisive (and thus also trivialising) perspective towards the described events. That

strategy was also supported at the lexical level (nominations/predications: „that lady‟,

„so religious‟) as well as reinforced by the description of the situation as quasi „dirty‟,

„illegal‟ and „unworthy‟ (i.e. put into a context where an „old lady‟ could have been

called for instead of a „vet‟, who, by the way, should not be used ordered to treat

humans).

A different TR article – based on an interview with the Left-Party leader G.

Napieralski – upheld the related trivialising stance by calling Sex-Affair a „cover up‟

(„przykrywka‟). As Napieralski (quoted and paraphrase) also says in the article (TR,

12/12/2006):

“The so-called „Sex-Affair‟ is a political and an overblown case. I am really

sorry that this case has become a cover up for so many things. (…) He also

added that he is not interested who is the father of Aneta Krawczyk‟s child and

who sleeps with whom in parliament or elsewhere‟ [„tzw. seks afera jest

sprawą „polityczną i naciąganą‟. Przykro, że przykryła ona wiele istotnych

spraw (…) Dodał, że nie jest zainteresowany, kto jest ojcem dziecka Anety

Krawczyk, ani kto z kim sypia w parlamencie czy poza nim‟].

When analysing this extract, one should point to the salient strategy of mitigation as

well as perspectivation – which were not only achieved by quoting and paraphrasing

statements but were further reinforced through lexical items (adjectival predicates

„political‟ and „overblown‟) showing the speaker‟s negative and distanced stance

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towards the described issues. The second statement again trivialised the matter, since,

as it was implied, Napieralski – quite similarly to other „key‟ politicians – was not

interested who fathered Krawczyk‟s child). In its second part, the statement also

included an implicature which, through the use of an unspecified subject, helps

projecting the implied fact of „sleeping in parliament or elsewhere‟ onto the earlier

nominalised actor i.e. Aneta K. The whole argument thus created in the extract (note

also the thus achieved strategy of argumentation) implied that Aneta K. was the main

actor of an „overblown‟ and politicised Sex-Affair and that she used to „sleep‟ with

different partners (politicians) within and outside of parliament (cf. above; for related

nominalising statements on „prostitutes‟ quoted and criticised in GW)

Nasz Dziennik (ND)

ND corpus was the smallest of all analysed ones and included only 21 articles

published throughout the period of investigation. Interestingly, ND was not focussed

on the case before December 11th

2006 (publication of Łyżwiński‟s DNA tests) and

any serious reporting on the case started in the paper only after this date. As it seems,

ND became interested in the case only when, quasi in accordance with the wishes of

Lepper and Łyżwiński, the Sex-Affair ceased to be a sex-scandal and became an

allegedly political affair. At the same time, ND focussed on the Sex-Affair when it

(again allegedly) became a matter of national priority and not only a scandal revealed

and publicised by liberal GW, a traditional and major opponent of conservative ND.

Finally, though initially ignoring or strategically denying the case (cf. below), the ND

had to become interested in the case when an opinion became more widespread

(particularly in the government circles) that, instigated partly by GW, the Sex-Affair

was directed against the coalition government otherwise supported by ND.

The political character of the Sex-Affair was clearly reflected in the titles of the major

ND articles of the period which point to the conspiracy-related arguments as well as

to implications that GW itself played a role in the alleged coup d‟état. Those titles

include: „The Aim – To Destroy the Coalition‟ („Cel: zniszczyć koalicję, ND,

11/12/2006), „It was supposed to be a coup d‟état‟ („To miał być zamach stanu, ND,

11/12/2006) or „Let those media who lie tremble‟ („Niech drżą media, które łżą‟ ND,

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12/12/2006). Importantly, the most aggressive articles in ND were published by

women-authors (M. Goss, J.M. Jaskólska). At the same time, ND – which generally

did not publish many images – never portrayed Aneta K. and only twice pictured

Lepper and Łyżwiński.

