Genderowe wizerunki opiekunów i opiekunek na łamach tygodników „Polityka” i „Do Rzeczy”. Analiza porównawcza

Due to globalization processes, there are social changes taking place in Polish society that influence the gender roles of caregivers. One of many ways to undertake a sociological exploration of care phenomena is the research of magazine and newspaper articles that play an important role in creating social and cultural patterns in contemporary social reality. The main purpose of this article is a comparative analysis of gender representations of male and female caregivers presented in the weekly magazines “Polityka” and “Do Rzeczy” during the years 2013 to 2018. The term ‘representation’ is defined as “a way of socially constructing the world to imply meaning”. The research tools used were quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Four categories of caregivers were distinguished: caregivers of disabled children, caregivers of children, caregivers of elderly people, and medical staff. The biggest number of articles in both magazines concerned the caregivers of disabled children and the caregivers of children. The results indicated that the ideological line of each magazine played a crucial role in how women and men were presented as caregivers. In the case of “Polityka”, there was a tendency to stress the subjectivity of female caregivers and involved fathers in raising children whereas in “Do Rzeczy”, the maternal role was a crucial social role for women.