Women`s Information-Documentation Training Centre

Women’s Information-Documentation Training Centre
Panel discussions
Gender and Left
Movement
Belgrade, 2012.
Panel Discussions: GENDER AND LEFT MOVEMENT
Publisher:
Women’s Information-Documentation Training Centre (WINDOC)
Editors:
Lidija Vasiljević
Tamara Skrozza
Materials:
Documentary and Press Clipping Archive of WINDOC
Design:
Biljana Todorovski
Translation:
Nebojša Noveski
Printing:
TIM Agency
Belgrade 2012.
This publication is made thanks to
the support of
the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Germany.
Content
Nadeţda Čačinovič
The Grand Narratives of Feminism
Page 7
Gordana Stojaković
Yugoslavia Antifascist Front of Women
(AFŢ) from 1946 to 1953: A Look Through
AFŢ Press
Page 13
Dr. AnĎelka Milić
Socialism and Feminism Compounds and Divergence
Page 38
Ankica Čakardić
Savings measures as a class-gender policy
Page 43
Milica Ruţičić
Ecstasy of Bureaucracy
Page 52
Marijana Radulović
Self-organized Choirs
in ex-Yugoslavia
Page 58
Panel discussions: Gender And The Left
Women's Information-Documentation Training Centre (WINDOC), in
cooperation with the Youth centre of Belgrade and with the support of the "Rosa
Luxemburg" Foundation, launched the first series of the panel discussions on the
topic GENDER AND THE LEFT MOVEMENT.
The main goal of the project GENDER AND THE LEFT MOVEMENT is
emancipation through education and opening space for critical thinking and
questioning the work of social movements, with a focus on feminism in the
former Yugoslavia. Gender and the left is the topic that is neglected and painted
with many prejudices and therefore it presents a challenge, inspiration and
hopefully interesting incentive for all activists, students, scholars, researchers, and
all those who consider alternative policies as satisfaction and area of interest.
Panel Discussions:
12th April 2012
"GENDER AND THE LEFT - Class Perspectives in Feminism", Nadeţda Čačinović
03th May 2012
"Anti fascist movement and women‘s movement after World War II ", Gordana
Stojaković
17th May 2012
"Socialism and feminism, feminism in socialism”, AnĎelka Milić and Sonja
Drljević
07th June 2012
"Feminism and Radical Left", Ankica Čakardić
21st June 2012
New left and feminist movement, present trends and challenges"
"
, Milica Ruţičić
and Marijana Radulović
This publication is collection of the articles written by the participants.
5
Poster GENDER AND LEFT, Dom
omladine Beograda, Belgrade 2012
Nadeţda Čačinovič
THE GRAND NARRATIVES OF
FEMINISM
L
et‟s recall: the "grand narrative", the phrase that comes from Lyotard, is the
label for construction that has achieved credibility through procedures that
disappear when subjected to critical deconstruction. Deconstruction is required for
example that we would not be deceived about embedded meaningfulness of our
existence and progress of the world towards a better life based on rhetorical performance upgrades simple binary oppositions. Of course, in the background is
always the question of power: the issue of the master of discourse.
For decades, I did not doubt in any way in excellence and desirability of
such critical treatment. After all, when dealing with theory, the self-deception is
truly a great enemy. It is true, however, that the attack on the great narratives usually been associated with the so-called postmodern relativism, bringing into question the common notion of the possibility of distinguishing the true and the false,
lengthy performative contradiction that has become really unbearable.
Grand narrative is the story that explains entirety in one key, literally
worldview. Grand narrative is, of course, great because it does not allow itself to
be interpreted as an expression of a particular position or a particular interest.
All this is quite simplified but enough to raise doubts on the chosen topic
and title. Can feminism developed into the great narrative when quite obviously
want to represent a certain side? To say a true, that side is a half of humanity...
Feminism is, for that matter, as a grand narrative as it is Marxism. Suppose that we consider all the previous history as the history of class struggles and
as a solution and elimination of these conflicts, emergence of the proletariat with
nothing to lose but their chains, then it is more than easy to conclude that feminism can be considered as an insight in the patriarchy of previous history of hu7
mankind that are in favor of the whole world can be solved only if afflicted unseat
his chains.
After this furious introduction, I can slow down and show the relevant
context for us.
In the mid sixties, the time of my introduction with women's issues,
among other things because of the books of Simone de Beauvoir, socialism was
the name of the system in which we live and the name of a better future, much
different from the present. Of course, the credibility of that view was a little bit
problematic from the beginning and bit in some aspects it completely failed.
We should not, of course, underestimate the real, true, measurable effect of proclaimed principles of equality between men and women. However, the gap between the principle and the realization was clearly visible, as it was visible the
good effects of equal education, the normal expectations of a more or less equal
CVs for women as for men.
Femininity was sometimes below the level of consciousness and sometimes above it: we were enrolling in the men's stories, for me, for example, it took
a long time to see how Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" excludes any part of the
female intellectuality of mankind, but in the dominant discourse equality was part
of the program and the realization of the ideal relationships, according to that, was
only a matter of time. The dramatic view of the world was in full force.
Shifts are showing gradually. To remind you: year sixty-eight led to a major renovation of the utopian impulse without doubt. Then, there is so-called sexual revolution, which covers everything, from relatively unproblematic contraception, to the discovery of rights to orgasm. For my generation, the changes have
occurred in the midst of our growing up. Non-official, feminist women's initiatives have undoubtedly been encouraged by foreign books or by events outside of
Yugoslavia. In those circumstances it is considered as a disqualification, and socalled Yugoslav path of building socialism was peak experiences of the workers'
movement. Actually, as it happens in societies of that type, it was considered and
not considered at the same time. We are all been able to believe in many impossible things early in the morning, at least on some level. In the specific kind of political debate, and a little less specific scientific and theoretical debate were open
questions we are dealing to this day.
8
Theoretically, in the history of ideas we can discern sequences that entered into dialogue with the variants of official opinion: existentialism then structuralism then post-structuralism then discussions about postmodernism for a long
time and then, of course, censure on 1989th or so. From a feminist point of view
and with a lot of simplification, it was always been a huge division on those who
(first) equalized female and male or deconstructed functioning of this binary opposition, and on those who (second) were essentialist. On a slightly different logic
functioned activism, programs and subjectivization: becoming a subject, the acquisition of power. Imposed as women, or cease to be that alien constructions "women."
At first glance it seems that the utopian dimension was doma in the great
story of essentialist feminism: when women reach appropriate positions, there
would be no war, no violence; the ethical principle will be the ethics of care. But
if we consider the ability of imagining of completely different relationships as
utopian, alternative thought, it could happen without essentialism.
My personal criteria to make differences between acceptable and unacceptable utopianism is the price: is it expected to sacrifice for the
better future. Of course not, the sacrifice in terms of delay satisfaction, without which there is no culture or civilization, but rather a peaceful acceptance of the sacrifice of many contemporaries in the name of supposedly noble aims. Personal sacrifice is
something else (although it may have a form of moral blackmail):
without it, it would be difficult to reach achievements that were
hidden so far under official Work day and Women day.
However, as I strongly and secular confident that we have
only this dimension, only one life, avoiding the suffering of others should be the fundamental starting point of a program of
change.
Nadežda Čačinović, Panel: Gender and Left,
Dome omladine Beograd, 2012
Maybe part of that attitude has led to atrophy of the active principles because of which a symbolic gesture is considered as sufficient.
Another pathology of feminism is closing in its own world, ignoring all
who do not share our views with perhaps some attempts to include women who
are not yet conscious, slightly above.
9
But they are turning, pathology, between this and before and after the socalled changes, there will be a large amount of work, patient, less patient, with
more or with less performative moments, but productive. Because of feminism,
the world is little bit better place.
Every now and then, it was talked about some kind of exhaustion, a reaction, and apathy. No doubt, many accomplishments became, as stated in the relevant jargon, "mainstream". In a world in which we live, this means that many
goals, many accomplishments, become incorporated into the most successful of
all grand narratives, one about the inevitability of a market economy. Neoliberalism is relatively easy to identify as such ideological reduction, the suppression of
all that bothers primary discourse, but the inevitability of the market model, simply put, capitalism, is accepted even where their effects are judgmental, where one
seeks to get a little better model. It looks like that neo-liberal ideology is benefited
from some characteristics of Marxism: economic determinism and the belief that
there is only one direction of development.
How to preserve the utopian imagination, the belief that you can live differently and to recognize contextual knowledge at the same time, confusing plurality of expectations? How to get rid of fear of generalization, joint projects when
we are afraid of universalism as the mask of patriarchy for such a long time?
Theory and activism agree that resistance to the prevailing hierarchical
relationships have always existed. From strategies of resistance of the oppressed
at the micro level, to the consumer's ability to functionally falsified any goods: we
got rid of some dogmatic assumptions (and some, for example, I cannot rid: I can
considered that home business deserves the same dignity, and that we should reevaluate the meaning of all so-called 'low' jobs, but addiction is not supposed to
be treated with uncontrolled spending of money that husband earned, as a revenge).
