Disappointed. “Believing in a better next day came to an infirmity”

Let's start with the promises. The rulers say that alternatively of 500 is 800 plus that they passed grandmotherly or longer leave for the parents of the premature, that they changed the definition of rape. But they're being insulted for inactive doing nothing to liberalize abortion laws. And that was besides the October 15 election.

The hopes placed in those elections by the women were great, but from the beginning, we knew that these hopes were besides very different, just as each of us is different. However, in order to accomplish the goal we set ourselves in the campaign: to increase women's electoral attendance, we knew that it had to scope the widest possible audience. And this in turn meant that its “character”, content, passwords request to be combined alternatively than divided.

Therefore, by inviting further organizations to work with us, we were very restrictive and we cared very much about the fact that these organisations were actually apolitical. And that worked out great. Let me remind you that 107 NGOs signed a letter of intent confirming their participation in the campaign. However, we were very careful erstwhile it came to inviting these organizations...

Pro-abortion?

Yeah. Why? due to the fact that at the time abortion was a political subject and, as I mentioned earlier, choosing to launch a run from the beginning, I knew that I wanted to implement a political campaign. Therefore, requests for liberalisation of abortion law were not present in our campaign. Now, too, maintaining loyalty to women who have engaged in the campaign, I would alternatively not talk about abortion.

“Women know best what they want”

However, it is hard to escape this subject due to the fact that this belief in the doings of Poles in fresh years has not come out of nowhere. We felt it mostly on black marches, erstwhile bad at how women's rights in Poland are trampled on by the government, we went out on the streets, shouting: not a step further. Power stopped. We felt the strength.

And we have surely benefited from the campaign. We wanted the Women for Election run to scope the highest possible number of women, and that everyone should go to the polls regardless of motivation, political views or expectations.

Our drip was apolitical, due to the fact that I never had any uncertainty that being for something had much more strength than being against something. And I never doubted the wisdom and peril of women, and that they knew best what was good for them and what they wanted. And consistently believing this feminine wisdom, I don't want to tell women how to think.

At the same time, working with women and being a woman, I know that many of them needed support, strengthening, breathing religion in them, that they can decide on their own and that it is worth uncovering time for this 1 day, erstwhile all 4 years, to know who to vote for and give their crucial voice. On the occasion of the elections, we besides wanted to show that passiveness is part of the exclusion of ourselves, and yet all vote is important.

Turnout at the urns showed that going in specified a wide front had a spectacular result.

Indeed, the turnout among women in the election exceeded 74%, and the figures show that 65% of Poles met with social actions urging them to participate in the election before October 2023. Our run reached 34 percent of women, so indeed this effect was noticeable. But the run itself lasted only 40 days, although preparations for it over 7 months.

I remember the enthusiasm accompanying the campaign. Women texted us, called us, asked us if they could help. It was a minute erstwhile women actually believed that their voice was authentic. And we initially received messages like: “There is nothing I can do anyway”. In response, individual came up with a wonderful slogan that gained large popularity in the campaign: "My voice will not change anything," said 7 million women.

“Believing in a better next day came to an infirmity”

When asked why they were going to vote, the Poles most frequently replied: "I want change" (49%). This enthusiasm and sense of perniciousness accompanied a large proportion of women for any time after the election.

Some part of this enthusiasm was surely a consequence of the efforts made by those who became active in the promotion campaigns, which in Poland in 2023 truly appeared a lot. All those who worked on these campaigns in 1 way or another, we promoted the civic attitude and the request to take work for our fate. Another part of this enthusiasm was undoubtedly due to religion in a better tomorrow.

And what about the better tomorrow?

Indeed, religion in a better next day has now come upon any infirmity, any insignificance, or possibly passivity. Not much has happened. However, this does not mean giving up.

"There is simply a lot to do in the Polish education system"

An crucial aspect of the Women for Election run was its educational character. Many people, including women, do not go to elections due to the fact that they do not know who to vote for, or believe that no candidate is 100% right. And in the meantime, they found out that quite a few people are like that, and that it's not bad if they want to know what I can do about it.

