Stand. J. Mgmt, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 99-116, 1994 Co Prime fI. 5 yri ht 0 1994. Elsevier Science Ltd m rat Britain. All rights reserved 09X-5221/94 $7.M) + 0.00 zyxwvutsrqponm 09565221(94)EOOO9-6 BEYOND THE SOCIAL ROLE: THE CASE OF POLISH FEMALE PROFESSIONALS MONIKA KOSTERA, MIROSIAW PROPPE and MACIEJ SZATKOWSKI Warsaw University, School of Management zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTS Abstract -This paper presents the individual strategies of some professionally active Polish women, against the background of the general situation of women in Poland and of their social role. The problem is both universal and unique. Modem society has been constructed in a way that disfavours women, in both the so-called capitalist and the communist countries. In different countries, however, the historical roots of gender construction are special and different. The authors believe that an understanding of this specificity is particularly important in periods of societal change such as the post-communist societies are currently experiencing. INTRODUCTION In 1989 Poland abandoned communism, after 44 years of experimenting with this economic and social Utopia. In real terms this means that an enormous process of systemic change (Kozmihski and OHoj, 1990) has been initiated, a change on a scale not otherwise known in contemporary Europe. The change concerns all dimensions of social life, the economy, politics and culture. It is most likely that it will also affect the social structure and the situation of women. In order to understand the present situation, however, it is important to grasp its relation to the recent and not- so-recent past. This paper addresses the situation of professionally active women in Poland. We describe pre- sently the general situation of Polish women, and against this background we introduce some women who have gone beyond the socially prescribed role.* We comment on their individual strategies and finally propose some tentative conclusions about the more general problems faced by professional Polish women. It is important to discuss the question now, because otherwise the problems of Polish women will become lost in the mass of macro-economic and political problems. We have chosen to frame our discussion in terms of a “social role”. A social role is understood here as the “set of expectations, directed at the individual by the social group, expectations concerning the position the individual occupies in the group” (Bolesta-Kukdka, 1993: 101). Such roles are reproduced, since they are “repeatable patterns of social relations which are not mere physical facts and which are structured partly by the rules of acceptable behaviour in the society in question” (Emmet, 1966: 15). These “repeatable actions” based on “expectations” are not, as we see it, absolute facts, no matter how scrupulously reproduced. We agree with *We would like to extend our thanks to our interlocutors, who agreed to take part in our study 99