Magdalena Środa

Magdalena Środa, born Magdalena Ciupak in Warsaw on 7 January 1957, is a Polish philosopher and feminist known for her work in ethics. She is an extraordinary professor of ethics at the University of Warsaw and has become one of the most visible voices in debates on gender equality in Poland.

She studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw, where she earned her doctorate in 1982. From 1982 to 1991 she worked there as an assistant and later assistant professor in the Faculty of Ethics, and she now teaches at the same faculty as an associate professor. During the 1980s she was active in the Solidarity movement. After 1989 she stayed out of politics until 2004, when Prime Minister Marek Belka appointed her government plenipotentiary for equal status of women and men, a post she held from August 2004 to November 2005.

Her research centres on individualism and its critiques from postmodern, feminist and communitarian positions, as well as on the ethics and politics of gender relations. She has argued for the separation of state and church, for LGBT rights and for a more liberal abortion law, and she has consistently opposed war in foreign policy. In 2009 she headed the European Parliament list of a left-leaning and green coalition in the Łódź region; the coalition fell short of the 5 per cent threshold.