Regendering defence through a national-conservative platform? The case of Polish paramilitary organizing

ABSTRACT

Following the war in Ukraine and other security challenges of non-military nature, Poland has recorded novel processes of re-militarization, with the resurgence of volunteer paramilitary organizing constituting one potent example. In the otherwise gender blind public discourse on defence developments, the latter were incidentally narrated as intrinsically entangled with patriarchal gender relations and illiberal ‘anti-gender’ politics, reflecting dominant feminist frameworks on militarization as a process entrenching gender inequality. Drawing from extensive fieldwork with paramilitary organizations, this paper explores the gender-paramilitary nexus in Poland through engaged, CMS-driven methods and frameworks. It argues that despite the paramilitary movement’s national-conservative platform, significant processes of regendering of the practice and idea of defence are nevertheless occurring on the ground. The paper traces them on three interconnected planes: women’s growing and largely uncontested presence in the movement; the revaluing of civilian-feminine lines of activity within the sector’s dual project of civil society in defence; and the largely egalitarian organizational culture, which engages both men and women in its dual, civic-martial practices, thus further destabilizing the link between defence and military masculinity. In this context, the paper suggests that the male-dominated character of paramilitary organizing is fuelled predominantly by socio-structural factors related to the feminization of social reproduction in Poland that the movement sees as unproblematic and external to its agenda. Lending analytical support to gender and CMS literature, the paper argues that uncovering gendered complexity and change in unlikely sites can aid more productive forms of feminist critique.

KEYWORDS:

• Paramilitary organizing
• militarization
• gender
• regendering
• Poland

Acknowledgments

The primary research conducted for the purpose of this study occurred as part of the Author’s doctoral dissertation, which was accepted and defended May 2020, and thus followed the institution’s methodological and ethical standards administered by the scientific board.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. While public discussions on Polish defence reforms have been largely gender blind, singular gender experts commenting for the media tended to narrate militarization as a process intrinsically tied to patriarchal gender relations, with masculinity scholar Wojciech Śmieja seeing it as entrenching ‘paramilitary, patriarchal, misogynist masculine identities’ (Podgórska 2017), and feminist public intellectual Magdalena Środa discussing recent Polish military parades as entangled with the ‘militarist-necrophiliac character of patriarchal societies’ (Gąsior 2017).

2. According to data acquired from the Polish MOD, by 2020, women constituted 16% of TDF, 43% of students in the Certified Military Classes, and 39% of students in the Military Preparation Branches.

3. In international literature, the concept of paramilitarism has varying definitions depending on the historical and political context studied, used to denote a variety of state, non-state or pro-state armed or military-like groups which undertake national security tasks (Scobell and Hammitt 1998). In Polish policy discourse, the concept is applied to defence organizations that mimic military organization and culture, thus differing from scouts, veterans’ organizations or historical re-enactment groups (Dryblak 2015a). Contemporary paramilitary sector includes local units of five different Riflemen’s Associations, local branches of the Academic Legion, as well as newer organizations such as Combat Alert, FIA, SWOT, ObronaNarodowa.pl or Vis et Honour.

4. I borrow the term ‘unrepresented world’ from the manifesto of Polish poets Kornhauser and Zagajewski (1974) that urged artists to shine the spotlight on social issues that escaped official representations. In recent years, similar voices were raised in Polish social sciences, with scholars reflecting on the failure of mainstream Polish sociology to adequately capture post-1989 social reality by privileging research applying ‘aspirational’ models onto the Polish society over qualitative studies exploring complex processes on the ground.

5. For a more exhaustive discussion of feminist literature on military institutions, militarism and militarization, see e.g. Stern and Zalewski 2009, Elveren and Moghadam 2019.

6. In order to ensure anonymity, all interviewees are identified with a pseudonym.

7. The Estonian National Defence League (Kaitseliit) recreated after the Cold War sustains gender-specific organizations such as Women`s Voluntary Defence Organization (Naiskodukaitse), the Home Daughters (Kodutütred) for girls, and the Young Eagles (Noored Kotkad) for boys. In Finland, where men undergo compulsory conscription, civilian women can gain defence-related skills through trainings offered by the Women’s National Emergency Preparedness Association.