Feminism in the World part 1: On the feminist wave. Practicing intersectionality and facilitating solidarities: activists’ responses to the authoritarian right in Poland.

Zoom link:

https://uit.zoom.us/j/66474950942?pwd=aDh0NWRIM1ZlUnNmdnlsYmlOdEwrQT09

Meeting ID: 664 7495 0942

Password: 506101

This research-based presentation pushes forward our understanding of political relevance of recent feminist and queer activism in Poland as responses to political anti-feminism and homophobia. We will present an analysis, of both quantitative and qualitative research with women’s, feminist and queer initiatives in Poland, including new groups and organizations which mushroomed in Poland in the last 4 years. Our data suggest that for the current wave of feminists mobilizations intersectionality is becoming key, both as a discursive practice, and as a set of activist's tools accounting for building coalitions between various social movements. Our study also reveals a diversity of groups that the movement is composed of (ranging from sex workers, refugees, rural women, pensioners, transgender youth or simply mothers), and wide arrange of activist and everyday strategies, which, in sum, may be seen an instance of “everyday feminism”.

Magdalena Grabowska - is Associated Professor at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the author of the book “Broken Genealogy. Women’s social and political activism post 1945 and contemporary women’s movement in Poland” (in Polish, 2018). She conducted research on history of women's movement in Poland, sexual violence against women in Poland, and women's political activism after 1989 for various international institutions (including European Institute for Gender Equality, and Fundamental Rights Agency, as well as local governmental and non-governmental organizations (including Polish Association for Anti-discrimination Law, Federation on Women and Family Planning, and STER Foundation).

Marta Rawłuszko – is Assistant Professor of Social Science at the University of Warsaw, and co-founder of the Feminist Fund – the first grantmaking institution in Poland which supports exclusively women- and queer-led, feminist initiatives. She published in European Journal of Women’s Studies and Politics & Gender. Together with Magdalena Grabowska she recently contributed to The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of #MeToo Movement (2020)