The educational component of the run (aside from its apolitical and pro-bono activities) was its key value. Ladies working on the run prepared dozens of educational posts and answered hundreds of questions about how, where and erstwhile to vote precisely to give women the power to give them space and a place where they can ask and systematically gain assurance that it is not hard to consciously vote in parliamentary elections.

It turned out that Polish education has immense shortcomings in this area. If individual is raised in a household that has never voted, how can they know how to do it, where the polling place is, what the ballots look like or what the D’Hondt method is at all? This cognition and this data clearly show how much there is to be done in the Polish education system.

Are you convinced that that civic discipline didn't go into the woods? In the next election, after the October 15 turnout, the turnout was no longer as striking.

Right. At the same time, as we perceive to political scientists and sociologists, the biggest interest is the presidential and then parliamentary elections. So the fact that the next election after October 15 enjoyed little interest should not be surprising.

Civil society building is simply a process. Therefore, the presumption that as a consequence of 1 promotion campaign, even 1 that ended with specified a spectacular success as the Women for Election campaign, would be naive.

Such actions must be repeated many times. Basic work is inactive very, very needed. Repeating like a mantra that as citizens we fulfil dozens of obligations (we pay taxes, drive on a peculiar side of the street, accept a certain legal order, etc.) so we besides request to exercise our rights! In this, or possibly above all, electoral law. due to the fact that it's the only tool we gotta co-determine what country we want to live in.

"We have no choice but to vote"

You are talking about the apoliticalness of the "Women for elections" campaign, and I have found a message from 1 of the ambassadors of this action. She said: “I stopped imagining that politics have no impact on our everyday life.”

The apoliticalism of the run itself and the views of women who co-created it or were its ambassadors are 2 different things. After all, each of us had any political preference. However, all our attention and efforts have been focused on 1 overarching objective: to increase electoral attendance among women.

Women said they didn't want to take part in the election due to the fact that they don't know who to vote for, they're not curious in politics at all, they don't believe their voice matters at all.

Hence, the educational component of our run was crucial. We've been trying to build awareness that there is simply a direct link between political action and our lives. And if we are curious in the future of our loved ones, our children and ours, then we have no choice but to vote. Thanks to our voice, a political formation will be chosen, which will find the amount of our taxes, changes in our children's education strategy or the scope of medical care available to us.

My question is: when, as we have said, so small has changed for women, whether any women will think: it was not a illusion at all, politics did not affect my life better, my work was in vain, I was deceived.

I would have reversed these questions: if we hadn't mobilized then, we wouldn't have done so much to mobilise Poles, but besides Poles to go to elections, where would we be today? I realize the disappointment, I feel it myself, but I besides pay tribute to that act and the engagement of women in the electoral process. Did we want more? We most likely wanted to. Did that effort have a dream? So vast! And he was very pernicious.

Let us besides not devalue what has been accomplished. I inactive think we should not give up. It means that this voice of women and our natural determination, wisdom, affluence, multitasking, many specified cool things that can be obtained from women are inactive needed. That's why I appeal not to give up. We did something once, possibly we gotta do it 2 or 3 more times, due to the fact that it looks like there's no another way. Let's not let ourselves be forgotten.

“Women say: we are happy to do something again, but give us a circumstantial one”

Do you anticipate this kind of mobilization at the urns in May during the presidential election?

That's impossible to predict. But I know that any work has already begun. I'm approached by the girls who campaigned to encourage elections, mostly those youngest voters.

And what's important, they frequently say now: we're willing to take action again, we're willing to do something, but we'd alternatively do it in a situation where we're more specifically promised something. To make us feel like something truly concrete is going to happen, and we're going to be able to account for the politicians.

That it won't be like that again, that we'll hear later, that something wasn't in the coalition deal or that the coalition electorate won't swallow it. Right!

However, I have the question of how circumstantial this is, what promise would make this belief in politicians lost over the last 14 months.What was the flagship action of the ruling coalition so that women would actually say, yes, we can believe that. And I don't think it's just an abortion.

Marcin Terlik / Onet

Women's Strike protest 18 November 2020 – 1 of Marcin Terlik's photographs

"The number of women in politics and positions is inactive symbolic"

I think this assurance that this voice of women can be full heard, that we are visible, it is hard to look at the composition of the government. Women do not make up 30 percent of the cabinet.

