Second Week in Krakow

This is a bit delayed and it is being confirmed, affirmed, and reaffirmed that I am very skilled at not updating. But I am going to keep trying to get better. I am in Prague right now, but first some updates about my second week in Krakow. 

On Thursday, we took the three hour train from Krakow to Warsaw in the morning and came back in the evening. For a round trip and a long day with lots of room for things to suck, it was a smooth day and very worth the trip. We had both of our lectures in the Federation for Women's Health and Family Planning, which is the only pro-choice organization in all of Poland. Our first lecture was from the director of the Federation. Abortion in Poland is only legal under three circumstances: when the woman's life or health is endangered by the continuation of pregnancy, when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act, or when the fetus is seriously malformed. Unfortunately, even in cases that fall under one of these three circumstances, getting a legal abortion in Poland is terrifyingly difficult. For example, our first lecturer told us about a woman who had very poor eye sight and the doctors told her that if she had her child she was likely to become almost fully blind. But even with the first doctor's permission, when she went to receive the abortion, the second doctor convinced her not to go through with it, tore up the first doctors permission slip, and she is now nearly blind as the first doctor predicted. So, yeah, abortion in Poland, woah. The second lecture we had in Warsaw was from a Trans activist. The issues he talked about were a bit complicated and quite embedded in an understanding of queer theory, but it was a really cool lecture because it wasn't frequent in Poland that we walked away feeling empowered and optimistic, but he brought a very difficult issue to a place that was in fact empowering and excitingly new. 


I ended my stay in Krakow on Friday by interviewing a feminist economist who teaches at the university. We each have to complete our own independent research and I am (in a very brief description) looking at maternity and paternity leave policies coloration to how care is gendered in cultural understandings and representations of parents. So this professor is in the middle of writing a book (although is on a break because she is currently, and ironically, on maternity leave herself) about care work in Poland. I met her at her house and we talked for a good hour and a half and she gave some great resources and we really hit it off. Part of our connection has to do with a really random coincidence. While I was waiting for her to begin the interview, I saw an OSU beer opener on a set of keys on their kitchen table. It turns out that she and her husband lived in Columbus for two years while he was in grad school. So we talked about Ohio and Columbus and how happy she was that she didn't end up taking a teaching job at Bowling Green. They also love mountains and have been to Glacier National Park five times. What I am really trying to say here is that they should maybe consider adopting me (sorry Mom and Dad) because we have so many overlaps. Maybe I could just be adopted as a cousin. 

On my walk to class

The square

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