We became aware of variety of practice but we do not know whether it is
possible universalize movement that would not be contaminated.
Actually, what I think is necessary (and difficult) is a non-trivial approach
to political dimension. Without of politics utopian impulses are something like a
boomerang, they fly and return as destructive. Politics is a concern for the business of community, smaller, larger, global. Politics is indeed the art of the possible, but not cheap cynicism. The utopian vision is a vision of the possible and not
dreaming in vain.
10
Panel Gender & Left: Class Perspectives
in Feminism, Dome omladine Beograd,
April 2012
Nadežda Čačinović, a professor of the University of Zagreb, Croatia's prominent philosopher, feminist
theorist and activist, one of the founders of Women's Studies, since 2009 president of the Croatian PEN
Centre. She is the author of numerous papers, and has published the following books: The Subject of Critical Theory, Zagreb 1980, Writing And Thinking, Zagreb 1981; Aesthetics of German Romanticism, Zagreb
1887; Aesthetics, Zagreb 1988; Essay on Literacy, Zagreb, 1994, By Women's Key, Zagreb 2001 ; The Age of
Pictures In Mediology Theory, Zagreb 2001, Guide to the World's Literature for an Intelligent Woman,
Zagreb 2007; Why to read Philosophers?, Zagreb, 2009; edited anthology "Women and Philosophy" (Zagreb 2006).
11
Poster GENDER AND LEFT, Dom
omladine Beograda, Belgrade 2012
In our historiography, it
was written a lot about
the period 1945-1953.
(Branko Petranović 1981;
Jovanka Kecman 1975;
Neda Božinović 1996 i
drugi), there is also a lot
of materials (for
Vojvoduna it is in the
Archive of Vojvodine and
Museum of Vojvodina),
but, except the book
called Konji žene ratovi
(Horses, Women, Wars Lidia Sklevicky 1996) it
doesn't exist any
sistematic reasearch about
the role of AFŽ in social
changes of the possition
of women.
1
Gordana Stojaković
Yugoslavia Antifascist Front of
Women (AFŢ) from 1946 to 1953:
A look through AFŢ Press
Introduction
C
ompletion of World War II in socialist Yugoslavia marked the beginning of
radical change in the status of women in society that have occurred fiercely,
massive and well organized. Within one (socialist / communist) ideology, a social
system, one party (the Communist Party), women gained equal legal rights as men
in all areas of life and work.
2 Today it is used term:
women's liberation, and it
means the women's liberation of male dominance
in all aspects of life and
work.
The liberation is the
concept of comprehensive reforms that advocate
abandoning reform efforts and the partial resolution of the problem.
In historiography1, the period 1945-1953 will be remembered as the time
of discontinuity: in relation to the capitalist socio-economic system, monarchical
political system and the oppressed position of women in society in the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia. Socialist ideology did not observe emancipation of women outside
of the working class. Because of that, the measure of women's emancipation,
above all, was determined in relation to labor rights.
3 For AFŽ is “comrade
Kardelj said, at the Fifthe
congres that AFŽ is
organisational structure of
our Party and National
Labour Front for
Women” (Vida Tomšič
„Kako treba raditi u našoj
organizaciji“, Glas žena
September 1950: 2).
Emancipation2 of women is a term used in the countries of the socialist
socio-economic and political system and is mainly meant equality between men
and women in legislation. The process of emancipation of women in the early
years of socialist Yugoslavia cannot be seen outside of Antifascist Front of Women (AFŢ)3, organization that played a key role in the transformation of women's
roles in society. Rise of women from private to public sphere, outside of the family circle that has traditionally belonged to the women's sphere, and economic independence of certain number of women4, which occurred during the socialist
transformation of our society, was not sufficient solutions for complete transformation of position of women in society. The problem has remained in the domain
4 There were 400000
women in Vojvodina in
1948 and 340000 of them
were members of AFŽ,
and 290.000 were signed
in National front. Around
50.000 women were
employed in companies,
and 6.348 of them had
higher possitions in trade
union (Zora Krdžalić
Slobodna Vojvodina 7th
Mach 1948: 1). In 1949
more that 1.940 women in
Vojvodina, were worked
in industry as permament
or temporary working
labour (Slobodna Vojvodina
14th January 1950: 2).
13
In our literature has not
been systematically explored women's press
issued by AFŽ in Serbia
and Vojvodina. Important
information can be found
in the books: Women of
Vojvodina in War and
Revolution 1941-1945
(Dusan Popov 1984: 207216), Women's Issues in
Serbia in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries
(Neda Bozinovic 1996), a
CD presentation of research AFŽ of Vojvodina
1942-1953 (Gordana
Stojakovic 2007). Dealing
with a problem of attitude
of the media towards
women I relied on the
following papers: Special
Issue of Genero (2004) is
devoted to the question of
the relation of the media
toward women, and there
are especially important
texts dealing with strategies of excluding women
from the public sphere
(Milivojevic, 2004; Lisbet
van Zonen 2004; Theresa
Stratford 2004). There is a
considerable literature
dealing with the relationship between women and
media, or "feminine"
perception of media
content and the language
of the media (Kunz Susanna & Sanja Sarnavka
2006; Carole Pateman,
2004; Bourdien Pierre,
2005; Nirman Moranjak
2007) .
5
6 In
the article "In the
struggle for the liquidation of illiteracy" (Voices
of Women 1948: 4) states
that in Vojvodina late in
1948, there were "11,203
illiterate women, and the
number of poorly educated is much higher." It was
a political priority because
it was necessary to bring
together women and
activate them in the plan
building and reconstruction of the country and
involve them in political
life, so it is quite understandable that the press
AFŽ was used as the
most important channel
of transmission of messages and creating the role
intended for women.
14
of private and family "where the patriarchal order still lives in the minds and
hearts of the people" (Zarana Papic 1989: 37). Family in socialism as well as in
civil capitalist society was a place where reproduction of relations of hierarchy
has happened, because “sexes retain their naturalness” (Zarana Papic 1989: 39).
Ideological plan in socialist Yugoslavia in the period 1946-1953 was
transmitted through the print media. The key role of transmitting messages to
women had Antifascist Front of Women press (AFŢ press)5. In the period of 1945
-beside press, the part of the system of transmitting messages and creating identities, cultural values and social relations (Adla Isanović 2007) were "Reading classes" and "Courses for the illiterate." AFŢ organizations were tasked to gather
women in the villages and towns and organized as much as it is possible reading
groups and courses for the illiterate. This educational and ideological system was
based on the need to overcome the centuries of legacy of inequality of women and
to pass on messages, clearly and unambiguously, to as many women as it is possible, in direct contact which occurred in women's groups in the system of AFŢ.
The period 1946-1953 was the time of AFŢ press. Woman Today
(Belgrade) was printed in 30,000 copies, Dawn (Belgrade) was printed in 50,000
copies and in Vojvodina were printed the Voice of women, Dolgozo No
(Vajdasági Dolgozo No) and Femeia nouă, which gives in total more than
100,000 copies. It was paradoxically that at a time when so much of women in
Vojvodina were illiterate or recently literate6, existed so many engaged papers.
AFŢ press is used as the most important channel of transmission of messages and
creating the role intended for women. Messages are not adopted only by reading
or by free selection of information that depends on the characteristics of the audience, but through their interpretation in direct contact of leaders of reading classes
and audience.
This system was based on hierarchy of AFŢ press where the Woman today was monthly magazine which transmitted the axiomatic - "standard" messages to the leaders of middle and lower AFŢ boards, and all other papers, according
to the formed pattern represented reality on the macro (political agenda) and micro-level (daily life) and created it at the same time (new female roles). The most
important texts in the analyzed AFŢ press in period 1948-1950 wrote Vida
Tomsici.
To investigate which messages are transmitted, with which purpose, who
was the one who transmitted them, and how they are implemented in everyday
life, I analyzed Voice of women and Dawn. I limited the analysis on these papers
that are printed in Serbian language, but I used the testimony of Gizele Sabo
(Szabo Gizela) editor of Dolgozo No (Vajdasági Dolgozo No) (Gordana Stojakovic 2007). I used the research results of AFŢ Vojvodina 1945-1953 (Gordana
Stojakovic 2007) where I presented the facts about the importance of AFŢ as a
women's organization that has played a key role in long-range project of emancipation of women in socialist Yugoslavia in the period 1945-1953.
I used discourse analysis methods in the analysis of text (Vera Vasic
1995; Svenka Savic 1993) which allow displaying gender differences in relation
to the context (political, economic and cultural). I also used the methods that are
used in the presentation of women in the media (Nirman Moranjak 2007) and
methods that explain the ideological gender roles (Susan Kingsley Kent 1987). As
a key element of the analysis I determined: what were the dominant themes and
what are dominant roles intended for women (mother, wife, worker ...) and how
they matched AFŢ political agenda. I presented the results of the analysis in the
doctoral thesis Gender perspective in the newspapers of Antifascist Front of
Women (1946-1953), and in this thesis I set aside the topic - the entry of women
into the economy with special emphasis on co-operatives, so I could give basic
information about the AFŢ organization in period 1946-19537.
