Jakub Majmurek: Everyone is wondering what made the presidential elections decide like this and not otherwise. What function could men’s emotions play?
Andrzej Gryżewski: For 20 years, I have worked as a psychotherapist and sexologist, and I have never seen a run in Poland fight so fiercely between different archetypes of manhood as this year. The run played on emotions all the time, seldom went into rational arguments, and the main magnet was who would offer a more attractive model of manhood.
And did Nawrocki do it better?
AG: I am sad to admit that Nawrocki handled this best, and Trzaskowski handled it worst. In fresh years, a number of changes have been made in Poland: the emancipation of women in both the professional and sexual sphere, where women have increasingly consciously begun to talk about their needs, and the increasing awareness of the fact that there are respective equal sexual orientations. These are changes that appeal to the progressive side and at the same time origin a sense of danger in many men.
I hear this in my office, where patients – besides wealthy people, working as developers, for example – say that they do not know what is going on with all these "transnistors", "men in heels" – how they talk contemptuously about transgender people. They complain that abruptly they must learn to usage feminists or even preferred pronouns. Even patients mostly not hostile to these changes feel overloaded with all the cognition they request to master. Others after #MeToo were afraid that individual would accuse them besides and go to jail.
Under these conditions, Nawrocks come in white and say that “there are only 2 boxes”. Liberal intellectuals laughter at it, but many men react: “Well, individual yet said what it was like! Reality is simple’. And that's not true. Reality is complicated and it is our work to keep up with it.
Wojciech Laugh: The full run was built around male fears. CBOS has late done investigation on this subject and it has emerged from them that men present fear completely different things in Poland than women. Women's fears focus on climate change or wellness care collapse, men's concerns about the economical consequences of climate change and the fight against them – e.g. that the Green Deal will destruct their jobs or take distant the right to a car – LGBT and migration. Additionally, fear of military conscription
The right frequently talks about migration as a origin of danger to women, presenting migrants as possible sex offenders.
AG: Yes, but even this message responds to male sexual fears: migrants will come and seduce or defile our partners. The fear of LGBT and Green Deal besides refers to a very intimate sense of masculinity: it is simply a fear that “the elgiebies will take distant our manhood” or that within the Green Deal we will inactive gotta separate the garbage, clean up after ourselves, etc. – which any men perceive as something that puts them up, feminizes, resembles small girls. It is fear that men may not be able to afford a car through European Union policies, which strikes a crucial sense of financial competence and autonomy.
WŚ: Automotive autonomy is simply a very crucial social and political origin at all today. In the Czech Republic even a right-wing populist organization of drivers (Motoristé sobě) was created, fighting for the rights of this group. In Poland Mentzen or Braun raised akin demands. CBOS' investigation shows that manhood is powerfully linked to having a driver's license, in the opinion of many men polled without it is not rather a man. So I'm not certain that the fight against communication exclusion speaks to you.
Politologists specified as Rafał Chwedoruk put the thesis that the crucial hidden motive of the run were the fears of young men to drag Poland into the war in Ukraine, to reconstruct the collection and send them to the front. This was expected to boost the support of the most anti-Ukrainian candidates. Would you agree with that diagnosis?
WWW: Yes, I think the fear of conscription may have been 1 of the components of the anti-Ukrainian emotion propelling Mentzen and Braun's support. possibly the promises of a tough policy towards Kiev – besides made by Nawrocki – were besides interpreted as a commitment: we will not send you to war.
And at the same time, no 1 in the run spoke out that fear. possibly due to the fact that fear of conscription and war is inactive seen as unmanly. Despite the fact that the military service in Poland has long been not regarded as an crucial rite of passage for men.
At the same time, conscription and defence work are an crucial part of men's policies in Poland. We have a political actor fighting for the rights of men – the Association for Boys and Men – who points to a work of defence and unequal retirement age as examples of discrimination against men in Poland and, among others, builds his position as a spokesperson for men's interests.
Did Nawrocki respond to all those men's fears we talked about?
AG: He did more, sent a message to men: I return your male honor, your male freedom, you can do anything.
