Women in Yugoslavia

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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.

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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

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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.

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