AFŢ of Yugoslavia: the most massive women's organization
in our historical memory
Antifascist Front of Women of Yugoslavia was founded in 1942, during
the national liberation struggle (NOB) with the aim to bring together women in
the fight against the fascists. Ideological work of the organization laid on the fundamental commitments of Communist Party that women have to be equal with
men in all spheres of life and work. Organization was, after the war, formally a
member of the National Front of Yugoslavia8, but in many segments of work represented the authentic interests of women.
The experience of women within an AFŢ relied and continues on experience of women organizing in workers' and communist organizations 9 beginning
7 PhD thesis "Gender
perspective in the newspaper of the Antifascist
Front of Women (19461953)" I defended in
august 2011 in Gender
Studies ACIMSI
University of Novi
Sad. My goal was to
point to the part of
the forgotten heritage
of women in socialism
by reconstructing and
deconstructing the
textual and visual
messages in a press of
AFŽ that are partialy
shaped the consciousness of women . My
intention was to point
out the importance of
political views about
desirable roles of
women in socialism in
the period 1945-1953.
Second Congress of
Antifascist Front of
Women of Yugoslavia
took place 25th, 26th
and 27th January 1948
in Belgrade. Only then
was adopted and
enacted the organization's work plans
contained in the resolutions of the Second
Congress AFŽ's Yugoslavia. The Statute
shows that AFŽ was
an integral part of the
National Front. The
provincial organization AFŽ's was in the
range of the county,
district and local
organizations whose
highest authority was
the Conference of
AFŽ.
8
9 See: Kecman
Jovanka (1978);
Kecman Jovanka
(1975); Stojaković
Gordana (2007);
Sklevicky Lidia (1996).
15
from the twenties of the 20th century. Equally important was the experience of
women's civil10 and feminist organizations in Serbia and Vojvodina, which in addition to humanitarian function, also have training programs for women, and political demands. Many of themes11 started in civil and feminist organizations are
taken up and developed in AFŢ system, in a form that is dictated by political moment.
10 Božinović
Neda
(1996); Sklevicky Lidia
(1996: 73-107);
Stojaković Gordana
(2001).
11 Patronage,
various
forms of education of
women, women press
16
Mass organization of women and creation of network of AFŢ organizations, in the period 1942-1944 mostly in rural areas, was a process that was moving on "experimental paths" (Srbislav Kovacevic, 1943). On the one hand, women
are very often represented a crucial force of NOB as a partisan, nurses, couriers,
undercover fighters, those who organized the daily life in the liberated territories
(where men are in the camps, or in partisans, or killed), and on the other hand,
their exit from the home environment during the more peaceful phases of the war,
was not widely accepted among their comrades and in the environment in which
they lived. Already during the 1944th, dilemma arose whether it is necessary that
there is still a separate women‟s organization such as the AFŢ. Jovan VeselinovŽarko, Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia sent in 1944 letter to the Provincial Committee of AFŢ with a message that
there is a "dangerous tendency of AFŢ independence, the separation of AFŢ in a
completely independent organization... Lower boards… are often evolved into a
narrow field women's organization that is (in many places) considered much more
responsible to senior committees of AFŢ then to local bodies and local needs and
objectives of National Liberation Struggle..." (Srbislav Kovacevic 1984: 120).
Mitra Mitrović was the first one to defend a separate women's organization. She
considered that AFŢ is not organization "exclusively concerned with women's
issues, but (it is) a movement which brought together women in struggle of the
entire nation against the aggressor" (Mitra Mitrovic, About The Antifascist Front
of Women, Woman Today No. 33. 1944: 6-8). Women, as it says Mitra Mitrovic
in those article, thanks to AFŢ, on easier and more effectively way involved themselves into public and political life, because women are "still easier to assemble
through there, shall we say 'women's movement'." They were in completely special way tied to their organization, which now becomes "roof over their head." In
such conditions, but also because of the merits of the AFŢ had in the NOB without any doubts, Mitra Mitović considered that survival of AFŢ is not being questioned.
The massive exodus of women into the public sphere in the period 19451950 is one of the key features of the social life of socialist Yugoslavia. Women
have voted in elections for federal, republic, provincial and local authorities. They
are elected into government and included in the economic development of the
country. By ideological and party decisions, women gained an active role in creating social and economic spheres: female workers, cooperative workers, politicians
('socio-political workers'), economically independent women who have accomplished a variety of professions, those that have, till then, been reserved for men
only. There was a special social plan for education of women in order to overcome the inherited lack of education and joined in economic and political life.
However, there was still an important role for woman as mother (not only their
own children but also the children who had no parents) as well as the entire arsenal of the roles in economy of nursing and care (care for women in labor, breast
feeding mothers, the disabled, students in dorms, colonists).
Social and political involvement of women began to decline during 1950
when self-management was introduced and economic enterprises have to show a
positive result. Social care for children and mothers realized until then now becomes an expensive project. Such a social effort produced attitudes that it is the
best for women to "return to home" because it is the most rational and in the
"interest of the children" ("About the problem of duplication of effort for working
women" in Woman today no. 81, 1951: 11). The exceptions are rural women who
are still in the focus of activism and political work within AFŢ, because the project of socialist transformation of the village was still not completed.
What happened was that in Vojvodina during 1951 and 1952 a lot of
women returned candidacy for the elections at the local and regional level, as husbands and families are not agree with that. In the early postwar years, this situation has not been possible. During NOB and the postwar reconstruction, patriarchal understandings of women‟s position was immediately recognized and condemned as backward and wrong. During early fifties, struggle with patriarchal
conceptions slowed down. In the elections for local authorities in Vojvodina has
been observed that the men-voters were against women-candidates. In Jasa Tomic, among 28 women 14 were selected, in Kovin out of 16 nominated women 3
were elected, and from 58 nominated in Bečej 12 were elected. In Sombor 50 female returned there candidacy because their husbands did not allowed them to
accept the nominations (Rose Tadić "What are our objectives" Woman Today No.
103. 1953: 3).
17
Experiences of mass participation of women in economic and social life
of the country were gathered in AFŢ organizations at the time when, according to
the decision of the Communist Party, organization should be reduced to an advisory branch of People Front. They were so strong and so important that in times of
weakening the organization was open until today actual issue of balancing women‟s personal and business obligations. Many working women have complained
on "terrible fatigue" from everyday monotonous work at home "(Gordana Stojaković 2007). It was believed that the introduction of electricity in households, using of stoves, refrigerators, irons, washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners ... housework is going to minimum. In addition, it was believed that the establishment of services for cleaning houses, laundries and many other different services, women will relieve from housework. However, even then it was clear that
true equality requires cultural emancipation of men and women and that the process of exiting of women in the public sphere, burdened by legacy of the past, will
be long.
The hardest part of the process of emancipation of the society was the
process of transformation of opinions of men and women. Ida Sabo in her Women‟s Day speech (Novi Sad 1960)12, said that during the socialist transformation
of society "process of turning old concepts into new has happened, the process of
adopting new views about the position of women in family and society." Ida Sabo
notes that the socialism in FNRJ "confirmed the correctness of the Marxist theory
on women's issues, i.e. that its complete solution is possible through victory of the
proletariat against capitalism".
Speech is
published in:
Stojaković, G.
(2007), CD- AFŽ
Vojvodine 19421953, authors‟ issue,
Novi Sad
12
18
In practice, the mass entry of women into the economy brought the transformation of the family. It was clear that women cannot perform old and new
functions and that it does not produce a double burden for women. In the mentioned speech, Ida Sabo suggests the following solution: "If we start from a socialist point of view that a woman is equal, that she perform and will perform even
more a variety of professions and positions in society, it is not possible to keep
longer the old organization of work in the household and we must consciously to
create a network of social institutions that will surround the family and that will
perform various tasks related to the daily life of the family." In the process of
transformation of the family were highlighted "commune and home communities"
that are seen as "extended families... that will free a woman from housework."
Why is terminated AFŢ? According to the Resolution on the establishment of the League of women's societies of Yugoslavia (September 1953) reason
was level of development of social relations where the activities of AFŢ in solving social problems were evaluated as a wrong "because they supported incorrect
opinion that the issue of women‟s position is some kind of special women's issue
and not a general social issue, the issue of all the fighters for socialism ... "(Vida
Tomšič 1980: 77).
About the reasons for the abolition of AFŢ, Nada Boţinović says the following:
It is patriarchy at work, again. Each time an excuse is found to get women
backward. This was not a pure patriarchy, but a socialist ideology. I say this after
a long reflection on what it could be. I came to the conclusion that the event has
basically patriarchal line - it was difficult to accept a woman as an equal human
being. Even in that time, socialism proclaimed the equality of women, but "under
our control"- under the control of Socialist Party (Stojaković Gordana 2002: 48).
