Polish Mother and (Not) Her Children: Intersectional State-Violence against Minors in Poland

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the political responsibility that Polish right-wing female politicians directly associated with the 2015–2023 Polish government and the then-ruling Law and Justice Party bear in the state-sanctioned violence against minors in the context of LGBT- and immigration-related issues. Its main assumption is that, in times of the nationalist surge that has been sweeping Poland, women using anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses helped to legitimize discriminatory state practices and, consequently, made a significant contribution to the enactment of white, Christian, and heteronormative identity on Polish children. Drawing upon Critical Discourse Analysis, this work examines the anti-LGBT and anti-immigration political talk by female politicians who, in their narrative strategies, adopt the position of a “Polish mother” on a mission to save a “child in danger”. Through my analysis, I aim to demonstrate that anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses are equally significant areas of women’s political engagement. Despite the prevalent cultural norms of caring motherhood, women do exercise their agency in political struggles as supporters of discriminatory state policies directed against minors by re-politicizing a symbolic figure of the “Polish mother”.

Keywords

• right-wing women
• nationalism
• anti-LGBT
• anti-immigration
• xenophobia
• critical discourse analysis