The ND‟s macro-strategy of denial was mainly constructed in the initial period of

reporting when the matter was not even trivialised (as was the case in TR, cf. above)

but to a large extent silenced and treated as almost inexistent. Such a macro-strategy is

depicted in an ND commentary of 07/12/2006 (entitled „What Poland is really

interested in‟[„Czym żyje Polska‟]) where we read:

„that‟s right ladies and gentlemen, what could be more interesting and exciting

for the Polish people at the time of advent? It seems such can be the case

which is shown in the TVN television where a very serious politician of the

Civic Platform, Bronisław Komorowski, keeps on saying how very important

and really world-shaking is the intimate life of Mr Łyżwiński and Mr Lepper

and one Aneta K. and other escort ladies”. [„tak moi Państwo, bo czym by tu

ucieszyć i rozerwać polski lud w Adwencie? Wobec tego od trzech dni

występuje w telewizji TVN bardzo poważny polityk Platformy Obywatelskiej

Bronisław Komorowski i opowiada, jaką to ważną i doniosłą sprawą dla

naszego kraju jest życie intymne panów Łyżwińskiego i Leppera niejakiej

Anety K. tudzież innych panienek z towarzystwa‟].

This extract, very typical for ND discourse about the Sex-Affair, showed that the

denial of the case was mainly achieved by means of mitigating and

nominalising/predicating strategies. Represented, for example, in the ironic predicates

„very important‟ and „really world-shaking‟, the author‟s stance was mitigated and

overtly conveyed a message that the reported case was trivial and not worth media‟s

attention. As it was also implied, the only media interested in the case were

commercial media („TVN television‟, opponents of ND) while the only politicians

who deem the case important are the Civic Platform members (incl. „Komorowski‟),

again widely known to be political and ideological opponents of the ND. Also, the

extract provided a metonymical predication of the Sex-Affair as indeed concerning

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„intimate life of Mr Łyżwiński and Mr Lepper‟ (notable nominations using last-names

but with quasi-respectful „Mr.‟). By the same token, the role of Aneta K. was also

diminished. She was hence either nominalised/predicated in an unspecified manner

(as „one Aneta K.‟) or it was derogatively suggested that – quite similarly to the

defamatory prostitute-like arguments followed in TR and referred to in GW (cf.

above) – she was just one of (several) „escort ladies‟.

Aneta K. gained somewhat more attention at a later stage of ND reporting when, in an

article of 14/12/2006, we read that:

„Stanisław Łyżwiński, MP, is not a father of Aneta Krawczyk‟s daughter.

Krawczyk, the alleged „central figure‟ of the alleged moral affair in

Samoobrona becomes more of an Anastazja P.14

of the fourth republic rather

than a victim of any sexual harassment. Thus, the claim that the whole case

was concocted in order to overturn Jarosław Kaczyński‟s government becomes

even more probable‟. [‟poseł Stanisław Łyżwiński nie jest ojcem córki Anety

Krawczyk, „bohaterka‟ domniemanej afery obyczajowej w Samoobronie

okazuje się bardziej „Anastazją P IV RP‟ aniżeli „ofiarą molestowania‟, a teza,

że sprawa jest przynajmniej w części spreparowana na okoliczność obalenia

rządu Jarosława Kaczyńskiego, nabiera jeszcze większego

prawdopodobieństwa‟].

In the above extract, discursive strategies of mitigation and argumentation were

merged in order to show the Sex-Affair as de-facto inexistent and not real.

Nominated/predicated as an „alleged central figure‟, Aneta K., the main actor of such

inexistent affair, was also not considered real and, by means of elliptical reference to

bogus figure of Anastazja P., her actions and claims were further discredited (as was

in fact the accusation of „any sexual harassment‟). However, while the ND thus

14

Anastazja P. (Potocka) is a nickname of Marzena Domaros, a journalist who, working as a

parliamentary reporter, published a scandalising memoir „Erotic Immunities‟ [„Erotyczne immunitety‟]

in 1991. In the book, Domaros described her (alleged) intimate contacts with several members of

Polish parliament. Despite revealing many intimate details, the book never had any political

implications.

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achieved the image of the case as not important for reasons of gender rights

(otherwise also silenced by that newspaper ), it clearly upheld the conspiracy theory

that Sex-Affair was a political action which aimed to overturn the government.