13
Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
(1946-1963)
„Economy of care and
concern‟ I called voluntary and unpaid activities
which women in socialist
Yugoslavia facilitated
care and nursing for all
vulnerable groups of
society: children in
nurseries and kindergartens, children without
parents, students in
boarding schools, old
people, settlers and
disabled, the population
in "passive area", women
and children in KosovoMetohija area, the participants of large sites, border guards ... „Corps of
the volunteer activities‟ I
called the economy
because the mobilization
of women across the
organization AFŽ on
matters of food, clothing
and shoes and work to
maintain their daily needs
(care for the listed populations) helped to launch
the socialist transformation of society. Millions of unpaid
working hours of women
of socialist Yugoslavia
laid the foundations of
the new state that is not
sufficiently known.
14
The entry of women into the economy with a special focus on
cooperatives and women workers in cooperatives through
AFŢ Press
Zest
The transformation of society into socialism and a more balanced development of the various parts of FNRJ13 were not possible without the massive participation of women. Platforms, by which women‟s situation has changed, can be
followed on the basis of the analysis of the most common themes in AFŢ press:
literacy and cultural rising of women, women's entry into the economy with a special focus on cooperatives and women workers in cooperatives, economics of care
and concern14 and celebrations of Women‟s Day. All of these topics are intertwined, and cause change of intensity in the fundamental political documents
(resolutions and conclusions of the Communist Party, the People Front and AFŢ),
in political texts of leaders of AFŢ and in the reports and news stories about the
work of the AFŢ organizations. Analysis of the texts shows two periods in relation to the dominant female situation: the period of domination of active role of
women and rising of women workers in the social ladder (1945-1950) and the
period of domination of roles in the economy of care and concern (1950-1953).
Analysis of AFŢ press articles shows that in the period 1946-1949, AFŢ
was tightly structured system with constructed hierarchy of power, based on clear-
19
ly defined objectives in accordance with the ideological-political matrix of the
Communist Party. Women had active roles in the creation of socio-economic
sphere: politicians ("socio-political workers"), economically independent women
who have mastered the various professions. In doing so, it was taken into account
the "social function of women" because also were promoted the roles of a mother,
teacher and nurse.
Through AFŢ press, reading groups and conferences, to a wide range of
women is first explained why and how to transform society into socialist society,
fairer, where there will be no social distinctions, and then was set specific tasks to
AFŢ membership, as it is referred in the political text of Ruţa Tadić "Let‟s intensify the ideological education of our working women" (The voice of women from
January to February 1949: 8-10). The text follows the politically created pattern of
changes in the status of women in society - education, involvement in the economy and education of youth, and begins with a quote from the "Program of Party":
Communist Party will be particularly fight for comprehensive strengthening of activities of Antifascist Front of Women in the work of the education of women in the spirit of socialism, fixing achieved equality for women and ensuring equality through the ongoing concern for their cultural
and political elevation, for mother and child, and for the massive involvement of women in all spheres of social and economic lives.
The following are statistics on the work of AFŢ in Vojvodina, which are
in the first part of article of Ruţa Tadić shown as a review of compliance of AFŢ
work with "The program of the Party": The number of conferences "on various
issues - interpretation of regulations, laws, and major political and economic
tasks", the number of reading groups, courses and competitions in achieving the
set plans of work of AFŢ. In the second part, Ruţa Tadić gives good examples of
work of individual AFŢ organizations, and ends with criticism, as a mandatory
part of every political text in AFŢ press, addressed to a certain committees of
AFŢ:
District committees of AFŽ should struggle this time to avoid non systematic work in raising staff and to provide continuous education and training of our comrades (Ruža Tadić "Let’s Intensify the ideological education
of our working women"in Voice of Women, January-February 1949: 810).
20
Content analysis of the Voice of Women has been shown domination of
political articles for AFŢ members that calls and mobilizes women in Vojvodina
in their own efforts to support general social plan. Each engagement is based on
the tasks of AFŢ, based on the plan of Communist Party for all mass organizations. Unsigned political article "Fifth Congress of Party and objectives of
AFŢ" (Voice of Women in November 1948: 1-3) provides a summary plan of the
Communist Party for AFŢ organizations:
In the year 1949, the third year of the execution of our five years plan,
our organization will have to approach with more system to organization
of working woman, in order to carry out the task set in the Plan of Economic Development of FNRJ and the Program of the Communist Party –
to allow to women the massive participation in all spheres of social and
political life. In that way we will provide to our industry sufficient workers, and number of 15,304 women involved this year in the economy will
be much higher, and our task, set in the Program - to mobilize women for
socialism will be done.
The mass participation of women was necessary to perform reconstruction and rebuilding of our country, industrialization and the socialist transformation of the village. Message of the necessary involvement of women in the
economy refers to both men and women because the engagement of women working outside of the home asks for changes in the family. To achieve the plan, it was
necessary to establish a network of institutions of social standards that will support women‟s work outside the home:
To increase involvement of women, both in factories and institutions, in
the industrialization of our country and in the building of national authorities, and in the village on the reconstruction of agriculture and the
creation of a new socialist countryside, the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party set up a task in the Program of Party - Developing a whole
system to help a wife and a mother. First of all it is necessary in the next
year to create a wider network of children's institutions needed not only
to mothers who are already involved in the industry, but also to those
who our economy is waiting for (Anon F
" ifth Congress of Party and objectives of AFŽ": The Voice of Women in November 1948: 2).
21
Magazine
"Žena
danas"
(Woman
Today),
1946
22
Magazine
"Žena
danas"
(Woman
Today),
1946
23
Along with messages about needs for inclusion of women in the economy,
there are also messages about changing the status of women in socialist Yugoslavia. Vida Tomšič in text "Women of Yugoslavia in the struggle for buildings of
socialism" (Voice of Women in March 1949:1-3) repeats the argument that the victory of the working class brought "a complete liquidation of all oppression of man
to man" and "liquidation of inequality and oppression of women". She gives examples of positive change of women's situation in socialist Yugoslavia:
Many thousands of women and girls today acquire further education in
various high schools and universities. Here are just a few examples of the
statistics. Compared with the year 1939, the number of women in the economy increased by 26,2%. In 1948 when compared to year 1947 , the number of women involved in the economy has increased by 76.47% (63.71%
in textile industry, 61.02% in the paper products industry, 77.81% in the
homecraft, 34.90% in electrical industry, 50.09% in tobacco industry).
Women make up a large number of the workers. 32% of all workers were
women (Vida Tomšič, "Women of Yugoslavia in the struggle to build socialism"in Voice of Women, March 1949: 1-3).
The most capable women for work were those in childbirth period and because of that, the ideological and political agenda was primary based in labor legislation that was supposed to enable work engagement of mothers. Women are informed about it in the Mirjana Sapundţić article "New regulations on the protection of working women during pregnancy and childbirth" (Voice of Women in
June 1949: 4). In addition to paid 90 days long maternity Leave, it was solved the
issue of absence from work caused by breastfeeding and it was provided the possibility of the nursing mother and wife with up to three years old children to work
part-time (under certain conditions):
Head of enterprises and institutions, where mother-breast-feeding is working, determines the duration of the interruption (due to breastfeeding) in
terms of real options, for example: distance from home or kindergarten,
transportation links and similar, so she can have a half an hour for breastfeeding. Interruption of work because of breastfeeding cannot be longer
than 2 hours. What are the particular conditions and circumstances when
mothers who are in labor or service relations may be allowed to work part
24
-time, will determine the manager after checking the opinion of the union
organization (Mirjana Sapundžić, "New regulations on the protection of
working women during pregnancy and childbirth" in Voice of Women,
June 1949: 4).
Assessment of the conditions and opportunities for nursing mothers and
those who wants to work part-time, gave the manager with recommendation from
union, in the best case. AFŢ are not included in the decision-making process
which indicates that in the real life, outside of political speeches, the entry of
women in the economy was mainly caused by the needs for new labor, and not by
needs to include them as a woman in the social and economic reality.
Following the priorities of development, AFŢ press was brought through
stories and reports reviews of successful inclusion of women in the industry.
What was like a working day of women workers in sock factory "Vukica Mitrovic" in Apatin shows the unsigned report named "New life of our workers" (Voice of Women in November 1948: 5-6):
Factory workers are working from 5h to 13h. Every Wednesday are regular reading group meetings for members of each department. We attended a reading group meeting. They worked on political report of comrade
Tito from the Fifth Congress of Communist Party. They read the part
where Tito refers to the resolution of the Informbiro and the charges
against the Party and its leadership.
Workers are free to speak about the political situation in a way that included a very personal approach:
Mirić Milka worker in the department for the repair of socks said during
discussion: “I do not know why they are attacking us and say we do not
like the USSR. By 1941 I lived in Lika, I kept cattle, I could not read or
write. I’m joined the struggle in 1941. There I learned literacy, but even
before I started to learn to read and write, I heard and learned about
great USSR and loved it. Since then, every day in combat and at home in
the Lika and after the liberation here in the factory, I listened about
USSR and their great achievements in the work and their love for us and
I loved them more and more every day. This is what we always learned
from our leaders and I do not understand why they are attacking us now
that we do not like the Soviet Union” (Anon "New life for our workers,"in:
The voice of Women in November 1948: 5).
