Doc. Dr. Lejla Mušić
The Faculty of Political Science
11/26/2015

“Gender Stereotypes - Sounds Familiar?” edited by Monja Šuta-Hibert shows a deconstruction of traditional approaches on gender relations, through multidimensional perspective, while using different artistic and stylistic methods and expressions. The publication has an essayistic approach, with comic-book presentations, discussions, and analysis, statistical data while offering a view on various problems of young femininity and masculinity. Through 13 short authors’ anecdotes and reviews, authors are moving a focus on the multilayered problems of misogyny in gender relations, especially those subtle dimensions, where they develop and strengthen women's rights violation.
In her opening statement, Monja Šuta-Hibert is referring to a number of concepts in the field of gender studies, describing how the book was created. The Initiative for Creative Dialogue and Education as a project, together with a group “Brkate”, and comic-book illustrations of a prominent young author Jakov Čaušević, are presenting patterns of misogyny in opinions, lives and weight of anti-feminist positions. These positions embody patriarchal femininity, as the scariest form of our own existential principles, and they present the strongest support of preserving and maintaining the most terrible forms of patriarchy which supports the open hatred towards women.
Each story in the form of comic-book illustrations announces their ideas, and it is an ideal opportunity, as Monja Šuta-Hibert stated: "to act educationally and encouraging", especially for young people.
This book is in the same time a publication, which is a part of the edition Bauk FemiNauk (Bogey FemiTeaching) published by TPO Foundation. The foundation is founded by Harvard-Stanford visiting professor Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, whose ideas enabled publication of these issues and works. The transition to the Bologna standards in the education of young people, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, demands from science to be interdisciplinary, pluridisciplinary and humorous. In science, there is some dimension of irony, which is unusual. Socrates warned us about this in his methods, while finding the knowledge through the method of questioning, with artful witty jokes.
Intricately enough, this study deals in vivo with scariest, darkest, most hated terms in patriarchal societies and for some young people, they are even prohibited. These terms refer to the term of feminism and feminist and they are used in stories of twelve feminists and one young male feminist, which is now more common in our society. To be a feminist is prohibited, but to be a male feminist is something completely inappropriate, unknown, and almost surprising. Young authors used multiple stylistic methods, from personal diaries to essays, letting everyone to express their own personal opinion on the gender issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They refused to let this become another monolithic authors' study, completely theoretical, without images, showing that science has many forms of its occurrence and exposures.
Saying that feminism is a science and that is not bogey, emphasizing that it is " merely a potential possibility, an idea of the world in which women and men, as well as all other marginalized groups and individuals, participate equally in all spheres of life.“ (Šuta- Hibert 2015: 7).
The publication has twelve anecdotes or essays, with ironic comic illustrations and a few interesting concepts that we encounter in everyday life, which are necessary elements of science. The authors are trying to show the most complex truths about the world of ideas about life. The simplest and truest craftsmanship is needed to present complexity in a simple way. The comic presentation transfers in ironic sketches, in which each of the young authors shows how misogyny is disguised at different levels. This concept entered our lives widely and freely, causing an interpellation of identity, which spreads gender hatred on the unconscious level. The publication discusses the concepts of discrimination, gender, and education, and motherhood, women who are marginalized, objectified and abused. Furthermore, women are used as decorations, whether political or party ones. The article “What is discrimination?” written by Ena Bavčić, deconstructs several gender stereotypes, emphasizing the effects of gender discrimination, such as “sexual abuse, harassment based on pregnancy/birth (sexual and reproductive rights), as well as lower pay and unequal conditions for employment “(2015: 10 -11). Elmaja Bavčić, activist and feminist, in her articles, speaks about the intersection of gender and education, demystifying complex concept such as the feminization of professions. She sees this concept as the way to fight against gender inequality, with a tendency to focus on increasing the number of women in certain occupations. In “Three Anecdotes, One Friday” Lamija Begagić, in the form of a parental diary, writes about gender education and socialization of children in elementary school. She stresses the importance of the gap of time for a young educated mother like those moments when "we waddle around the kitchen, cut apples, make lemonade, and, by stealing time away from duties, we occasionally manage to live." (2015: 27): “I am a mother of two of my own children. One is adopted, the other is not. Which one is less my own? The one for whom I did not stand in queues of the bureaucratic apparatus, or the one for whom I did not lie under the neon lights and for whom I said no to the drip, said I can do this?