Published in a weekend edition of 16-17/12/2006, another ND article, quoting and

referring to the statement of a Group for Media Ethics, emphasised the newspaper‟s

overall approach to the Sex-Affair:

„The press publications of the alleged bad manners in the leadership of one of

the political parties, as well as a TV programme on this topic, all constituted a

breach of decency and morality. By making the alleged affair public nobody

considered consequences for the families of those involved, especially for the

three underage children whose mother was accidentally dragged in this public-

making‟ [„Publikacje prasowe o złych jakoby obyczajach w kierownictwie

jednej z partii politycznych oraz program telewizyjny na tenże temat same

naruszyły poważnie zasady obyczajności. Upubliczniając wątpliwą aferę nie

liczono się bowiem z konsekwencjami dla rodzin osób w nią uwikłanych,

zwłaszcza dla trojga nieletnich dzieci, których matka nieopatrznie dała się w

to upublicznienie wciągnąć‟]

The quoted statement succinctly summed up ND‟s macro-strategy: it says that the

whole affair was „alleged‟ (several strategic uses of this predicate) while its central

figure was only „dragged‟ into the whole case (rather than being actually sexually

harassed). By the same token, the statement used many nominations specific for

private domain („mother‟, „daughter‟, „father‟, „children‟) which helped imply that the

whole case was of private character and should have never been – be it „allegedly‟ or

strategically – made public.

Synopsis

The analysis of genres used in the examined reporting of the Sex-Affair emphasises

that while still keeping strategic elements in its reporting, GW was relatively the most

objective of all analysed newspapers. Whereas commentaries were among the most

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frequent genres in all three newspapers, it is only GW which also frequently resorted

to publishing different opinions about the Sex-Affair. Whenever published in GW,

those opinions were, unlike in TR or ND, not edited (or succinctly put into the

newspaper-specific chain of argumentation) but were published verbatim in order to

achieve the seemingly objective stance on the matter. By the same token, one must

also mention that a lot of inter-media cross-referencing was salient here. Thus, ND

and TR were very often referring – or even directly responding – to the GW articles

and actions thus also making GW, for the obviously strategic reasons of competition

and ideological opposition, into not only a commentator of the affair but also into one

of the central actors of the affair.

Of the analysed newspapers, TR and ND which clearly lacked any proper language to

speak about gender issues, either trivialised or silenced/denied the case and deemed it

important only when party- and government-political arguments came to the fore. Of

the two newspapers, TR seemed to be especially unable to speak about gender issues

in a neutral or any other way. This inability of TR was proved by the ironic and (very)

colloquial language used to describe the Sex-Affair as well as by the equally ironic use

of images and their headings. The trivialisation deployed by TR, as well as the denial

put forward by ND, were far from neutral and carried a set of negative implications

for presenting the Sex-Affair in the context of gender relations. Whereas TR clearly

pushed descriptions of the case into the private context of sexual (rather than gender)

relations, ND generally followed suit, with the only exception of not using colloquial

language and with putting the whole matter into the context of its usual struggles with

the liberals and related conspiracy theories.

Though far from empowering women, the GW‟s victimisation strategy remained the

most women-friendly of all macro-strategies identified in the discourse about the Sex-

Affair (cf. below). GW‟s macro-strategy concentrated on presenting women‟s

problems and on showing dangers to which women are or can be exposed, be it in the

workplace or in the public domain at large. However, by showing women as merely

„victims‟ (potentially – in many contexts such as workplace where women are

exposed to harassment, or actually – as exemplified by Aneta K.), GW presented

them as if in need of protection from potential/actual dangers and thus as potentially

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weaker members of the society. Hence, despite being relatively women-friendly, the

victimisation strategy could in a longer run become an obstacle to empowerment of

women and to treating women as politically significant and equal partakers in the

public life.

However, the GW‟s overall macro-strategy of victimisation was still the most

favourable one and the one which enabled the fairest presentation of the unequal

gender-relations. However, having said that, it seems that GW acted somewhat similar

to other newspapers when, after December 11th

, 2006 (DNA test results), it never

returned to focussing on Aneta K., be it in texts or images. Thus, just like other

newspapers, GW followed a similar way of thinking which links „being a woman‟

with „being a mother‟ and which considers a person (woman) as lacking credibility

when she does not know, or cannot name, a father of her child. Hence, it was even the

relatively most objective and the fairest GW which still fell for the logic which was

succinctly put forward by Lepper already in the early days of the Sex-Affair. At that

time, Lepper suggestively asked: „What is the moral authority of a woman who has

three children, each of them with someone else, and is not married‟ [„jaki moralny

autorytet ma kobieta, która ma troje dzieci, każde z kimś innym, a małżeństwa nie

ma‟] (GW, 06/12/2006).