Prostitutes? Look at me, I've become president with my past, standing on phase next to my household and my wife, who supports me no substance what my past, and people applaud me as a winner. Drugs? Look, I took a dream on the air and it didn't halt my victory. Violence? I myself have admitted that I was in the lineup, and now I am in the highest office in the country.
Nawrocki impressed voters due to the fact that he mostly normalized male behaviors that were socially stigmatized as embarrassing and violent. Nawrocki sends a message to his constituents: you can be “male men”, it is crucial to be physically strong, to spend time in the male group. Men who constantly hear how to change, learn sensitivity, learn to talk to women, catch on to this message. In my office, they explain that they have had adequate of their constantly moving social expectations.
WŚ: At the same time, Nawrocki's manhood was so sketched that frequently consecutive cabaret. He constantly called on Trzaskowski to fight for masculinity, asked him in what percent he was male, threw slogans of the kind "after 50 it would be worth being a man." Take this dream – it was a superb move: Trzaskowski says something, builds arguments, and Nawrocki makes it completely invalid, makes everyone talk about the dream alternatively of what Trzaskowski said. Nawrocki, thus directing his spectacle of masculinity, learned clearly from Trump, it was an American franchise.
Trzaskowski offered a completely different imagination of manhood?
AG: I have the impression that Trzaskowski made very small of an offer to men in the campaign. He frequently presented himself primarily as a safe partner for a woman. Men, watching his campaign, may have felt like they had come to the travel agency, where there is an offer of vacation for couples and for signieks, but there is no for lonely men. And if we don't convince any female to pair us up, we're not going anywhere.
Trzaskowski offered eloquent manhood, understanding, patient, climate delicate – and this is inactive a small song of the future, for which not all Polish men are prepared. It is besides not that this offer does not scope men in Poland – yet 4 million in the second circular voted for Trzaskowski. However, Nawrocki's proposal goes to the wider group. besides to those who accept the direction of change, they know, for example, that homosexual orientation is something completely average and acceptable, but they do not keep up with science, they feel tired that they must constantly adapt to the changing planet and that it is all happening at specified a rate.
Andrzej talked about the election as a clash between different male archetypes of manhood. How could those represented by Nawrocki be compared to the models of manhood in Polish culture? What historical or literary figure could it be compared to?
WW: Various comparisons appeared in the campaign: to Edek from Tanga Ice cream for Nicodemus Dysma. But more than Dyzma Nawrocka resembles Matthew Buda from the 1930s fresh by Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski. The peasant leader Bigda – a character modeled on Witos – with his plebeian male energy, submits to the full political scene of the inter-war, full of weak, shaky, corrupt leaders, who even melt in his presence.
The fresh Baden-Kandrowski adapted in 1999 for the tv Theatre Andrzej Wajda. It was a period erstwhile the elites were terrified of Lepper's emergence in political importance and analogies were obvious. present there are practically no specified peasants in Poland as erstwhile Lepper organized star marches to the capital. There is no Lepper, but the energy of folk anger around Nawrocki is akin – and akin are the reactions of elites.
From more contemporary references I would point to Polish-Russian War Maslovian. Nawrocki is about the same age as Strong. Just as he comes from Gdańsk and is associated with the kibolski world. Nawrocki is the Strong 1 who traded his tracksuit for a suit, made his PhD, became manager of the museum, and yet became president-elect. If Masłówska wrote this as a continuation, it would be rather a far-reaching story, and it turns out to be our distant future.
This Kibol context is very crucial here. W An Amazing Slav Maria Janion wrote about the peculiar function played by homosexual groups of men in organizing Polish politics: philomatics, pillars, legionaries of Piłsudski, forests from the AK and AL. In fresh decades – and this is what Janion has written about – this function has been taken over by fans.
So far, all presidents but Wales have signed up for intelligence, in line with the ideas of the mediate class. Nawrocks bring a change here?
WW: The mediate class created a model of a restrained man who accumulates energy for work, and a image of the president as a statesman. Nawrocks did not enter this model as a candidate. As president, he may effort to aspire to the figure of a statesman, but the base of this will be rather different from the previous.
