Voices of Women : en narrativ studie av Black Protest strejker mot strängare abortlag i Polen och Sverige

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to highlight the emergence and spread of black protest, with a focus on Warsaw and Cracow in Poland, as well as Malmö in Sweden, from the participants’ perspective. Together with a historical background and theoretical discussion, I analysed the “Voices of Women” petition from the International Women’s Strike, and five qualitative research interviews with participants of the strikes. Through this analyses I wanted to show how Poland’s struggle against a stricter abortion law grew overnight and affected women around the world. In this study I focused on answering these two questions: how is the emergence and spread of black protest depicted by the petition and the participating activists? How are their narratives related to the notions of gender, global feminism and social movements? The main conclusion of the study is that the stricter law against abortion sparked an outrage in Poland, with a lot of women feeling lonely and angry. These emotions manifested into black protest, which was executed in a more radical way than what is common for Polish women. Black protest awoken a new side of Polish feminism that has not been seen before. The situation in Poland sparked outrage in other countries, for example Sweden, where they also decided to host black protest in Malmö in solidarity with the Polish women. Later on, black protest inspired the International Women’s Strike. It spread globally, and around fifty-five countries participated in it. Due to the black protest many women in Poland started questioning the existing gender system and the Catholic church’s position in society, as it is one of the main causes for women’s oppression in Poland. Black protest also inspired more women to find their voices and create different grassroots organisations to fight for women’s rights, but also other less talked about issues in Poland