Between womanhood as ideal and womanhood as a social practice: women’s experiences in the Church organisation in Poland

ABSTRACT

Using the conceptual framework proposed by Susan Sered and institutional gender theories, this article analyses the relationship between the symbolic and idealised image of femininity with which Catholic women working in the organisations of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland identify themselves and practices of femininity in the structures of Church institutions. I locate the difficulties experienced by women in the Church in realising this symbolic image of femininity. At the same time, I identify the strategies taken by women as ways of dealing with the difficulties and as practices of achieving normative femininity in unfavourable circumstances. I analyse three types of strategies: sacralising difficulties and experienced barriers, familiarising relationships in the Church, and affirming femininity. The article examines the content of interviews conducted between 2012 and 2015 with 31 laywomen working in Church organisations in 15 dioceses in Poland and in the Episcopal Conference, who held three types of positions: office workers/secretaries, professionals, and directors.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• religion
• Roman Catholic Church
• femininity
• Poland

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion and the editors of this issue for their very useful and inspirational suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All the names used in this article are pseudonyms.

2. A diocesan curia is a set of organs and people which/who support the diocesan bishop in managing the entire diocese (see Vatican 1983, can. 469).

3. This multidimensionality, following Anthias (2013), can be defined in terms of intersectionality, meaning that the relationship between status hierarchises the positions of women and men in the social structure and organises the power relations between them.

4. Therefore, religious organisations appear here as masculinised areas and this masculinisation may take different forms. It is visible, for instance, in the feminisation of low positions in the structure of institutions, the distribution of power among men or the marginalisation of women, which—in the situation of formal equality—reduces women to tokens. Obviously—and this will be especially visible in the analysis of the empirical material—masculinisation can also take place in these structures indirectly, when—under the pretence of neutrality and professionalisation of work—values perceived as masculine are preferred (i.e. commitment to professional work, availability, working extra hours), which makes finding a balance between work and life impossible (Acker 1990; Stewart-Thomas 2009, 408).

5. I present the results of the research project in my book, which refers to categories of strategy. I wrote about different but common patterns of practice for men and women in the Roman Catholic Church. However, I analysed the strategies in a general and less detailed way than in this article. (Leszczyńska 2016a)

6. As my interlocutors worked in hierarchical and highly formalised structures and as the topic of the conversations concerned their work experience, the recruitment of my interlocutors began with the written consent for interviews from their superiors (bishops and curia chancellors, who coordinate the administrative work of the various institutions of the curia and the people employed in them). Along with letters asking for permission to carry out research, I sent a description of the project, written in accessible language. I was asked several times to send details about the topics discussed in the interviews for approval by the curia chancellors. None of the chancellors or bishops interfered regarding the content of the questions asked. Generally, I was pointed to my interlocutors by the chancellors and on several occasions I chose the persons to be interviewed from lists presented by the chancellors. Representatives of the three categories mentioned in the article—headteachers, specialists, office employees—were chosen by me.

7. Some of the information from the methodology section refers to conclusions presented in Leszczyńska 2016b.

8. Methodological individualism is a heuristic perspective which pays attention to the analysis of human activities/social practices as well as various social institutionalised determinants of these activities (see Chmielewski 2011, 408).

9. Elżbieta, who worked as a curial specialist, reported that the multitude of duties and permanent availability that her Church employer expected made it hard to form private intimate relationships or start a family. Honorata, also single, told a similar story about her work: “They’re really unlimited working hours. Sometimes I abandon my private plans, for the weekend, for example, because there’s [description of an event].” (Personal interview, 5 March 2013)

10. In Catholicism, recollections are periods of time, consisting of various events—mainly religious services led by priests—which aim at religious renewal.

Additional information

Funding

The research on which this article is based was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (decision number DEC-2011/01/B/HS6/01753).

Notes on contributors

Katarzyna Leszczyńska

Katarzyna Leszczyńska—AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland—is a sociologist in the Faculty of Humanities. One of her research interests is the sociology of religion and gender. Currently, she is a project leader in a study funded by the National Science Centre in Poland on the relationship between gender, religious and migration organisations, and the multi-cultural context in England, Belgium, and Sweden (2015–2019). CORRESPONDENCE: Faculty of Humanities, AGH University of Science and Technology, Gramatyka 8a, 30-071 Kraków, Poland.