Library Dissertation Showcase

The Catholic Church institution and its teachings as conducive context(s) for domestic violence in Poland: critical discourse analysis of Polish Catholic media

  • Year of Publication:
  • 2022

There is a significant amount of research published on domestic violence and intimate partner violence. Very few studies, however, investigate the role religious teachings and the general position of the Church play in male violence toward women. This study will analyse how the narrative of the Church regarding family and gender roles may be seen as conducive context(s) (Kelly, 2005) for domestic violence (DV) to prevail. Due to recent violations of women’s rights in Poland (Wężyk, 2021; Amnesty International, 2021; Strzyżyńska, 2022; Chatarabarti, 2020), and due to the state being one of the most Catholic in Europe (Wee, 2017), it is Polish women’s situation that this paper focuses on. By using critical discourse analysis (CDA), three prevailing themes have been found: firstly, the majority of materials focus on explaining what a normal family should look like, and what are women’s and men’s roles within it; secondly, when (or more so, if) talking about conflict in a family, the focal point is mainly directed at alcohol as the main cause of DV, whilst defending and glorifying the institution of family as the best protection from violence (Ordo Iuris, 2018a); lastly, an overwhelming number of the outsourced material focuses on the Istanbul Convention (IC) as the ‘neo-nazi’ and ‘gender’ ideology that threatens the Church, and therefore, traditionalist order of Polish families. This paper aims to pose these themes as problematic, proving that the general narrative of the Catholic Church works as a conducive context(s) for domestic violence to prevail in Poland. It also aims to urge the academic environment to pay more attention to researching non-Western women’s situation in their home countries, with a special focus on how their culture and religion may ostracise their rights.

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