Agnieszka Graff
Field of expertise: women’s and feminist movement; gender and politics; literary criticism
Writer, translator, academic, feminist and women’s rights activist. She graduated from Oxford University, Amherst College, and School of Social Sciences at Polish Academy of Sciences. She completed her PhD in English literature in 1999. She works at the Warsaw University’s Institute of the Americas and Europe.
She is a co-founder of women’s organisation Porozumienie Kobiet 8 Marca (8th March Women’s Coalition), one of the first co-organizers of the annual “Manifa” (women’s march in Warsaw).
In 2001 she published her first book, “World without women: gender in Polish public life” commenting on absence of women in public sphere. Second book “Ricochet: on gender, sexuality, and nation” commented on relationship between nationalism, gender, and women’s political and reproductive rights in Poland. The most recent book, published in 2010 “Magma: and Other Attempts to Understand, What’s Up with It” analyses connection between Catholicism, especially political position of the Catholic Church in Poland, and the status of women.
Her essays were published in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Literatura na ?wiecie”, “Zadra” (feminist magazine), and “Krytyka Polityczna”.

Agnieszka Magdalena Grzybek
Field of expertise: women’s and feminist movement; gender and politics; gender equality policies
Feminist, women’s and human rights activist, translator, journalist.
Since 1997 she is active participant of Polish feminist movement. She started in OSKA (Information Centre for Women’s Organisations) and was its director between 2002 and 2005. She is a co-founder of Porozumienie Kobiet 8 Marca (8th March Women’s Coalition), informal group organising annual march demanding equal rights of women “Manifa”. Between 2002 and 2005 she was a member of Programme Council at Governmental Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men office and a member of EU Programme EQUAL monitoring committee. In 2004–2005 member of European Women’s Lobby. She is a member of the Green Party and was its co-president in 2008-2010. She is a member of “Krytyka Polityczna” (Political Critique). Recently she is a co-ordinator of a programme “Gender democracy/gender politics” at Heinrich Böll Fundation. Translator of several books on gender-related issues, co-author (with Joanna Piotrowska) of “Polityka a p?e?” (“Politics and gender” publ. H. Böll Fundation, 2005).

Anna Laszuk
Field of expertise: women’s movement; LGBT rights
Feminist, author, journalist, reporter, activist in non-governmental organisations.
Feminist and president of women’s association OLA-Archiwum. She workes for several radio stations, running programmes about tolerance and minorities (including sexual minorities) rights. She published in leading daily newspapers: “Rzeczpospolita” and “Gazeta Wyborcza”. Author of documentary book about life of Polish lesbians: “Dziewczyny, wyjd?cie z szafy!” (Girls, get out of the closet!). Chief editor of lesbian and feminist journal “Furia”, created for and by non-heteronormative women.

Katarzyna Bratkowska
Field of expertise: feminist and women’s movements; women’s reproductive rights; employees’ rights
Feminist, activist in women’s and left movements, literary critic, musician, academic.
She is a co-founder of Porozumienie Kobiet 8 Marca (8th March Women’s Coalition), member of Committee for Assistance and Defence of Repressed Employees, member of feminist hip-hop group Duldung. In 2006 she created informal group Pro Choice that has developed into Association “Same o Sobie. S.O.S.!” fighting for legal abortion in Poland.
She published in “Res Publica Nowa”, “Biuletyn OSKa”, “Czas Kultury”, “Gazeta Wyborcza”, and in several edited academic volumes on women and gender. She used to teach at Gender Studies at Warsaw University. Now she works at Higher School of Journalism in Warsaw.

Selection

Report on the selection process by the Polish FRAGEN team

Four experts-activists of feminist and women’s movement and academics were asked to select 5-10 most important texts and manifestos of Polish post-war women’s movement. They provided long lists of texts.

Texts selected by the experts cover the period from the late 90’s to the most recent times. It is interesting that no texts from socialist times were selected.

Several texts were indicated by more than one expert, so they were shortlisted. Other texts were selected on the basis on priority given by the experts. Unfortunately due to lack of permission from owners of authorship rights longer texts (usually books) couldn’t be selected.