“. “ Invisible Female Subjects” was written by Jasmina Čaušević, who has the MA degree from the Gender Studies. She was a student from the first generation of Sarajevo Gender Studies. In her text, she writes about quite an unusual dilemma, which is also followed with comic illustrations, claiming that it is quite unusual that the inventor of the patents that enabled the Wi-Fi technology, Hedy Lamarr is a woman. Still, we can hear misogyny connotations about women and the internet. Furthermore, the internet technology often serves as a tool to strengthen the patriarchy society in the omnipresent patriarchal and traditional society. Opening pages of women's history, Jasmina Čaušević says that many women whose discoveries changed the science and technology are often marginalized and neglected. She did not forget to mention the first women in science from our region, Dr. Ševala Zildžić-Iblizović and the first doctor of medicine, Maša Živanović, the first mathematician, and many others. Entering the linguistic dimension of language, Čaušević talks about gender-sensitive language and feminization of professional titles. In “Women as Political and Party Decoration” Arijana Aganović refers to gender-sensitive policies as a science fiction in Bosnian political life. She also discusses the negative examples of women's political campaigns, which do not support women in politics, but rather discouraging them. Also, a policy of gender and gender equality should actually be a matter of common concern for all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In some of these anecdotes, authors are completely open to the readership with their personal disappointments, secrets, ideas, or situations such as getting or losing a job. This example can be found in the story “The Circle of Life” written by a Doctor of Political Science, Bosnian feminist theologian and teacher of English language, Đermana Šeta. In her section, the author examines gender stereotypes of hijab and employment. Her story is completed with comic illustrations by Jakov Čaušević, who has the MA degree in Gender Studies. In his illustrations, you can see prejudices and their groundlessness. There is a feministic rejection of identification with the traditional model of heterosexual families and stories of princesses and princes, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of false crowning. In these stories almost every end is always a happy end, when in reality, as one famous writer said a long time ago: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” With a deconstruction of a fairy tale, Azra Smailkadić-Brkić wonders whether princesses and pink dresses will ever be out of fashion. According to a pro-feminist opinion of a prominent BH professor, Asim Mujkić, a phenomenon of possibility to establish ideas on Frankenstein bride or a fairy tale in which women are rational subjects with their own choices. Patriarchal coins, such as traditional sayings, are outlined by the author Melika Šahinović. She talks about the legalization of divorce in "Until Death Do Us Part", which is deconstructed in various TV shows, like Jerry Springer’s “Cheaters”, and in statistics about divorces, which usually happens in the first five years of marriage. It is a particularly dubious study from authors, Ulrich Beck, and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim entitled “Normal Chaos of Love”. This study is similar to a newer study on the subject of marriage in the postmodern age, which expresses an interesting idea about women's biographies. Women too have a need for accomplishments and careers and we can no longer expect from women double obligations of housewives and working women. In terms of the future of a marriage, the authors are quite pessimistic and they believe that marriage is likely to evolve into a partnership. They believe that a marriage will be the primary agens movens of establishing relationships and that there will be a desire for a quality of a partnership. Furthermore, this will be a reason to marry a few times in the course of one’s life with the goal of finding the perfect partner.
The publication continues with brief remarks, about the life of women who are abused in family and marriage. Often people end their lives, without ever hearing or without being a part of education on violence. They do not ever get a chance to leave the circulusa viciosusa of violence, in which violent people are always lurking, trying to find their victim. They have prepared patriarchal messages and their main goal is to strengthen dependence of women, and then to completely erase awareness of what is violence and what is not. Radmila Žigić also talked about this, highlighting statistics from 2012, when around 47% of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina declared that they have been abused in some way. Anecdotes from everyday life are directing our attention on some interesting problems women are faced with, that both men and misogynist men, unfortunately, will never ask themselves. Author Zlatan Delić openly demonstrates his pro-feminist opinions, which I personally believe is important to strengthen the network of institutional support to fight against violence against women. He shows us what are the real differences in expectations that society puts on young women and men, and why it is important to understand these differences in order make discrimination that becomes more evident. While Stoltenberg was writing his study “I Refuse to Be a Man”, he said that he refuses to be a man, if being a man means to support violence against women. He puts himself on the side of feminism, which is actually the real male activism, promoted in the “Male Manifesto” by Ben Zemon. Today we have men's manifesto that promotes equality in marriage, life, and partnership. The man with the MA degree in Gender Studies was dealing with the construction of turbo-folk identity in songs from turbo-folk singers. He talks about a few women's issues, such as hairiness, menstrual periods, feeding the baby, “blonde jokes”. If we want to reveal the ideology of Western, patriarchal, white, misogynistic perspective, it is necessary to enter the center of media, and to look for the images of women.