25
Women were a heterogeneous group in which Milka Mirić represented
one of the most common women's situations. She is a former fighter who during
WWII learned to read and gets basic political knowledge about the new sociopolitical system and the leading role of the Soviet Union. She is also post-war colonist involved in the economy. She is an economically independent woman who
speaks out freely. She is an example of a giant step that was made in many women's situations in the new socialist Yugoslavia. At the same time, her understanding of the world is still intuitive and bounded with categories correctly - wrong;
love - not love. But she speaks starting from her own life experiences which she
develops positively in the new system. She spoke politically illiterate, but authentically and powerfully. For the example of Milke Mirić it is obvious that the women were specific part of the audience and in accordance with particular created
political campaign, such as conferences, reading groups and AFŢ press.
Women in Cooperatives
The formation of cooperatives has been one of the priorities in the development of the new socialist country. Inclusion of women in peasant and agricultural cooperatives has been a long-term task for all AFŢ organizations. Members
of the organization were involved in the field of education for women so that they
could more easily involved themselves in the cooperative, but also on the level of
organization of kindergartens, nurseries. "In 26 out of the 32 districts in Vojvodina, in agricultural cooperatives was enrolled 66,608 women, while in the peasant
cooperatives, 18,362 women was enrolled "(Free Vojvodina January 5, 1950: 1).
In 1949 in Vojvodina was opened 48 childcare institutions, and in the peasant cooperatives 74, which was not enough (Stojakovic Gordana 2007).
16 Text
"What are our
assignments"
published in Women
Today no. 103, 1953,
3-4. is report of the
Sixth Plenum of the
Central Committee of
AFŽ Yugoslavia that
was held in December
1952 in Sarajevo. The
paper presents
extracts from the
papers of Vida
Tomšić, Rose Tadić,
Cane Babović and
Judith Alargić.
26
Analyses of articles in Voice of Woman shows that there was a battle for
the socialist transformation of the village, because the most of the arable land was
in private hands:
In Vojvodina, 41% of arable land belongs to the cooperative and the state
sector, 30% of arable land is in the cooperative sector, while the 33% of
households in Vojvodina is included in the peasant cooperatives... (Vida
Tomšič "Tasks of AFŽ in socialist transformation of village"in Voice of
Women June 1949: 1).
The position of women in rural areas was more difficult and more uncertain than the position of women in the cities who mostly had to work outside of
the home. Rural women were "less equal than women workers and women in the
cities, generally" (Ruţa Tadić, "What are our objectives"16 in Women Today No.
103. 1953: 4). Among women in the country, widows were those who first accepted the collective work. To them, it was the only way to feed themselves and
their children. Among the first cooperative workers was Lepa Vasiljević, a member of the cooperative "Partizan" in Čortanovci. Lepa‟s husband and son were
killed by fascists, and she
…leave her young children at home and all alone with her calloused
hands began to revenge and defend her family. She was everywhere
where someone was needed. Now, after the liberation, there was no
working action where she did not take part. She was the first one in a cooperative, where she worked tirelessly every day, unafraid of even a man
jobs... Upon completion of the work, in that little break after the lunch,
Lepa sits in a shady place and read the newspaper. Her friends gather
around and usually passionate discussion is developing, the latest news is
discussing in details... (Katica Stančić: "And they excel in their cooperative work"in Voice of Women, August 1949: 6).
Women are understood in a political sense as a target group that has an
interest to join the cooperatives, because in that (collectivist) system of organization their position is better than the position of women in the private sector. The
women in the cooperative system was protected as workers and mothers, had their
own incomes, and through AFŢ organizations they were enabled to learn to read
and write, they were educated (trainings on poultry farming, olericulture, housekeeping), they open season nurseries, they are engaged in the decision-making
bodies in the peasant cooperatives. About the advantages and benefits for women
in the cooperative system, but also about the modes of work of AFŢ among cooperative workers, Vida Tomšič says:
County boards of AFŽ maintained seminars, conferences, lectures, courses, discussion group of women in cooperatives, organized visits between
individual cooperatives, and especially they sent women from cooperatives to villages where there are no work cooperatives. But AFŽ the or27
ganization had a number of flaws and weaknesses in the work in the
countryside, which is reflected in the weak political work, and in the fact
that specific measures have not been taken in working with women in
terms of socialist reconstruction of the village. In some districts, a class
enemy, the rural rich, informbirovac, reactionary clergy, was able to
take advantages of prejudices and backwardness of our peasant women
and through them, trying to prevent the creation of work and agricultural
cooperatives and consolidation of existing cooperatives (Vida Tomšič
"Tasks of AFŽ in socialist transformation of villages" in: The Voice of
Women in June 1949: 1).
Vida Tomšič lists tasks of AFŢ among women in rural areas in the following order: spreading and consolidation of cooperatives, developing
"multilateral activities within cooperatives": from planting and harvesting to purchasing and taxes, from livestock and poultry and fight against the diseases to
cultural and educational work and mobilization of the employees (Vida Tomšič
"Tasks of AFŢ in socialist transformation of villages" in: The Voice of Women in
June 1949: 2).
The project of entry of women into the economy was a joint effort of
trade unions, governmental bodies for production planning and labor and AFŢ.
AFŢ organizations were directly in charge of communications, political and educational work with women.
How to drag the masses of women in cooperatives is a topic that Mitra
Mitrovic deals with in political text "It takes a lot of effort, so the woman from
village can become the holder of the new life in our village" (Dawn January 1948:
17-18):
It is necessary for leadership of AFŽ to realize that today it is not a question of interpreting the significance of cooperatives, cooperative propaganda, but it is about time that we bring the masses of our women in cooperatives... My impression is that our friends did not adequately understand the role of the teacher in education of rural village... We will not
wait for teachers as conscious women to come by themselves, but our
organization has to accept every teacher and to use her work...
28
AFŢ leaders and high officials of the Communist Party in charge of the
work in AFŢ (Mitra Mitrovic, Mara Nacev and others) were looking for ways to
start "missing"17 group of women who are mostly located in rural areas. It is also
estimated that the applied communications: conferences, lectures, AFŢ press did
not give the expected results and that we should introduce direct access to create
rural teachers in the most effectively way.
Stagnation and end
During the 50's when economic life of the country was changing, priorities of AFŢ were changing, and texts followed that. The main topics are workers'
councils; the protection of mothers and children, and then guidelines for housewives appears more intensely. Simply inventory of realized tasks that AFŢ sections "Mother and Child" had in the care for orphans, holding patronage of children's and students' homes, and homes for the elderly, the opening of a maternity
hospital, kindergartens, nurseries, children's places, supports the impression that
the economy of nursing and care since 1950 becomes a key area of AFŢ activities. Specific activities included: visits to the border guards, protection of mother
and child, raising professional housewives, better education of youngest. From
many women's role in the economy, role of working woman in cooperatives are
supported.
During the year 1950, in the Voice of Women, political articles were published that have gave views about the changing of the ideological-political matrix
in regards to AFŢ, and also the role of women in socialist society. The changes
began in education and educational system as one of the important state‟s ideological apparatus. In political commentary about it, "The importance of the resolution of the Third Plenum of the Communist Party about the tasks in the school
system" (Voice of Women in February 1950: 3), Desanka Kostić18 says:
17 Mara Naceva in
political text Peasant
women need to become an
active force in promoting
the development of
agriculture and
cooperatives (Zora,
January 1948: 13-14)
found that during the
post-war construction
"are not moved the
masses of women,"
and Mitra Mitrović
said that there was
much greater
participation of
women in WWII than
in the post-war
reconstruction and
development, and
because of that she
writes about missing
"masses of millions of
women" (Mitra
Mitrović, Zora, January
1948: 17).
Desanka Kostic was
associate of Glas žena.
18
The goal of our educational policy in general is to create a new operational socialist person19 who is developing parallel with the development
of the productive forces and social relations changes. Socialist is a cultural person with broad education and understanding, a person imbued
with the idea of socialism and inspired with creative initiative to preserve
and promote healthy tradition and heritage of his people through which
19 "The
new combat
socialist man"
included also woman.
It is a patriarchal
concept which always
gives to the male
principle (man) an
universal meaning.
29
he will remain the most active participant in the creation of a general
culture of humankind... The huge power of education in the formation of
the human person is demanded from the Party that, at the present level of
development, determines the guidelines for further development of educational system, starting from what was done until today and what has to be
created in the future. Channels that will leads to this socialist personalities of our man were observed and analyzed so clearly and precisely that
nobody can says that he is unfamiliar with direction line of Party regarding the education of our youth...
