The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia

The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia
Author: Zsófia Lóránd
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-09-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 3319782231

This book tells the story of new Yugoslav feminism in the 1970s and 1980s, reassessing the effects of state socialism on women’s emancipation through the lens of the feminist critique. This volume explores the history of the ideas defining a social movement, analysing the major debates and arguments this milieu engaged in from the perspective of the history of political thought, intellectual history and cultural history. Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, societies in and scholars of East Central Europe still struggle to sort out the effects of state socialism on gender relations in the region. What could tell us more about the subject than the ideas set out by the only organised and explicitly feminist opposition in the region, who, as academics, artists, writers and activists, criticised the regime and demanded change?

I Am Jugoslovenka!

I Am Jugoslovenka!
Author: Jasmina Tumbas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2022-12-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9781526169044

Coining the term "Jugoslovenka" to designate the unique history of Yugoslav women's resistance to patriarchy during and after socialism, this book shows how Yugoslavia's anti-fascist, transnational and feminist legacies manifest in performance, conceptual, video and activist works.

Women and Yugoslav Partisans

Women and Yugoslav Partisans
Author: Jelena Batinić
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2015-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107091071

This book focuses on the mass participation of women in the communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance during World War II.

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
Author: Kristen R. Ghodsee
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2018-11-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1568588895

A “brilliant,” “engaging,” and “valuable,” (Financial Times) exploration of why capitalism hurts women and how socialism, when done right, can bring economic independence, better labor conditions and, yes, even better sex. In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous — clearly she articulated something many women had sensed for years: the problem is with capitalism, not with us. Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and East European Studies, spent years researching what happened to women in countries that transitioned from state socialism to capitalism. She argues here that unregulated capitalism disproportionately harms women, and that we should learn from the past. By rejecting the bad and salvaging the good, we can adapt some socialist ideas to the 21st century and improve our lives. She tackles all aspects of a woman's life - work, parenting, sex and relationships, citizenship, and leadership. In a chapter called "Women: Like Men, But Cheaper," she talks about women in the workplace, discussing everything from the wage gap to harassment and discrimination. In "What To Expect When You're Expecting Exploitation," she addresses motherhood and how "having it all" is impossible under capitalism. Women are standing up for themselves like never before, from the increase in the number of women running for office to the women's march to the long-overdue public outcry against sexual harassment. Interest in socialism is also on the rise -- whether it's the popularity of Bernie Sanders or the skyrocketing membership numbers of the Democratic Socialists of America. It's become increasingly clear to women that capitalism isn't working for us, and Ghodsee is the informed, lively guide who can show us the way forward.

War, Women, and Power

War, Women, and Power
Author: Marie E. Berry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1108246893

Rwanda and Bosnia both experienced mass violence in the early 1990s. Less than ten years later, Rwandans surprisingly elected the world's highest level of women to parliament. In Bosnia, women launched thousands of community organizations that became spaces for informal political participation. The political mobilization of women in both countries complicates the popular image of women as merely the victims and spoils of war. Through a close examination of these cases, Marie E. Berry unpacks the puzzling relationship between war and women's political mobilization. Drawing from over 260 interviews with women in both countries, she argues that war can reconfigure gendered power relations by precipitating demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. In the aftermath, however, many of the gains women made were set back. This book offers an entirely new view of women and war and includes concrete suggestions for policy makers, development organizations, and activists supporting women's rights.

Race and the Yugoslav Region

Race and the Yugoslav Region
Author: Catherine Baker
Publisher: Theory for a Global Age
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2018
Genre: Former Yugoslav republics
ISBN: 9781526126627

Describes the territories and collective identities of former Yugoslavia within the politics of race - not just ethnicity - and the history of how ideas of racialised difference have been translated globally

Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia, 1971–2001

Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia, 1971–2001
Author: Anja Foerschner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2024-05-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1350229237

Despite having become marginalized on the map of contemporary art since the wars of the 1990s, the regions of former Yugoslavia continue to be a hub of creative activity. Especially noteworthy is the strong presence of women artists, scholars, and activists whose deeply personal, yet highly political artwork is rooted in a long legacy of female artistic agency. Building on existing scholarship as well as original research, this book highlights how female figures – through art and exhibition making, writing, mentorship, and activism – have shaped the alternative art scene in former Yugoslavia and placed the region firmly on the map of the international post-avantgarde. Using the founding of the Student Cultural Center Belgrade in 1971 as a starting point, the book details the pioneering work of women in the realm of curation, where they developed radical exhibition concepts and programs that furthered the development of the New Art Practice and embedded Yugoslavia firmly on the map of the international postwar-avantgardes. It highlights the agency of female artists in the then-novel realms of performance art, video art, and new media art and shows how their work has helped these disciplines to gain the impact they retain until the present day. What is more, it shows how female cultural workers have courageously used their work to further the discourse on gender, sexuality, and the female body and, at a time when they saw themselves stripped of basic rights by the chauvinist-nationalist regimes emerging after Yugoslavia's breakup, formed a strong artistic and activist opposition. Highlighting the role of women in the diversification of the ex-Yugoslavia states and its highly unique cultural and political landscape, this book addresses the noticeable gap in art historical scholarship that exists not only around Yugoslavia and its successor states, but especially on its female representatives.

“I am Jugoslovenka!”

“I am Jugoslovenka!”
Author: Jasmina Tumbas
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1526156466

“I am Jugoslovenka” argues that queer-feminist artistic and political resistance were paradoxically enabled by socialist Yugoslavia’s unique history of patriarchy and women’s emancipation. Spanning performance and conceptual art, video works, film and pop music, lesbian activism and press photos of female snipers in the Yugoslav wars, the book analyses feminist resistance in a range of performative actions that manifest the radical embodiment of Yugoslavia’s anti-fascist, transnational and feminist legacies. It covers celebrated and lesser-known artists from the 1970s to today, including Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivekovic, Vlasta Delimar, Tanja Ostojic, Selma Selman and Helena Janecic, along with music legends Lepa Brena and Esma Redžepova. “I am Jugoslovenka” tells a unique story of women’s resistance through the intersection of feminism, socialism and nationalism in East European visual culture.

The Politics of Authenticity

The Politics of Authenticity
Author: Joachim C. Häberlen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-10-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789200008

Following the convulsions of 1968, one element uniting many of the disparate social movements that arose across Europe was the pursuit of an elusive “authenticity” that could help activists to understand fundamental truths about themselves—their feelings, aspirations, sexualities, and disappointments. This volume offers a fascinating exploration of the politics of authenticity as they manifested themselves among such groups as Italian leftists, East German lesbian activists, and punks on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Together they show not only how authenticity came to define varied social contexts, but also how it helped to usher in the neoliberalism of a subsequent era.