Did this painting progressed from “Happy Housewife Myth” or is it just better packaged? The residual burden of prejudices and stereotypes, influenced by patriarchal and traditional society, is threatening to return us to the past, to not let us go back anymore and we would not have right to belong to the emancipated world. While somewhere far away in the Benelux countries and the Scandinavian countries, young people have the birthright to live a life free of violence, patriarchal prejudice, primitivism, and without the imposition of primitive forms of thinking and living. With this Procrustean method, we are killing all creativity and any desire for life, turning young people into monsters, who are finding themselves in alcoholism, drug abuse, and often carry out suicide.
We ask ourselves why we were born here, and what we should do about this now and how now and here influences our future and what we want to become? Furthermore, how we can get the right to be the ones here, and to not have an obligation to emancipate something you absolutely cannot emancipate. And why we have such a difficult task, and when someone finally will take this burden on our shoulders, so that we have the right to our own here and now. Dragana Dardić, the director of the Helsinki Committee of the Citizens of Banja Luka, writes about women in the media, emphasizing the objectification of women's bodies in advertising, especially in cured meats commercials. This interesting questioning in the study is the question “Why Are We Still Talking about Sexism?” which completes or reveals new ideas, with anecdotes of Bosnian-Herzegovinian, Harvard-Stanford great teacher, Zilka Spahić-Šiljak. Here, the author explains what is the goal of the study, the most striking distinction, shocking, cynical and scariest concepts of sexism and benevolent sexism. Professor Spahić-Šiljak, explaining the concept of sexism, claims that "the word for sexism is borrowed from the English language and refers to stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination based on sex, mostly in reference to women.”(2015: 107) The professor also explains the various reactions to the concept of sexism, which are necessary and much needed, and easy to understand for those that could be interested in this very term. With a dissection in vivo of sexism as a term, our feminist theologian Zilka Spahić-Šiljak introduces the concept of benevolent sexism, which is actually very hard to find in the wider feminist vocabulary literature.
So the study that begins as a funny story, riddle or pun in the comic illustrations, in their anecdotes, comes with very important and necessary scientific analysis. The analysis is original and necessary for us to understand how patriarchy entices, captivates and bears us as an ideology that we often support, although we would not like, although we are not aware. "Benevolent sexism appears harmless and well-intentioned at first glance, but it is, in fact, discriminatory and patronizing. Women are told that they deserve attention and protection and that a man should take care of them, love them, support them financially, and spare them from any hard work due to their role as mothers."(2015: 108-109).
A terrifying dimension of "glorification" is the control and prohibition of women rights to equal participation in public, political, and family life. Patriarchal society rewards the "self-sacrificing matriarchy" (Blagojević M.) status, which gives women a certain power over other women and men, to embellish and make apparent that life is more beautiful and better.  In reality, this status primarily deprives women of the right to equal status in society in general, making them someone who is not yet able to understand the basic guidelines of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft, in her words Women be reasonable! In postmodernism, we still celebrate dichotomy, whose deprivation of our BH society has no right, or it is not up to them.
For centuries after, committed and bloody struggle for women's human rights and patriarchal and traditional society still collects its victims, regularly, repeatedly, aggravating the right to realize women's human rights, for those who want to enjoy them.
This authors' work is extremely creative work from a group of young authors, completed with the artistic dimension of expression of the urban population, the comic-book illustrations, which are a useful place for finding ideas, instructions, anecdotes, and new insights about gender relations and stereotypes. For that reason, this is very welcomed and useful publication for readers of all ages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and speaking-language area. So in that sense, I recommend this publication with enthusiasm and I am grateful to authors for their valuable, educational publication and I wish the edition comes to life and brings new titles, especially in the field of Gender Studies.