Text of Desanka Kostic talks about the new plan, which is a consequence
of a more peaceful period of the development in which, since 1950, entered socialist Yugoslavia. The new plan is meant that the ideological apparatus of the
state - the educational system and the media works at the preservation of the existing socio-political system. What exactly is a task of AFŢ regarding the new education policy, explains Ruţa Tadic in political commentary "The role and tasks of
women's organizations in the education of youth" (Voice of Women April 1950: 3-4):
Decision of III Plenum of the Communist Party will contribute immensely
in solving of many problems related education in general. Fourth plenum
of the Central Committee of AFŽ determines the place and role of women’s organization in the field of pre-school and extra-curricular education of children. The plenum decided that woman’s organization takes
direct leadership on active bodies for working with youth, which includes
children from 6 to 9 years old. It is clear that our active bodies and educational committees will also gather children up to 6 years old...
With a political allocation of responsibility, women were given to care for
the children. There are supposed to achieve that task in cooperation with other
organizations:
To realize the full cooperation of all mass organizations and to ensure
that educational work with youths is based on pedagogical principles, it
is necessary for educational groups in the county and city boards to include representatives of the National Youth, National Front, trade unions,
teachers, good pedagogues preferably teacher from a day care and a representative of the Commissioner for Education and Culture...
30
A female literacy is no longer topic for writing, although it is clear that
there is still the problem. Even giving up from political conferences is happening
except in Kosovo, Vojvodina and Macedonia:
It turns out that in the raising of women (averagely speaking) at the degree of political-level men, the comrade, we have the fact that a woman is
raised in this regard... It is clear that we are not talking about that there
is no passive women, but there are passive men.... So we are in a sense in
some parts of the country, especially in cities, already achieved equality
of woman... So, the question is whether it is necessary that each and every single woman who is so advanced in her political uprising keep in our
organization?... And now the question is whether a separate political
work of AFŽ organization is still needed, or not? Our answer was that it
was not necessary.... In cities there is no longer needs for something that
is needed in Kosovo and Vojvodina or in Macedonia or anywhere else...
(Vida Tomšič, "How we should work in our organization,"in The Voice of
Women in September 1950: 1-2).
What was going on in everyday‟s life is written in the reports, stories and
news about the execution of the tasks. AFŢ organizations in Vojvodina were conceived and organized actions of education of women taking into account the response of interested comrades. In the text "Women of the County of Sombor organized a series of expert and political courses" (Voice of Women in February
1950: 7) Boţan Protić20 says that in Kljajićevo was organized political course for
the 30 future leaders of AFŢ, and also homey course with 100 participants. In the
neighboring village tailoring course was organized with 30 participants. The author of the text says "interest for homey course was not decreased even when the
political course was organized in the village".
In the peasant cooperatives in Vojvodina in 1950, there were 120 kindergartens with about 3,700 children. In 1951, 2-3 season nurseries were opened.
"Leaders, presidents of cooperatives and brigadiers" were against the opening of
kindergartens, because of "material maintenance costs" (Free Vojvodina May 17,
1951: 3). They thought that the care for the kindergartens should take
"cooperative associations and agricultural funds". In the Free Vojvodina on 23 rd
June 1951 was published an article, "Why nurseries in cooperatives do not work"
where the excuses are stated which the managers of cooperatives used to justify
20 Božana Protić was
associate of Glas žena.
31
the new situation: it is the drought and they cannot provide food for the children;
mothers does not want to send their children to kindergartens; the buildings in
which kindergartens were settled are rented and cannot be returned... For opening
the nurseries after the Third Congress of AFŢ's in charge were "Councils for education and culture, agriculture trustees and AFŢ" and it happened that in the
Council for Education and Culture nobody was actually in charge for the seasonal
kindergartens in cooperatives. Members of AFŢ could not prevent the closure of
kindergartens (Free Vojvodina June 23, 1951: 3).
Since 1950, in AFŢ press we seas opinions that women in urban areas in
developed parts of Yugoslavia (Slovenia, partly Croatia, partly Vojvodina) were
achieved equality." Vida Tomšič wrote the following:
It turns out in fact, that in the rising of women (averagely speaking) on
the degree of political-level men, the comrade, we have the fact that a
woman was raised in that regard... So we are, in a sense, in some parts of
our country, and especially in cities, already achieved equality of women... (Vida Tomšič, "How we should work in our organization," in The
Voice of Women in September 1950: 1-2)
However, starting from 1950, AFŢ's leaders warned that the trends of suppression of women out of the social and economic society are observed, because
“supposedly, the degree of socialist construction allows a woman to be just a
mother and a housewife... When this paroles were quickly attacked, women are
continuously fired as the less profitable workers... "(Vida Tomšič, "Is there a
women's issue" in Woman today no. 99, 1952: 1).
End of AFŢ: the question of the development of socialist democracy
Women's situation in socialist Yugoslavia was observed in the coordinates
of the communist ideology, which means that the liberation of women is entirely
related to the release of the working class. Thereby, generally accepted view was
that the basis of women's emancipation was in her economic independence.
Experiences of mass involvement of women in the economy were acquired within the AFŢ organization in the years of its closure. This aspect of
32
women's engagements was the subject of investigations21 of trade unions and AFŢ
organizations. One of more interesting was related to domestic budget of workers
and officers, conducted by the Department for statistics and reports of Republic of
Serbia. The survey covers expenses of workers and officials, men and women.
The aim of this study was to determine the standard of living and habits of male
and female respondents. It was concluded that the women workers had the lowest
standard and that their position was the worst.
The massive infiltration of women in the economy of socialist Yugoslavia
brought a new situation that women are now active in a regular job, at home and
as social-political workers. Dr Bosiljka Milosevic, a prominent doctor, a professor
at Belgrade University and member of the Central Committee of AFŢ of Yugoslavia, analyzed the working capacity of women in the new circumstances 22. She
concluded that working women gets tired more quickly than men because of the
additional burden of household work and rising of kids. While a man can rest after hard work in the factory, institution... a woman begins another working day at
home, where she spends her mental and physical strength and where there are no
days off. This kind of work was lasts for "a woman without children up to 9 hours
a day and for women with children 2 years old, up to 15 hours a day." Therefore,
Dr Bosiljka Milošević claimed that "for an employed woman, household work is
a factor that has negative effects for her health and damages her ability to work...
and because of lack of creative effects, household work has depressive effects on
the life energy of women."
The most plastic sublimation of relationship between the necessary and
the possible involvement of woman during the post-war creation of socialist Yugoslavia was made by Dr Blagoje Nešković, president of the National Front of
Serbia in the report at the Second Congress of the Serbian AFŢ (Dawn MarchApril 1948: 7-8) through the inventory of the most important issues, ideologically
and politically set for AFŢ members:
A woman has to be an active citizen of our country... active fighter in
building a new society in the construction of socialism in our country...
Comrades, not only the conferences, plus a pick and shovel and plus additional problem of mother and child... AFŽ should have to stand for education and political progress, and to leads women on the struggle to raise
the cultural level, to leads women in struggle against superstitions, prejudices, to leads women in the struggle to create a hygienic living conditions, to leads struggle that women better prepare food, cook, sew clothes
21 Borislav Savić,
„Domestic budget of the
female workers and
assistants“ in: Žena danas
116, Belgrade 1954: 5
and 18.
22 Dr.
Bosiljka Milošević
presented the data
obtained by the survey
regarding changing role
of women in society in
relation to the lives of
women of earlier
generations. It was the
data from the Maternity
clinic of Gynecology and
Obstetrics, Belgrade. In
the past 10 years (starting
from 1953) the organism
selfpoisoning due to
pregnancy (gesteza) was
two times greater for
employed women than
for housewives. She also
registered a number of
premature births, ectopic
pregnancies, prematurely
born infants, for female
employees than among
housewives. Dr. Bosiljka
Milosević has also
concluded that the
women organism evolves
overcoming new living
conditions and gradually
mastered toward "all
types of work and
professions," Dr.
Bosiljka Miloševic
"About working abilites
of women" Žena danas
103, Belgrade, 1953, p 15
33
for themselves and their families, to leads the struggle for the
more cultural home decorating, for planting grass, flowers and
trees around the houses, in the yards... it is necessary to prepare women for better efficiency in the home, for the mechanization of work in her household, etc...
Professor‟s Sava Nešković opinion, in this text, is taken out of
context, which includes the review of the great achievements of
organize women in preservation of economic and social system, but what is left as a message (as it should be) talks about
the problems associated with the entry of women into the public sphere, and about changing relationships among the desirable female roles. What is more important: a worker, an active
citizen and fighter for building of socialism, a shock worker, a
cooperative worker, a politically active woman, or a mother, a
housewife, nurse and educator of youth? This dilemma and the
Panel Gender & Left: Anti fascist movement and changing of relationships of desirable female roles will interwomen‘s movement after World War II , Gordana
Stojaković, Dom omladine Beograd, jun 2012.
spersed throughout the period of AFŢ work, and it is result of
ideological and political agenda that saw change of women's
situation as a need for labor (and women were the new source of labor), a need for
political engagement of women which brought prevail to communist forces and a
need to take care of all vulnerable social groups (orphans, elderly and disabled,
mothers with children, students in homes, settlers, residents threatened by starvation in the "passive parts of the country", the builders of railroads, roads, miners...). Among the priorities of the Party and the priorities that should contribute to
the recognition and advancement of women, more important without doubts were
the first one mentioned. This is the most obvious during a shutdown of AFŢ in
1950-1953 when there is no serious protests, questions, explanations in AFŢ
press.
