Próby uobywatelnienia kobiet w okresie dwudziestolecia międzywojennego na łamach „Bluszczu”

Abstract

The article discusses the difficult process of including women as full citizens in the creation of the reborn Polish state in the interwar period in the Warsaw weekly “Bluszcz”. It shows the liberation of women from men’s supremacy through the active work of women’s organizations in the country and on the international arena, the abolition of social stereotypes, the perception of their role in the society by men and women themselves. The fact of granting the electoral rights to Polish women by Marshal Józef Piłsudski in 1918 did not eliminate the legal impairment of Polish women, because for many years, also after the unification of legislation in Poland in 1932, women’s organizations have fought the legal and moral tradition of Napoleon’s code, for equal property and matrimonial rights, for the right to custody of a child after divorce, for the right to work and equal pay in the same positions, for the right to education and other. Many articles about equality in the „Ivy” in the interwar period were aimed at strengthening the women’s self-esteem and showed them the path towards their self-empowerment (“citizenation”). The enlightened journalists appealed to the Polish women to take their fate into their own hands and, in a sense of civic duty, join the current of political, social, economic, cultural and scientific life.