03.11.2020 Zsófia Lóránd (University of Cambridge)

Feminism in Socialist Yugoslavia: Introducing the Concept of Gender for Women’s Equality

Dienstag, 03.11.2020, 18 Uhr c.t., digital über Zoom

One of the rare cases of organised feminist dissent started in Yugoslavia in the 1970s. A network of feminist groups in Belgrade, Ljubljana, and Zagreb started a quest for productive criticism of the socialist claim for women’s equality. While socialist regimes all over East Central Europe made substantial steps towards gender equality, women’s status in these countries was hardly equal. Criticising the state for its shortcomings in this regard meant questioning one of socialism’s presumed main achievements. A feminist critique, moreover, involved a radical critique of the idea that subsuming the women’s question to the class question would bring forth gender equality. Feminist intellectuals (academics, artists, writers) in Yugoslavia were producing a diverse body of texts (including artworks and literature), suggesting a variety of feminist takes on women’s lives in socialist Yugoslavia. In my talk, I will focus on the appearance of the concept of gender and how it was integrated into the Yugoslav discourse and used as a counter-concept pushing beyond the possibilities of the concept of class to achieve women’s equality.