Heritage
AFŢ of Yugoslavia is the largest women's organization in our historical
memory. It was a place where hundreds of thousands of women could explore
measures of their own possibilities in breakthroughs in the economic, political and
social life of socialist Yugoslavia. AFŢ was a sort of school where women are
taught to be active in public and political life of our country. Women were in the
34
system of AFŢ publicly discussing all the phenomena that affected their position
in the social and economic life. All the views were available to a wide range of
women through AFŢ press. With quenching of AFŢ woman lost the place where
concentrated are experiences, problems and successes on the way of women's
emancipation. However, at the end, an important victory is won - a political decision that returning of women in the house is no longer possible.
i
Vida Tomšič was the Slovenian Communist, one of the organizers of the uprising in Slovenia, partisan and hero. After the liberation she performed responsible political tasks including:
President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, President of the Chamber of
Citizens of the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia. From 1948 she was leader of AFW Yugoslavia. Her views on the issue of women in socialist society belong to our most important feminist heritage.
ii
Mitra Mitrović (Uţička Poţega, 1912 – Belgrade, 2001) was a student of the Faculty of
Philosophy in Belgrade and she actively participated in actions of the Communist Party. After
graduating she got a job at Belgrade Assembly in 1935. In 1937 she became the member of the
Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Serbia to work with women. She was one of
the founders and president of the Youth Section of the Women's Movement and the first woman editor of the Ţena danas. As a member of the Communist Party Committee at Dorćol
(Belgrade) she participated in labor strikes in Belgrade in 1939. She was arrested in occupied
Belgrade in 1941. She spent a month in the camp at Banjica, but she managed to escape in
Uţice, a city that was in 1941 controlled by partisans. There she was elected as a member of
the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Serbia and member of the Main Board of
the National Liberation. During World War II she had the following responsibilities: member
of the magazine Borba, founder of the Anti-Fascist Front of Women (1942) and member of the
Central Committee of the organization. She was a delegate to the second session of
AVNOJ. After the liberation she was the first Minister of Education in the Government of
Serbia. He was elected as a deputy of the National Assembly of Serbia and the Federal Assembly of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She was a member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. She was awarded by the Order of National Liberation, the Order of brotherhood and unity
with golden wreath and the Order of Merit (with gold star and silver rays). Mitra Mitrović,
national hero that claimed this award (Barbara Jancar-Webster 1990: 64). She has published
several books including the War Travel (1953, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1957, 1964).
iii
Ida Sabo has Partisan award from 1941. After liberation, she has responsible political duties
in the party, union and state authorities, first in Slovenia and than in Vojvodina, Serbia and
Yugoslavia. She was elected as a deputy of the Republic and the Federal Parliament, member
of the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, where in the period 19631967 performed the duties of the Vice-President. She was elected vice-president of the Provincial Board AFW's Vojvodina (1946). She also had other responsibilities in the Union Association of Veterans of the National Liberation War, the Socialist Alliance of Working People of
Yugoslavia. She was a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, the Serbian Presidency, the
Council of the Federation. For her work she was awarded several times: Medal for Bravery,
Order of the socialist hero, the Order of Merit with Gold Star, the Order of Brotherhood and
unity with golden wreath and other national and international honors. She is still active.
35
iv
Neda Boţinović (Topolo, 1917 – Belgrade, 2001) was as a student actively involved in the
work of the Youth Section of the Women's Movement, the Association of Belgrade University
students, the Student legalistic society, Co-operative Youth of Yugoslavia and the Association
of university-educated women. She become a member of the Communist Party in 1939 and in
1941 she joined the national liberation struggle. She emerged from the war with the rank of
Major General of the People's Liberation army. Than from 1945 until the end of its service life
in 1974 she had responsible positions in Socialist Yugoslavia: organizational secretary of the
Local Committee of the League of Communists Yugoslavia in Belgrade, Deputy Minister of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Secretary and Vice President of the Central Committee of
the Association of Veterans of Yugoslavia, Secretary of State for General Administration and
Budget Federal Executive Council (Yugoslavia) Letter of the Federal Council of the Federal
Assembly (1958-1963), a judge of the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia (19631972). Among the honors she received were Patrizan memorial in 1941 and Order of brotherhood and unity with golden wreath. During the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (1990) she was engaged in the work of SOS Hotline for Women and Children Victims of Violence, the Center for Antiwar Action, the Women's Parliament, and most in the
work of the Women in Black.
v
Ruţa Tadić was a teacher. Immediately after the start of the uprising she joined the National
Liberation Movement. She became a member of the Communist Party 1943. After the Second
World War, she was elected speaker of AFW's Vojvodina where she was engaged on issues of
social and health services and organizational strengthening. She also held many important political functions. She was a deputy in the Assembly of Vojvodina, Serbia and Yugoslavia, a
member of the Council of Vojvodina. After closing AFW she became president of the Initiative Committee for the formation of the Association of women's associations, organization that
inherited AFW and president of the Red Cross of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Stojaković Gordana - founder of several women's organizations (Women's Center of Novi Sad, Novi Sad
Women's Studies, Women's showboat, zigzag initiative). For ten years, she coordinated the project
"Memorable Women of Novi Sad" in which she collected extensive documentation on the history of the
women's movement in Vojvodina, and biographies of memorable women. She graduated from the Faculty
of Science, University in Belgrade, and completed postgraduate gender studies at the Center for Gender
Studies, University of Novi Sad (2005). PhD thesis on "Gender Perspectives in newspapers Antifascist
Front of Yugoslavia 1945-1953" (2011). She has published a number of publications including:
Distinguished Women of Novi Sad (Novi Sad, 2001), Neda - a biography (Novi Sad, 2002), Discourse
Features Of The Private Correspondence about the Book Serb, her life and work, her cultural development
and her folk art unitl today (1909-1924) (Novi Sad, 2005); AFŽ 1942-1953 Vojvodina (Novi Sad, 2007), Sketch
of Portrait: Antifascist Front of Women 1942-1953 Vojvodina (Novi Sad, 2011), Contribution to the history of
the women's movement in Vojvodina and Serbia in the 19th and 20 century (Novi Sad, 2011), Solidarity and
likening: Diary of feminists about feminism and the Left in Serbia (1978-2007) (Belgrade, 2011). She
received the Award for Gender Equality of the Government of Vojvodina (2008).
36
Dr ANĐELKA MILIĆ
Socialism and Feminism compounds and divergence
B
etween socialism and feminism are very solid, deep and lasting interactions.
They date back to the beginnings of both the intellectual and practical
movement. But on the other hand from the very beginning between them appear
dull frictions which at times turn into great troubles and even antagonisms that
were harmful to both sides. Causes of those terminations and splits are in the inner being of both ideas, but also in social circumstances and pressures. Let's first
look what and how links them:
1. Marxism as the theoretical and ideological foundation of socialist
movement from its very beginning has shown great interest and sensitivity to inequality and subordination of women in society. Marx took the famous maxim
from Fourier that the degree of advancement of society is measured according to
the degree of emancipation of women in society. Such a link is confirmed today,
both in reality and theoretical perception where women are treated as a 'symptom'
or 'sign' of modern social discourse. (S. Zizek).
2. In both cases, the commitment to the liberation of women referring to
the same ideological and theoretical heritage that makes rational enlightenment
thought and social-utopian ideals of equality, brotherhood and liberty.
3. Both ideas in their ideological and practical terms belonging to the
modern era, which means that they stand up for freedom of the human individual,
while simultaneously addressing the social collectives that modern industrial era
bring on the social scene - the workers and women in order to transform them into
real historical subjects.
4. From here comes the following cardinal epistemological similarity:
Both concepts rely on a new way of looking at the theory: it is no longer just an
instrument of explanation, but it has to become a driving force in changing the
existing state. In that sense both ideas strongly insist on the collective, mass and
public participation of members of the society in changing of the current situation,
i.e. they advocate a revolution in social relations.
5. Thanks to this kind of understanding of the theoretical and practical
work women are massively attract in the struggle led by the working class and
socialist forces in order to break down capitalism during the nineteenth century,
but through such a massive gathering of women their empowerment and selfconsciousness in the direction of requests for political autonomy and independence of women's movement.
6. This conceptual bootstrapping 'input' of socialist ideas and developments on the 'women's issue' and its solution, worked even in those situations
where in the global plan after World War II was established the gap and blockade
between the socialist (Bolshevik) East and the capitalist and democratic West
(The Cold War). The degree of legal equality and social position of women which
is achieved in the former real-socialist societies was a constant challenge for the
competition between the two systems, as well as women
in both blocks, which resulted in the final outcome in
strengthened of women's militancy in the West, but also
in the gradual improvement of the situation of women in
the East (through increasing off the mass standard of
population).