Trzaskowski's defeat, which perfectly fits both of these patterns, is the consequence of a weakening – economic, cultural, political – mediate class. It is simply a derivative of the fact that the liberal model that we erstwhile believed so profoundly in is becoming little and little effective. Against him is the global wave of conservative revolution, bringing to power another strong, fatherly, patriarchal figures. We besides see this in our region: in Slovakia we have Robert Fica, in Hungary Orbána, in Serbia Vučića.
At the same time, this image of Nawrocki's masculinity complicates a small bit the fact that he is not a politically independent man – as well as Trzaskowski. no of these 2 are politically "fathers", both are "sons" conducting a fight on behalf of their political "fathers" – Kaczyński and Tuska.
WŚ: Nawrocki has taken advantage of this situation much better. He tagged Trzaskowski as vice-president, which was castrating. due to the fact that who's the vice president? individual who runs with papers behind the boss, who yet signs and makes decisions. Vice-President means nothing – like Ignacy, to bring up a malicious saying about president Muscicki
AG: Nawrocki effectively cast Trzaskowski in the function of a school licker, nerd, "Bonzure", cable. individual to tell you what your friends do. Sam has played the function of the popular bully on the last bench. On the 1 hand, he introduces panic in the school, on the another hand, he frequently impresses those boys who deficiency specified manhood and peril, whom we and the teachers say: “Learn not to be like this Nawrock.”
The second candidate alongside Nawrocki with a very strong sex gap support was Sławomir Mentzen. What male emotions and desires did he develop?
AG: He told young men: You can be an outsider. There's nothing incorrect with that, you can stand aside, prosecute yourself as a man, making money. Let us remember that the “system” for young Polish men is primarily their teacher in the school, who cannot manage their youthful energy, who constantly disciplines the boys and tries to push them into the school framework to be polite like girls. erstwhile they return to school, the same young men face overprotective mothers, saying to them: don't do that, you can't, that's what you're working on now.
Mentzen has an offer for them: you don't gotta conform to the expectations of your teachers who don't realize anything. They most likely don't really know what bitcoin is. You don't gotta do what your mothers anticipate you to do. You can meet as an entrepreneur, I will remove barriers that prevent you from gaining wealth and confirming your masculinity in this role. He himself by his financial success shows that this can work, responds to the request for the origin of young men.
WŚ: In Polish culture, the figure of the same made-man, confirming his masculinity through financial success, never full constituted. Wokulski in Dolls Despite success, he breaks down under the burden of unrequited love. Karol Borowiecki in Promised Land He becomes a millionaire, but it's not very lucky. The real equivalents of Wokulski and Borowiecki were thrown under the feet of history, preventing capital accumulation: for partitions, wars, communes.
Józef Chałasiński dreamed about the Polish self-made mana figure in his Dmowski publicist, about peasants-businessmen before the war, then it was taken over by Corvinists, now Mentzen embodies it. He offers young men a imagination in which they can compete with each another in the market, not with fists, but with brains, triggering their own resourcefulness and entrepreneurship.
How could the figure of Grzegorz Braun be read in terms of the archetypes of manhood? Is this the Sarmata from the time of the bar confederation that hit the 21st century? Combined in addition to the juridical Rasputin type? Or the modern incarnation of the Gnome of the Puchamous of Coils Hello?
WW: Gnebon, head of Dzierski Boys, is nevertheless the incarnation of a force that Braun does not have. I don't know if you've seen his posters – my vicinity is full of them – on which he drops his glasses, looking like a noble, conservative expert, specified Bronisław Geremek 2.0. Braun has a very strong intelligent component in him, even if present he is an intelligent 1 declassified by his extremist views. He speaks very consciously in beautiful Polish, seduces with phrase and deep voice.
I'm watching his movie about the firewood apparitions, it's made very American and hula now in parish halls. So he could collect the survivors of “moher berets”, but besides go to men's groups looking for support in religion – we have any of them in Poland, various Knights of Mary, etc. As a regular reader of the “Sunday Guest”, I know that the Church started searching for opportunities to scope young men respective years ago.
