ABSTRACT
In the period before and immediately after Poland’s accession to the European Union (May 1, 2004) Polish media were overfl owing with “gender talk.” On the radio one would hear randomly placed banter about “natural differences between the sexes” (in fact, a new station, FM 94, was established in 2002 with “real men” in mind). Almost any event discussed on the evening news could spark a comment such as “this is what women are like” or “men cannot help but be men.” Magazines and newspapers provided an abundance of images featuring manly men and womanly women, as well as departures from such norm, notably drag queens from the Berlin Love Parades.
