The Appearance of Feminism – Women’s Movement in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana
Lepa Mlađenovic
Feminist initiatives and groups are initiated at the end of 1970s in a country which I now nominate as ex-Yugoslavia. Scientific works on sociological and anthropological international seminars were a stimulus for the communication between women scientists who were learning about a dimension of the discrimination of women: Silva Meznaric, Blazenka Despot, Anđelka Milic, etc.
In 1978, the first international feminist conference DRUG-CA ZENA happened in Belgrade thanks to the women from those three capital cities and their organizational capabilities. This conference was a turning point for feminists and the history of the civic society which was then in formation in then Yugoslavia. Biljana Kasic, a lecturer of Women Studies in Zagreb, considers that these initiatives were then the first intents of creating the civic society.
Women experts who have been working on this, already historical, conference were: Lidija Sklevicky, Rada Ivekovic, Slavenka Drakulic, Vesna Kesic, Ruza First, Đurđa Milanovic, Gordana Cerjan Letica from Zagreb, Nada Ler Sofronic from Sarajevo, Zarana Papic, Sonja Drljevic, Jasmina Tesanovic, Dunja Blazevic, Lina Vuskovic, Sofija Trivunac, Lepa Mlađenovic, Vanda Krajinovic from Belgrade, and many others.
Participants from Italy, France i Great Britain were well-known feminists and public personalities: Christine Delphi, Diana Leonardh, Dacia Maraini, Carla Ravaioli, Elisabetta Rasy – so that the discrimination of women was for the first time shown through the consequences which were not embellished, which spoiled the ideology about the “gender equality in self-management”, and which were not agreeable. Feminists who ran a debate had permitted neither communist nor men ideologies to dominate and to transform the subordination of women, as always, into sentimental journey or “the gender equality in self-management”. For the first time, “WOMAN QUESTION” became a subject of serious debates, the question of discrimination, and not just one marginal theme under “others” – due to all these reasons, there were a lot of open and disguised oppressions from the League of Communists for the women organizers at the end of the conference.
A woman section of the sociological society of the University of Zagreb called “Woman and Society” was initiated after the conference. This section led discussions and public forums, and was an inspiration for further women’s initiatives. With the support from Zagreb, almost the same initiative with the same name “Women and Society” upon SKC was founded in Belgrade in 1980. It was principally a forum for discussions. In Ljubljana, the first women group LILITH was founded in 1985, and the first lesbian group LILITH LL in 1987.
The necessity for the interconnection of women activists was even larger, and so the first Yugoslovenian feminist conference happened in Ljubljana in 1987. This conference actuated the values of sisterhood, exchange, support of women activism, discussions about women art and culture, first meeting about lesbianism, etc. Afterwards, three more Yugoslovenian feminist conferences were held in Zagreb and Belgrade, and the last one, “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Ljubljana” was held in Ljubljana in spring 1991, just before the beginning of the war.
Another turning point for the development of feminism and women’s movement were the dates of founding SOS phone for women and children who are victims of violence. After the first ten years of elaboration and discussion about the dimensions of subordination of women, some activists had a necessity to start working with women directly. Feminists saw that violence against women is one transversal throughout all lives of women, and that women services actually should be started from SOS phone which would give space to women who were victims of violence in order to have witnesses and that someone have trust that really had happened to them. The first SOS phone was founded in Zagreb in 1988, and the other one in Ljubljana in 1989 and Belgrade in 1990. SOS phones had identical names, the first instructions we did together, we discusses the norms of work and principles in the same workshops, and we spent summers together on our first women camps – interchanges from which we have been learning one from another initialized pearl of the feminist policy of solidarity in the time of wars and regime politics of nationalistic exclusion of others.
The Beginning of the War, Initiatives in Belgrade
When in the summer of 1991 it has been heard that the soldiers of JNA killed several Slovenian soldiers, as well as Croatian – women scene in Beograd was just to develop. “Belgrade’s Women Lobby”, “Women Parliament” and “Women Party ZEST” came into existence after the women activists of the feminist group “Women and Society” established SOS phone for women and children who are victims of violence on March 8, 1900.
News from the front divided many activists on those who took a new Serb identity, and those who still rejected that. Additionally, they were also divided about the question are they going to shoot or not when comes to attack in self-defense.
Women anti-war group WOMEN IN BLACK AGAINST WAR was founded in October 1991, and its goal was to confront to the Serbian military regime and its responsibility for the wars in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. Until Dayton Agreement, a group of women peace builders was standing every Saturday on the Republic Square to expose their bodies and to show that they are against Serbian military regime, war, and violence against women. Currently, Women in Black are standing in black being silent once in a month.
After 1992, in Serbia, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, there are more than 50 women non-governmental organizations.