AG: But besides to the top spiritual radicals. A fewer years ago, I had specified a criminal experience. A man who, for spiritual reasons, disliked gay rights felt that if he killed a sexologist helping them, it would make this problem vanish in Poland. So he followed me for a long time with bayonet and virtually tried to butcher me. He ended up in prison, but he stalked me for six months. Unfortunately, we have any people on whom politicians build their electoral capital, reviving them with utmost emotions of anger, fear or hatred.
WW: I have akin experience. In 2018, I was interned at Cetre for the survey of Men and Masculinity at Stony Brook University, fresh York. It is directed by 1 of the most prominent men's investigation specialists, Michael Kimmel. I felt like I grabbed your god's legs. By the time the emails began coming to the center from a man outraged by our research, which he felt someway took distant his manhood or lowered his rank. He threatened to come to the university and shoot us. In the United States, akin threats are taken very seriously, and a strategy to defend us was immediately launched.
Then I thought: in Poland we truly have good, my biggest problem is Ziobro, who in worst case will say any unpleasant words. However, the problem with Braun is that he straight introduces force into politics. During the campaign, he attacked an abortion doctor. What is the American franchise again – in the US, attacks on abortion clinics are a constant component of radical, spiritual right.
Even on the left, Magdalena Biejat and Joanna Senyszyn were ahead of Adrian Zandberg, portrayed in the run as “wiking” and “woodman”. Is that a sign of the remasking of the left?
AG: Zandberg, even due to its size, perfectly fits the pattern of a male defender, individual who serves his strength throughout the community, protects her from dangers.
WW: My children are dedicated Zandbergers. They told me that at Zandberg's rallies the main audience were young, “alternative” girls. erstwhile I went to see Mentzen's rally, I was found with a very distinctive picture: looking at young men's “leader” and their girls hanging around, trying to get their boys' attention somehow, mostly unsuccessfully.
Why can Zandberg be more attractive to young women than Magdalena Biejat?
AG: erstwhile I was watching an interview with Biejat, I felt like dealing with a nerd, with individual from whom I downloaded. specified people in school usage their peers alternatively than like them.
WW: I had a akin feeling. But the phenomenon in this election was for me Joanna Senyszyn. The professor's corals will stay a symbol of this campaign. Her start in the election is simply a sign of a certain social change. A generation of alleged moher berets – poor, elderly, very spiritual women – is dying out, and fresh ones emerge: seniors who no longer perceive to Rydzyk's father or any another priest, are not dependent on their husband, they have their put-down capital and life energy. This could be an crucial election niche in the future.
What can the liberal and progressive side do to guarantee that all the emotions you talk about are not managed by right-wing candidates?
AG: First of all, present any offer for men in the campaign, which Trzaskowski did not do. possibly if it were another candidate, e.g. Radek Sikorski, it would have worked, even though not peculiarly changing the message. Sikorski feels more manhood and can talk to men, he is little oblivious. He fought in Afghanistan and those Nawrock setups would have sucked his nose in.
WW: This is not just a problem of candidate or run error, but a question about the offer for men present in the crisis of liberal order, washed distant by a conservative revolution, in which a turn towards masculinity is made – even if sometimes political leaders of this revolution are women, like Sara Wagenknecht in Germany, Giorgia Meloni in Italy or Marine Le Pen France.
AG: Poland, after choosing Nawrocki, can feel like a female who realizes that she is in a relation with a violent partner. The liberal-left side must make its firm, strong, masculine, and yet unstressing figures. At 1 time Tusk felt it, who after political work worked hard with his colleagues, but grew old. The question is whether individual will be able to propose something similar, speaking to men of younger generations.
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Andzej Gryżewski – founder of Arte Vita Institute, psychologist, sexologist, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, schema therapist. Author of the best-selling book "The Art of penis operation", which has just landed on the boards of the Żeromski Theatre entitled "The Horse on Knight". He is co-author of the award-winning podcast Vaginal and penis dialogues. Scientifically specializes in the area of manhood and male sexuality.
Wojciech Szmieja – Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice, a literary student and Polish scholar, has been studying sex representation and expression in culture, literature and public discourse for over 20 years. Visiting student at Centre for the Man and Masculinities Studies at Stony Brook University, fresh York. Author of 5 technological monographs and respective twelve articles. In October 2024 his book was published After valor – history of manhood in Poland (Czarne edition, 2024).