In order to marginalise the problems encountered by women when entering the public

sphere or fighting for their rights therein (NB: Aneta K. was a city councillor as well

as a manager of an MP field-office), TR and ND used strategically their

aforementioned macro-strategies of, respectively, trivialisation and denial. However,

while the strategies of TR and ND seem to be largely congruent, they were undertaken

for significantly different reasons.

On the one hand, TR did not consider Sex-Affair to be an important political case and

therefore decided to treat it as something which, quite usually, should not be debated

in the public sphere. Thus, TR approached the topic of Sex-Affair in an instrumental

manner, in order to emphasise its ideological stance and in order to, inter alia, ridicule

the newspaper‟s political opponents from the PiS-Samoobrona-LPR government. TR

also deemed Sex-Affair a good reason to distract the public from commemorations of

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1981 Martial Law (December 13th

) which are traditionally eagerly trivialised in that

newspaper known from its affinity to Polish communist past and usually attacked in

the period by the right-wing media and parties.

On the other hand, ND initially refused to take up reporting of Sex-Affair for allegedly

religious reasons (beginning of Advent period in the Catholic Church) and then, after

December 11th

(DNA tests), started to deny the affair for political reasons while at the

same time forgetting the earlier Advent-related argument. In the later period, ND

publications aimed to prove that Aneta Krawczyk was not as much a victim as the

actual instigator of the entire Sex-Affair and that it was very likely that she was a

„tool‟ in the hand of those who want to overturn the right-wing led government (the

liberals, GW, etc.).

However, despite the said differences between reporting in TR and ND, both

newspapers surely have in common a peculiar anti-feminist stance pursued via their

key macro-strategies. Both TR and ND even overtly referred to their anti-feminist

views in, in ter alia, headings such as ND‟s „Feminist war at the top‟[Feministyczna

wojna na górze] or TR‟s „Ritual Cannibalism‟[„Rytualny kanibalizm‟]). In those as

well as other TR and ND articles it was argued that feminism was an ideology of the

past which should not be taken seriously anymore but instead should be accepted with

a silent ironic smirk. Particularly as far as TR is concerned, it seems that, although the

Polish left political parties and groups (supported by that newspaper) speak a lot about

the rights of women and homosexuals “the practice shows tha the Left will not do

anything for gay people, same as it will not for feminists” (Ziemkiewicz, 2003: 112).

As also displayed in discourses of both the left-oriented TR and right-oriented ND,

anti-feminism as well as “the homophobic hate-talk were born in Polish public space

after 1989, with the country‟s regaining of independence” (Czarnecki 2009). Hence,

in line with the said anti-feminist stance, feminism is often regarded as a copy of

Western movements, which, in the meantime has become somewhat passé. At the

same time, the LGBT movement was portrayed as a quasi-colonial project (another

conspiracy?) imposed on Poland with European integration (NB: this argument has

often been used in Euro-sceptic press, such as ND). However, it must be mentioned

that, present equally in discourse of the left-wing and secularist TR and of the

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nationalist-catholic ND, the anti-feminist ideology can be reinforced by the fact that,

in their reporting of the Sex-Affair, both ND and TR attempt to respond to the

revelations put forth by GW. Also, at the time when TR and especially ND were still

trying to ignore the case (i.e. before December 11th

, 2006), GW was already widely

reporting on the affair while also, to the later dislike of TR and ND, quoting opinions

of widely- respected Polish feminist activists and members of gender-equality NGOs.

