Supermodel Anja Rubik could be a symbol of any modern, progressive European country.
After joining a campaign to defend women’s rights, she started tackling school sex education
and published a book for teenagers that sought to counter the teachings of the Catholic
Church.

In her native Poland, it means she’s fighting against the political tide. Indeed, Rubik’s drive
says less about the momentum that brought gay marriage to Spain and abortion to Ireland
and more about the resurgent forces of Christian conservatism being harnessed by the
nationalist government.

Anja Rubik in Warsaw on Jan. 29.

Photographer: Piotr Malecki/Bloomberg

Politics

The nationalist government has harnessed religion to tighten its grip on power and that’s hit

women’s rights and sex education. 

By Marek Strzelecki and Dorota Bartyzel
February 8, 2019, 12:01 AM EST
Updated on February 8, 2019, 4:43 AM EST

Supermodel Takes On Catholic Poland With

Sex Education Campaign

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This is a country where Jesus Christ was appointed as the official king, Muslim refugees have
been accused of spreading disease and barred, and opponents talk of a return to medieval
times. The narrative is that homosexuality can be cured and condoms are bad. Human Rights
Watch attacked Poland this week for its treatment of women’s rights groups.

Rubik said all that’s missing from church-based sex education classes are “dragons and
witches.” “Kids are told that the period is a bloody cry of a uterus missing a fetus,” she said in
an interview last week as she made plans to take her sex education program nationwide this
summer.

“We’re not progressing, we’re going backwards, in a sense back to the 19th century,” said
Rubik, 35, who started her modelling career two decades ago and has worked for some of the
biggest fashion houses, including Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana. That’s “against
fundamental, constitutional rights to information and education,” she said.

Since coming to power in 2015, the ruling Law & Justice Party has thrown Poland’s gravitation
toward the liberalism of western Europe into reverse.

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It turned the country into a protective, nativist state clashing with the European Union over
everything from the independence of its courts to what people can say about the Holocaust.
The government is crusading against abortion, as well as IVF treatment opposed by the
church. It’s also indirectly encouraging women to stay out of the workforce by offering
unprecedented family-oriented subsidies.

Quicktake

Understanding Poland’s

Battles With EU

Law & Justice sees itself as the savior of traditional Christian values in Poland as well as
across Europe, claiming that the affluent continent has lost its moral compass by embracing
secular, gender and feminist ideologies.

Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has called on Poles to lead a “sick Europe” to the path of
“health, to fundamental values, to true freedom and to the strengthening of our civilization
based on Christianity.”

Opponents say it’s gone too far. “Education for life in the family” classes taught at high
schools tend to promote the traditional gender division, are openly homophobic and fail to
address contraception methods, said Liliana Religa from the Federation for Women and
Family Planning, a non-governmental group.

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These classes are “more ideologized than ever in the past” and schools are under pressure
from the Education Ministry to keep non-governmental groups out, Religa said. “Poles are
just fed up with laws and decisions that take them back to medieval times,” she said.

It’s been two years since 100,000 women marched to defend their right to abortion and
forced the government to slow down efforts to expand one of the most restrictive laws in
Europe. Rubik addressed the march and realized she wanted to do more.

She produced 14 short videos about sex that were seen by about 10 million people online.
Then she wrote #sexedpl book, which has sold 130,000 copies so far. But when she sent
1,000 copies to schools, the backslash came.

Some school directors banned them, she said. Her proposal to the education minister to
discuss classes about sex with educators went unanswered and she’s been labeled as an
unsuitable promoter of Poland -- along with Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister
and now European Council president -- by the state-run book institute.

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Anja Rubik poses with her book.

Photographer: Piotr Malecki/Bloomberg

 

Late last year, the Law & Justice administration presented a draft law that sought to exclude
one-time beating of a spouse from the definition of domestic violence. The proposal was
withdrawn within hours amid outrage from human-rights groups. 

Still, the government has slashed funding for non-government groups helping battered
women amid criticism of an alleged leftist bias, including one that ran an around-the-clock
hotline for abuse victims.

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Human Rights Watch urged Poland’s government to “immediately cease attacks on women’s
rights defenders and organizations, and investigate and condemn abusive tactics used against
them,” the group said in a Feb. 6 statement.

Rubik said she’s got plans to broaden her campaign, including bringing people together to
talk more openly about how to educate young Poles about sex.

“I’m dreaming about a Sexedpl bus that would bring educators and offer workshops across
Poland,” Rubik said. She’s going to try to convince companies to sponsor it. “Even though it
turns out sex education is a risky topic in Poland.”

— With assistance by Wojciech Moskwa

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