That's the part of my disappointment I was talking about at first. The number of women in politics, in advanced positions, or in State Treasury companies is inactive symbolic. On the website of the Ministry of State Acts, it is noted that "the MAP has requested a company with the participation of the State Treasury to comply with the provisions of the Women on Boards Directive" (it commands a 33 % share of the under-represented sex on the boards of, among others, companies of the Treasury listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange) six months or a year earlier. So by the end of this calendar year.

The question is, how do we do that? due to the fact that if presently there are 9 people on the Board of Directors, of whom only 1 is simply a woman, then in order to scope the 33 percent share of the under-represented sex, i.e. women, or you gotta hire an additional 3 women (4/12), or, for example, release 2 gentlemen and hire 2 ladies (3/9). Both solutions are harmful to both sexes.

I can already hear these comments: and you are here for parity, not what your predecessor... specified a good expert was.

Yes, I imagine that comments like this might come up. At the same time, as my excellent colleague says, “as we have pneumonia, there is no way out, you request to take antibiotics” and “a disease” of the absence of women at management levels is so “heavy” that only parities can begin to heal it.

“We are masters in diminishing our competences”

Why is there inactive so much opposition to the appointment of women as presidents?

I think there are a fewer reasons. Much is due to social and cultural habits, the established fear of how a female can cope. But we ourselves are masters in diminishing our competences. erstwhile women ask if they want to take a position, they gotta ask them 3 times. The first time, he'll say no, the second time, he'll say no, and the 3rd time, he'll think about it. And just to be clear – this is the conviction I heard from the CEO erstwhile from a truly large company, who admitted that it took him respective years to realize it.

However, there are besides good examples – 1 of my colleagues who said goodbye to the corporations and did not plan to return to them, after 50 she took the exposed position of vice president in the company, which is led by the president not president.

What you are talking about are stereotypes taken from the years of the patriarchy, in which we were raised for decades in Poland. And they are alive in both men and women.

I so believe that this change in the function of women in exposed positions will not happen quickly. Work is needed on both sides: support for women to have this space for improvement and career, but besides to strengthen their self-esteem and ability to rationalise and nonsubjective the challenges possible employers are facing them. Their own standards and "bars" are mostly higher than those placed by the market. On the another hand, showing that diversity has large strength.

How can this diversity be helpful in the company?

There are already dozens of studies confirming the thesis that various teams have a immense advantage over these "no – diverse" ones, are more agile, more efficient, more innovative and more creative. Diversity is the driving force of change – thanks to it we can see a crucial wider spectrum of possibilities, take into account aspects that we could not see without diversity, or make decisions that will reflect much better the reality in which we live. 'Cause reality is just crazy diverse.

"Fear to Think What the Effects Will Be"

At first you mentioned that you are disappointed with the deficiency of dialog that could end the Polish-Polish war. I have the impression that at the rally of presidential candidates, individual inactive ends the Polish-Polish war. I have doubts about the methods to which they reach, but possibly we just request a bottom-up action again, which would be an appeal for Poles to reconcile with each other?

Such an action would have a chance of success if besides the decision-makers, those who form the law but at the same time form the political discourse, got involved, showed that they care.

The fact that quite a few citizens go to elections depends on everyone due to the fact that their political careers depend on it. But why should anyone care about putting out a dispute that is electoral fuel for most of the Polish political scene?

And I will ask another question: how can religion in the power of diversity and the elimination of the Polish-Polish war become a fuel – a motor of good change? What is the request for narratives, what arguments, to convince people socially, that the level of demolition of society around the Polish-Polish war is so large that if we do not do something now, then fear to think what the consequences will be.

In conclusion, however, I would like to stress that passiveness, disappointment and sadness are what takes energy to act. To change things, you gotta do something. Therefore, I thank all those who responded to our appeal in October 2023 and went to elections. And I can only ask: consider this effort at the time as a individual contribution to civilian society building and be our ambassadors for the next election. Praise, share what motivated you. And I personally believe that, although this civilian society building is going slowly, we will not quit and that we will be able to build it.