Women in Yugoslavia

Last updated

The role of the woman in Yugoslavia changed significantly throughout the twentieth century. Women sought better positions within economic, political, and social realms than they had occupied in the nineteenth century.

Contents

Pre-World War I

Within the countries that would become a unified Yugoslavia in 1918, the movement for women's emancipation began at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was most prevalent in economically and culturally advanced regions, in which there were greater numbers of working women. These women joined trade unions and workers’ parties that aimed to redress workers’ grievances. They hoped to become more economically independent, thus assuming a more independent societal existence as well.

World War I

World War I created the possibility for this economic independence. The need for male soldiers during World War I provided many job vacancies that women filled. Women thus assumed a substantial role within national economies during the war. It was not obvious, however, that women would maintain this new economic position once men returned from the war-front.

Women also participated in the political realm during World War I. In Serbia and Montenegro, women contributed much to the war effort and “made sacrifices in fighting the aggressor". In the South Slav countries that were part of Austria-Hungary, women played a huge role in resistance efforts. They resisted the unjust wars and fought for a common South Slav state.

Interwar period

At the end of the war, it soon became clear that the women's part in the war or resistance efforts would not be rewarded. “Almost all the laws regulating the status of women remained the same, and economic conditions, slow economic development, unresolved national relations and social problems, all contrived to make women the most disenfranchised citizens in the country.”

Women suffered the most from severe economic conditions. They worked for much less pay than their male counterparts, within factories and domestic service alike. For instance, “in the clothing industry and commercial services, women could expect to make a maximum of 50% of men’s wages.” While only a small number of women actually worked within industry, their conditions were so harsh that they participated in strike actions.

From a political perspective, many women ascribed to the Communist mantra because it “was the only one that called and consistently strove for a political and social equality of women.” Women felt marginalized by religious and conservative ideologies that stressed the importance of women as housewives and mothers. The first Conference of Socialist (Communist) Women of 1919 symbolized the growing need that women felt for an entirely new political system. A large number of bourgeois feminists even began to subscribe to the Communist view “that the emancipation of women would depend on the radical transformation of society." [1]

World War II

During World War II, the role of women underwent rapid transformation. According to Barbara Jancar-Webster, this was not a “revolution in the Yugoslav woman’s experience but rather a foreshortening of the process of consciousness development.” [2] The fact that women made further strides during the five war years than during twenty interwar years was not a break in history but an indication that the intensity of the war allowed for greater participation of women in the cause.

Women became significant members of the National Liberation Movement and participated in all aspects of the anti-fascist resistance. Women occupied positions as fighters and as leaders. Seventy percent of women fighters were under twenty years of age. They mobilized other women to gather supplies, cared for the sick and wounded, and sustained local economies. Though women proved themselves as politically and economically capable within the Partisan movement, a chauvinistic attitude endured. [3]

Socialist Yugoslavia (1943-1990)

As mentioned in the interwar subsection, Yugoslav Socialists espoused gender equality. They declared that “‘in the course of the socialist revolution, significant results were achieved in advancing the socioeconomic position and role of women.’” Significant advances were made in female literacy, university education, workplaces, and policies regarding divorce, abortion, and maternity leave. The advances made by women, however, were incomplete. In both education and the workplace, women mostly remained in traditionally female roles. For instance, “in 1979, 85% of all students in pharmacology were women; in social work, over 87%; and in two-year medical studies, 83%. By contrast, women represented only one-fourth of medical doctors.”

Furthermore, women were not well represented in leadership bodies. There were a few women who held prestigious positions in the party. Latinka Perović, a Serb woman, was Chief Secretary of the Serbian Communist Party from 1968 until 1972, when she was removed from office because of her liberal views. Similarly, Savka Dabčević Kučar, President of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia from 1967 to 1969, was also dismissed for being too liberal. She became co-leader of the Croatian Spring movement in 1970–1971. Most notably, Milka Planinc, a Croat, was the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1982 to 1986, the only woman to serve as head of government within the socialist system. Though these cases showed it was possible for women to reach high positions within the Communist Party, it was by no means commonplace. In fact, Planinc became president “partly in response to criticism from local feminists concerning the continued low representation of women in higher party echelons.”