Finally, Aneta K. was absent from both ND and TR with none of those newspapers

publishing pictures of or quoting her as a central figure of the Sex-Affair. The macro-

strategies deployed in TR and ND limited the events related to the Sex-Affair to the

boulevard (private) level while avoiding making the reported case – and the related

problems of the harassed women – into a matter of public concern. Effectively, such a

attitude – as we have set dating back to Aristotle and Antiquity – only reinforces the

traditional lack of „public‟ importance assigned to described issues of gender

relations. The said attitude also groups „mute women‟ within the private domain while

it at the same time it preserves the public sphere for the „active‟ men (i.e. reported

social actors or interpreting journalists).

Epilogue – Regaining the Voice and the Brief Moments of Carnival

This article in general, and the highlighted analyses in particular, seem to emphasise

Janion‟s (2003:9) seminal statement that „women‟s rights have been located beyond

any rights which Solidarność was once fighting for. The civic energy of women was

suppressed and eventually rejected [N.K.: whereas] Polish democracy has proved to

be of male gender”. Thus, it seems, the main condition of access to the Polish public

sphere and the country‟s democratic order are not democratic rights but, instead, one‟s

(male) heteronormativity.

Yet, the order of such a democratic set-up is often related to moments of its disorder,

moments which we may call the time of carnival. Such perception of Polish post-1989

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order/disorder is often emphasised by scholars such as Garton-Ash (1990)15

or

Matynia (2009) who looked at their relations in a diachronic or historicising

perspective. However, the order/disorder categories may also be very useful today, for

example when analysing the public salience of Manifa (an annual demonstration

organised since 2000 in defence of rights of women and sexual minorities, cf. above)

or of Equality Parades (organised since 2001 against widespread discrimination of

sexual minorities, cf. above). Such carnivals of the other have by now become

standard elements of Poland‟s political calendar and are, as such, elements of

democratic process rather than just „temporary‟ moments of pastiche and grotesque

carnival. Their perception as elements of the political and democratic order – rather

than disorder – is emphasised by a view that “politics is not only a struggle for power,

but it is predominantly an attempt to arbitrarily set up visibility (inclusion) or

invisibility (exclusion) of certain social groups and individuals” (Żmijewski 2007:7).

Organised in Warsaw and other Polish major cities once per year (on March 8th

, the

International Women‟s Day), the feminist Manifa takes place under different slogans

such as: „Democracy without women is half-democracy‟(„Demokracja bez kobiet to

pół demokracji‟), „Our bodies, our lives, our rights‟ („Nasze ciała, nasze życie, nasze

prawa‟), „We are strong, together even stronger‟ („Jesteśmy silne razem silniejsze‟) or

„Girls, we need more actions‟ („Dziewczyny potrzebne są czyny‟). Manifa causes that,

at least once a year, media and politics pay attention to the Polish feminist movement.

Hence, the colourful march of Manifa is the rare moment when women gain public

„visibility‟ and when their voices „are heard in public‟. Those voices are aired together

with, and are often supported by, those of the LGBT organisations as well other such

as trade unions (e.g. Wolny Związek Zawodowy Sierpień ‟80) or other associations

such as those struggling for women‟s labour rights (inter alia „Kobiety z Tesco‟).

Similarly, though organised by Campaign against Homophobia in Poland, the

Equality Parades are not only limited to airing postulates of gay people. Supported by

15

Garton-Ash (1990, quoted in Kondratowicz, 2001: 214) also recalls in such terms the (many) women

who surrounded Lech Wałęsa during the famous Gdańsk shipyard strikes in early 1980s. As he says,

“For over an hour Wałęsa was driving around the shipyard on the electric cart, accompanied by

monument-like Anna Walentynowicz on one side, and the girlish Ewa Ostrowska on the other. It was

an incredible carnival-like vehicle”.

191

many feminist movements, those parades are also calling for equal rights for men and

women, irrespective of their hetero- or homonormativity.

Both Manifa and Equality Parades are the opportunities to express publically those

voices which are consequently pushed towards, and closed within, the private domain.

Those voices belong to: women (politically underrepresented, underpaid, often

harassed) and gay and lesbian people (still not recognised as full citizens). Such

limited opportunities for women, feminists, gay and lesbian people are allowing these

other to, even if temporarily, regaining their visibility in the Polish public sphere.

Those opportunities, or brief moments of carnival, also open the door for what

Habermas (1992, 2007 and above) defines as changing the public sphere, and its

discourses and structures, from inside.

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