Pułapki niehierarchiczności

Polish feminist and/or queer groups increasingly endorse the non-hierarchical approach as a working method and a key element of becoming politicized. This approach also tends to serve as a way for such groups to distinguish themselves from other - legally formalized - entities functioning in the same field, such as foundations and associations. Within the Polish queer community, the non-hierarchical approach is presented as a remedy for all forms of domination and injustice, which this community has been mobilized to dismantle. Meanwhile, by replacing formal structures with spontaneously generated bonds of friendship, the groups that embrace the non-hierarchical approach can actually harbor hidden forms of inequality, generating non-democratic practices and condoning the unequal division of labor. An additional problem with the non-hierarchical approach is that, as a stance based on communication and consensus rather than rivalry and winning, it is associated with a traditionally understood "femininity." Thus in initiatives organized around the critique of traditional gender roles (such as feminist and queer groups) this stance is often paradoxically easier to embrace than the need for a clear assignment of functions and responsibilities, despite the fact that the participants of such groups perceive it as a higher stage of development leading to fully egalitarian relations.