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (1993)

In addition to denying women many positions in the public realm, communism closed off many avenues for women in the personal realm. In her book, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, Slavenka Drakulić illustrates that for all its idealistic claims, Communism ignored the basic needs of women. “In the seventy years of its existence it couldn’t fulfil the basic needs of half the population,” Drakulić says, as she describes the lack of sanitary towels or tampons during the Socialist era.

Yugoslav women yearned for other basic feminine products, such as make-up, which were taken for granted in the west. This led to a disconnect between Western and Eastern European feminists. While Western feminists felt stifled by the societal pressure to don bras and make-up, Eastern European feminists felt repressed because these items were denied to them. In reference to her meeting with Western European feminists in 1978, Drakulić remarks that “we thought they were too radical when they told us that they were harassed by men on our streets…Or when they talked about wearing high-heeled shoes as a sign of women’s subordination. I remember how we gossiped about their greasy hair, no bra, no make-up.” [4] In essence, both groups were struggling for the same thing – the ability to express themselves as women without conforming to their respective society's expectations for women. For the Western European women, make-up, bras, and lingerie classified women as sex objects. For the Eastern European women, these items represented the ability to express individuality.

With the fall of communism, according to Ramet, “in the age of politicized nationalism, the self-proclaimed defenders of ‘the Nation’ reinterpret the community in folk-mythological terms, reducing women to ‘womenfolk’ who need men's protection and construing feminists who dare to challenge the patriarchal agenda of the nationalists as witches.” The results of reactionary, right-wing measures adopted by the new nationalist states are vividly described by Drakulić. “‘We live surrounded by newly opened porno shops, porno magazines, peepshows, stripteases, unemployment and galloping poverty…Romanian women are prostituting themselves for a single dollar in towns on the Romanian-Yugoslav border. In the midst of all this, our anti-choice nationalist governments are threatening our right to abortion and telling us to multiply, to give birth to more Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Croats, Slovaks.’” [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

Triple oppression, also called double jeopardy, Jane Crow, or triple exploitation, is a theory developed by black socialists in the United States, such as Claudia Jones. The theory states that a connection exists between various types of oppression, specifically classism, racism, and sexism. It hypothesizes that all three types of oppression need to be overcome at once.

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Country in Central and Southeast Europe (1945–1992)

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a socialist country in Central and Southeast Europe that existed from its foundation in the aftermath of World War II until its dissolution in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. Covering an area of 255,804 km2, the SFRY was bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Italy to the west, Austria and Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east, and Albania and Greece to the south. It was a one-party socialist state and federation governed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and made up of six socialist republics—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia—with Belgrade as its capital; it also included two autonomous provinces within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina.

League of Communists of Croatia Political party in Croatia

League of Communists of Croatia was the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ). It came into power in 1945. Until 1952, it was known as Communist Party of Croatia. In the early 1990s, it underwent several renames and lost power.

Slavenka Drakulić Croatian journalist and novelist

Slavenka Drakulić is a Croatian journalist, novelist, and essayist whose works on feminism, communism, and post-communism have been translated into many languages.

League of Communists of Yugoslavia Communist political party in Yugoslavia (1919–1990)

The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the founding and ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919 as the main communist opposition party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and after its initial successes in the elections, it was proscribed by the royal government and was at times harshly and violently suppressed. It remained an illegal underground group until World War II when, after the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, the military arm of the party, the Yugoslav Partisans, became embroiled in a bloody civil war and defeated the Axis powers and their local auxiliaries. After the liberation from foreign occupation in 1945, the party consolidated its power and established a one-party state, which existed until the 1990 breakup of Yugoslavia.

Savka Dabčević-Kučar Croatian politician

Savka Dabčević-Kučar was a Croatian politician. She was one of the most influential Croatian female politicians during the communist period, especially during the Croatian Spring when she was deposed. She returned to politics during the early days of Croatian independence as the leader of the Coalition of People's Accord and the Croatian People's Party. From 1967 to 1969 she served as the Chairman of the 5th Executive Council of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, one of eight constituent republics and autonomous provinces of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. She was the first woman in Europe to be appointed head of government of a political entity and the first female in the post-World War II Croatia to hold an office equivalent to a head of government.

