The increased interest in the condition has been reflected by the number of articles on lipedema in the popular press and other media. However, the prevalence of lipedema, patients’ quality of life, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, and psychological functioning in Poland have not previously been scientifically investigated . This knowledge is needed to advance the process of scientific investigation of the condition, draw attention to lipedema and increase evidence to confirm the importance of the condition, its impact on the quality of life and inform guidelines for evidence-based care. In this study, for the first time, we sought to evaluate and describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of Polish women with lipedema and to investigate factors related to their quality of life. The current study is the first to explore quality of life in women with lipedema in Poland, and it has a number of limitations. Participation in the study was voluntary, and a link was provided in an online social media support group, which might have created selection bias.
- There, too, many younger women no longer want to comply with the notion of female citizens as motherly objects of male protection.
- This lack of security strategising on the Polish left also explains why gender equality in the realm of volunteer defence has been largely left out of Polish feminism.
- Previously, over 90 percent of the approximately 1,000 legal abortions annually performed in Poland were on this ground.
- This study is the first to acknowledge and emphasize that lipedema affects women in Poland.
- A study on specialists from the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland showed that lipedema was recognized by only 46.2% .
There have since been cases of pregnant women dying even though a risk to the woman’s life remains a legal grounds for abortion under the current law. Women’s rights advocates say such cases occur because doctors are afraid to terminate pregnancies even when the woman’s life might be at risk, fearing legal consequences.
The approach was inspired by similar protests among Icelandic women in Oct. 1975, when an estimated 90% of women refused to work or do house chores to call out wage discrepancies and unfair employment practices in the country. A day before Black Monday in Poland, a video circulated of women in Iceland expressing support for the Polish protests. https://fracturedstate.net/european-women/polish-women/ WARSAW, Poland — A women’s rights group in Poland on Monday urged people to demonstrate after the country’s ruling party leader claimed that Poland’s low birthrate is partly caused by young women drinking too much alcohol.
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The more severe the symptoms related to pain, heaviness, and swelling, the lower the quality of life. Activists and women’s rights groups reported that the ruling had a significant chilling effect as people seeking abortions and medical professionals feared repercussions. A women’s rights group in Poland on Monday urged people to demonstrate after the country’s ruling party leader claimed that Poland’s low birthrate is partly caused by young women drinking too much alcohol.
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The interventions provide evidence and analysis drawing on international human rights law, comparative European law and guidelines from the World Health Organization. They outline the profound implications that highly restrictive abortion laws have on the lives and health of women and girls of reproductive age. Poland’s government should reverse restrictions on reproductive rights and ensure that these rights are upheld in accordance with international law, including the right to access safe abortion. It should cease attacks on women’s rights and women human rights defenders and end moves to undermine the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. This eliminated one of the few legal grounds for abortion under Poland’s highly restrictive law.
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In Poland, this changing security environment has brought more people into defense through volunteer channels—among them paramilitary and pro-defense organizations, defense-education programs in schools and universities, and the Territorial Defence Forces. This has not only led to the demise of strategic thinking among younger social democrats but has also made them deeply mistrustful of security-related concerns and activities among their own constituency, routinely seen as unenlightened and potentially ‘uncivil’. This lack of security strategising on the Polish left also explains why gender equality in the realm of volunteer defence has been largely left out of Polish feminism. Unaware of the potential of societal resilience for the re-gendering and civilianising of national security, feminists have abdicated from crafting effective advocacy in this realm.
Previously, over 90 percent of the approximately 1,000 legal abortions annually in Poland were on these grounds. The ruling came as Covid-19 pandemic restrictions made travel for health care prohibitively difficult and costly.
While strengthening allied defence and deterrence is rightfully supported by voters in Poland, the left can still intervene in this momentum. To break right-wing hegemony, it can advocate the rebuilding of civil defence around local citizens’ groups and work towards embedding civic, egalitarian and democratic values in military volunteer-defence channels. This is a particularly effective means to address hybrid challenges in a democratic way—enhancing social cohesion, presenting fewer obstacles to involvement and harnessing more international support. Yet far from happening solely on the streets, this transformation has long been taking place too in less obvious sites—ones the liberal left have failed to acknowledge, leaving scope for illiberal forces to capitalise on them. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in citizens’ volunteer engagement in defence. The existing and accessible treatment of lipedema is focused on symptom reduction and management. Guidelines for lipedema treatment have been created in other countries, including Germany , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom , and the United States of America .
Led by young women, and with gender equality at its forefront, this generational rebellion showed that paternalist norms and prior political arrangements no longer matched the ways young people actually lived their lives. In addition, because all collected data were through self-report, to some extent participants might have been biased or inaccurate in their responses. In particular, inaccuracy might exist in the self-reported measurements used to calculate BMI and WHR. In further studies, such measurements should be performed by trained professionals (e.g., nurses or physiotherapists).
The Commission and EU member states should act to protect and support women’s rights defenders and organizations in Poland. That is why — together with the socialist fraction in the parliament — we’ve been working on an EU Charter of Women’s Rights. Something that will guarantee standardized access to sexual and reproductive health care, including legal and safe abortion, in addition to key socioeconomic and political rights. The worrisome phenomenon of rolling back women’s sexual reproductive health rights isn’t exclusive to Poland. It’s the result of an organized and well-funded worldwide movement, orchestrated by organizations that, for many decades, have been pushing an anti-feminist agenda, gradually gaining significant influence over right-wing politicians and sponsoring policies undermining women’s rights. They’ve been active in several European countries, including Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and Spain. In January of this year, Polish politicians rejected a bill that would increase women’s access to abortion, provide free and accessible contraception, offer emergency contraception without prescription, and incorporate comprehensive sex education at school.