ABSTRACT
Much of the existing Polish research on women has obscured women's experiences of gender relations. This chapter focuses on how women have been lost in this research, what theoretical and practical implications follow from this silence, and how a feminist perspective might be relevant to the future conduct of research. The principles of sex equality and women's emancipation are fundamental issues for both socialism and feminism. And feminism is sometimes identified with socialist principles and equated with changes that were previously brought about in Poland. Nowadays, the growth of women's studies is evident in various perspectives developed in great deal of research on women carried on within existing disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, education, psychology, philosophy, and history. In general, women and gender issues are omitted in studies conducted in Poland. They focus only on neutral/male concepts, needs, experiences, values, achievements, and attitudes and include only men in research. But it is usually assumed that they represent "a whole society".