<i>They Would Never Hurt a Fly</i>

They Would Never Hurt a Fly is a 2004 historical non-fiction novel by Slavenka Drakulić discussing the personalities of the war criminals on trial in the Hague that destroyed the former Yugoslavia. Drakulić uses certain trials of alleged criminals with subordinate power to further examine and understand the reasoning behind their misconducts. Most of those discussed are already convicted. In her book, Drakulić does not cover Radovan Karadžić, however, Slobodan Milošević and his wife each rate their own chapter, and Ratko Mladić is portrayed as a Greek tragic figure. There are no pictures, although the physical appearances of the characters are continuously mentioned.

Milka Planinc

Milka Planinc was a Croatian politician active in SFR Yugoslavia. She served as Prime Minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1982 to 1986, the first and only woman to hold this office. Planinc was the first female head of government of a diplomatically recognized Communist state in Europe.

Ljubo Sirc British economist (1920–2016)

Ljubo Sirc CBE was a British-Slovene economist and prominent dissident from Yugoslavia.

Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Federated state of Yugoslavia (1943–1992)

The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly referred to as Socialist Bosnia or simply Bosnia, was one of the six constituent federal states forming the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was a predecessor of the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, existing between 1945 and 1992, under a number of different formal names, including Democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina (1943–1946) and People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1946–1963).

Rada Iveković is a Croatian professor, philosopher, Indologist, and writer.

<i>Café Europa</i>

Café Europa: Life After Communism is a 1996 book by Slavenka Drakulić, the noted Croatian writer. It talks about the experiences of the peoples of Eastern Europe after the retreat of socialism and the fall of the Iron Curtain. While Drakulić notes the liberation of the formerly oppressed, her hard hitting social commentary points out the repercussions and lack of progress since the end of Soviet domination.

Slobodan Milošević Yugoslav and Serbian politician (1941–2006)

Slobodan Milošević was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Formerly a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s, he led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until 2003.

Elections in Yugoslavia

In Yugoslavia, elections were held while it had existed as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the first one being in 1918 for the Provisional Popular Legislature of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the last being the parliamentary election of 1938. Women were not eligible to vote. After the 1918 indirect ones, the 1920 parliamentary election was the first direct one. Parliamentary elections were held in 1923, 1925 and 1927, while with the new constitution a de facto Lower and Upper House were introduced in 1931. The 1931 elections were not free, as they were handled under a single-course dictatorship, while the 1935 and 1938 were held under limited basic democratic principles.

Josip Vrhovec

Josip Vrhovec was a Croatian communist politician, best known for serving as Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1978 and 1982 and the Chairman of the League of Communists of Croatia from July 1982 to May 1984.

Kristen Ghodsee American ethnographer and professor

Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is primarily known for her ethnographic work on post-Communist Bulgaria as well as being a contributor to the field of postsocialist gender studies.

Womens Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia

The Women's Antifascist Front, was a Yugoslav feminist and anti-fascist mass organisation. The predecessor to several feminist front groups in the former Yugoslavia, and present-day organisations in the region, the AFŽ was heavily involved in organising and participating in the Partisans, the communist and multi-ethnic resistance to Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II.

6th Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia Political event in Yugoslavia

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia held its sixth congress in Zagreb on 2–7 November 1952. It was attended by 2,022 delegates representing 779,382 party members. The sixth congress sought to discuss new policies, first of all in reaction to the Yugoslav–Soviet split and Yugoslav rapprochement with the United States. The congress is considered the peak of liberalisation of Yugoslav political life in the 1950s. The congress also renamed the party the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.

Gender roles in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe

Changes in gender roles in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism have been an object of historical and sociological study.

The Socialist Republic of Croatia, one of the constituent countries of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had gone through a number of phases in its political life, during which its major political characteristics changed - its name, its top level leadership and ultimately its political organization.

References

  1. Ramet, Sabrina P. (2010). Gender Politics in the Western Balkans: Women and Society in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Successor States. Penn State Press. p. 7. ISBN   9780271043067.
  2. Book Review of Women & Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945 by Barbara Jancar-Webster. 1990. Denver, Colorado: Arden Press by Eva V. Huseby-Darvas, University of Michigan-Dearborn
  3. Barbara Jancar-Webster, Women and Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–1945 (1990)
  4. Kramarae, Cheris; Spender, Dale (2004). Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge. Routledge. p. 816. ISBN   9781135963156.
  5. "Read an excerpt from 'Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism'". PBS NewsHour. 2019-01-03. Retrieved 2022-07-08.

Further reading