Praca i rodzina w opiniach i przemyśleniach kobiet z Kaszub
Career and Family in the Opinions and Reflections of Women from the Kaszuby Region

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I present the opinions of 74 women from a rural Kaszuby region, who reflect on important issues of maintaining their families and their proper functions from the perspective of gender. The main problem they consider is: who should support the family? According to 64.39% of the interviewed women, the family should be supported by both spouses, however, none of the respondents think that the woman should be the sole breadwinner. The respondents present interesting reflections on the favourable and unfavourable aspects of women following professional careers. Asked why women take up jobs at all, they mainly point out that men's earnings are not sufficient to provide for their families. Next in order, however, is an emancipation argument: women want to be financially independent. The majority of respondents - albeit small – would not give up their careers in favour of home and family even if all their financial requirements were satisfied. Referring to theoretical works on problems relating to labour, family and gender, I conclude that Kaszuby women are individualists, but with a feeling of responsibility for their families and communities. There is no doubt that not only an increasing number of women from the region will take up jobs away from home, but some of them will hold the positions of managers or run their own enterprises. It remains an open question, not only from the Kaszuby perspective, how the changing situation of women will influence the community spirit they usually foster, and whether male communitydisrupting individualism will prevail.

• Details
• Contents