Poland

13th March 2009

International Ladies Day, celebrated annually on March 8th, was observed by a series of demonstrations around Poland, demanding better treatment for women. The now traditional Manifa marches took place in Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk, with women’s rights movements co-opting the day that was once the epitome of patronising male attitudes towards their female counterparts.

In the 1980s Ladies Day emphasised the decorous aspects of women’s nature, as emonstrated
by the Andrzej Rosiewicz song ‘Polish girls have the most vitamins’, and much flower giving was in evidence. Now it is the feminist demonstrators in Krakow that are handing out the flowers. The Young Democrats handed out orange tul ...