Socialism and the
Liberation of Women, cover page,
Kultura,
Belgrade 1958.
38
Despite this deep and fundamental connection relations
between feminism and socialist thought and practice
were not harmonious. From the beginning there were
differences in the concepts, vision of the essence and
meaning of feminist needs and desires, and even direct
antagonism. One important reason for the constant antagonism and hostility was the feeling of the female
members of the socialist movement or its supporters that
this is in some way patronizing sets related to women.
On the other hand, thought, practice and behaviour of actors in the socialist movement and Marxist thinkers pointed to a rather narrow and rudimentary view of the position of women in society, whether it amounted to
an economic or legal equation, and without taking into account wholeness of gender exploitation of women (especially sexual - psychological and mental aspects
of that exploitation).
Relations between these two major directions of thinking and actions in
modern societies get worse in accordance to institutionalization of the socialist
movement in its different forms and at different levels (from local movements to
global systems). The reason for this was that the institutionalized socialism believed that it had a solution for ''women's issue'' by giving to women basic social,
economic and political rights that they were deprived in civil societies. At the
same time, the entire private sphere of lives and relation of genders was completely neglected and ignored, i.e. left to the growing weeds of patriarchal and traditional sentiments, norms and customs.
However, these various disputes and tensions between feminism and socialism have their own unique roots and he represents a basic concept and paradigm of Marxist thoughts and explanations of modern social reality: it is the concept of class and class struggle.
The paradigm of Marxism is that modern capitalist society is deeply class
-stratified society and the future of society is based on class struggle, which
should lead to the destruction of capitalism and its holders and to the sovereignty
of the proletariat as a class which, according to its social position and character of
its activity (production), carries equality and freedom. In order to achieve class
revolution it is necessary, however, to unite all the available social forces into a
unified labour and communist movement whose main goal will be to achieve economic freedom and equality in society. So interpreted, the idea of class struggle in
practice led to the rejection, suppression, marginalization and even persecution of
any other ideas, settings or goals of engagement, i.e. subordination of all other
sections of society and all other groups and collectives that have suffered from
capitalist exploitation to main goal of labour struggle. Class liberation is, at the
same time, the liberation for all, and in this context it was considered, argued and
treated so that there is no room for any special, separation, autonomy, independence of women's movement, regardless of its commitment to the class goals of
workers.
Such essentially dogmatic assumption proved as incorrect in theory, but
also practically unsuccessful already in the beginning of class struggle and move39
ment, because women, always being in the minority in the political sphere, received minority positions, there really important special interests are not taken
into account, or it was thought that they will realize by themselves when the revolution matures and when new socialist system gets stabile. It is obvious that this
simplistic view of the nature and goal of the feminist struggle was not able to fulfilled most aware of the women involved in the political struggle, and therefore
able to well observed from the inside mechanisms of power that keep women in
subservient position in the socialist movement and the system . But such a view
was not able to satisfy even interests of most of ordinary women which become,
as exploited workers and 'slaves' of families and households at the same time,
more apathetic and distrustful on ideas and invitations by the socialist establishment that did not offer them real changes.
Basically, real-socialist system has built a paradoxical and antinomian
position of women. On one side, it is forced economic and political liberation of
women, the women were widely educated and worked, here and there taking up
leadership positions. But on the other hand, socialism has integrated patriarchal
bourgeois family in its idealized form, stripped of its dirty backside. (S. Zizek).
Thus women in socialism, especially when it comes to the former Yugoslavia,
lived in two worlds: in the morning, at the workplace and in other forms of public
activity in the socialist world, and in the afternoon and evening in a private family
world of citizen 'idyll'. In the full sense, a woman in socialism was 'symptom' of
its contradictions.
Given such divisions in the women being in the real socialist societies
could hardly come to a more massive and more aware, i.e. feminist perception of
their own situation. Only with the emergence of the stronger crisis in Yugoslav
society, there is again a spark of feminism that the socialist system in any way
suppressed in previous periods. The holders of this third wave of feminism become women born and raised in the socialist system, but educated on the intellectual traditions of Marxism and feminism.
Andjelka Milić, sociologist and professor at the Philosophy Faculty of University of Belgrade, PhD on the
topic of "Class and Family" (1976). She was the director of the Institute for Social Research, President of
Serbia Sociological Association, editor of the "Sociology" and "Sociological Review." The areas of her
research include: family sociology, social anthropology, women's studies. She has published many works,
including: Households, Family and Marriage in Yugoslavia, Women and Family Policy, Generation in
Protest, Sociology of the Family.
40
Poster GENDER AND LEFT, Dom
omladine Beograda, Belgrade 2012
Ankica Ĉakardić
Savings measures as a class
- gender policy 1
Introduction
T
his paper will attempt, on the more specific way, to examine issues of women's work and labor in relation to the savings measures and the current crisis. It must be said, the article do not go into a detailed analysis of the problems, it
just points out and opening them. In the three smaller sub-headlines, we will analyze some of the immediate consequences of the political economy in the context
of the hypothesis that the saving measures are class-gender policy that especially
affects women.
1 The text is written
version of presentations held in the lecture series on Gender
and class in Belgrade
(07th June 2012), and
here is formatted
according to academic
standards, but it will
be in the final version.
42
If we take into account the post-Yugoslav context, feminist responses to
crisis are unacceptable rare. On the one hand, women's groups have focused on a
range of relevant gender issues (although it should be said, there are groups that
discredit the seriousness of feminism, especially when it comes to the confusion
arising from the female essentiality) but, in my opinion, does not invest enough in
the historical - materialist analysis that are necessary for the clarification of structural reasons for women's subordination. It might seem tactless, but I think that
feminism does not have time to avoid the empirical strictness or to reduce to the
theory of cultural identity. Although without gender-theoretical discourse there is
no complete feminist theory, the articulation of the most difficult questions about
the relationship between gender and class cannot be exhausted from identity theory for several reasons. In fact, there is no a sufficient conceptual instrument, nor
proper methodological framework, it lacks empirical elements for the case analyze, as well as explanatory-argumentation model to explain the structural relationship of capitalism and patriarchy. In addition, with interdisciplinary of the
identity theories has occurred a certain paradox of overproduction of gender theory (and, as we know, all the theories are not good, and so are not all feminist), and
what is probably the hardest hit feminist theory and practice (and here I must
agree with some attitudes of Nansy Fraser) is "reinterpretations" of feminist goals
and principles during the 70th years, and during the second wave of feminism. A
certain pacification of feminist resistance had happened, which is why feminism is
almost for three decades remained without systematic materialist analysis and historical links with the left. In the mainstream is held rinsed reactionary liberal version of feminism, which is in very good harmony with "flexible" quasiemancipator moves of neoliberal ideology. It has significant influence on discrediting the progressive feminism and caused thus multiple confusion, proposing,
among other things, that feminism is primarily "female thing". This is why it may
seem unacceptable that Vesna Pusic or Julia Gillard are feminists, and the opposite, their politico-economic attitudes and programs are anti-feminist in principle
and the hardest hit opresionirane classes of society, and therefore women.
On the other hand, it's not much better even with the left. In the progressive political-economic analysis we can rarely found feminist perspective of work,
saving measures, patriarchy, etc. I think that a historical-materialist, therefore,
Marxist and anarchist re-articulation of feminist issues is necessary because only
in that aspect can give serious answers to crisis. It is interesting that the most progressive and leftist currents such as Syriza in their program did not significantly
involved feminist responses to crisis (we know that only one out of 40 points of
Syriza's official program articulate feminist demand, and it is the 21st point about
equal pay for men and women). In the meantime, the area of feminist economics
is more and more systematic in criticism of economic constructivism, and since
feminist economics is a certain sum of efforts of heterodox political economy, in
fact it turns out that with it, it could in the most effective way to make strategy of
emancipator anti-capitalist practice of left that works by feminist principles.
Economic Crisis and Family
When saving measures started to implement in order to stabilize the government debt crisis in sub / peripheral countries (notably those that the EU, ECB,
IMF and World Bank controlled integrated into the euro-world economy), followed immediately recognizable outcomes that continue to critically determine
the direction of economic policy: surveillance of national budgets (despite the fact
that there is no serious economic program that will more carefully prepare the
plan of monetary unification of different national economies), the reduction of
"traditional" worker's rights and the spread of poverty, privatization of the public
43
sector, cutting costs within it, i.e. rationalization of staff, stopping industrial development; mainly target are remains of welfare and other costs of the social sector. From the left-feminist context and quite broadly speaking, an attack on the
public sector means a few things: demolition of material rights that women have
gained with their exit in the labor market, the crisis of social reproduction, the
reproduction of class, the financial burden of households, changing of the intimate
level of relationship between (married) partners and empowerment of patriarchy.
All six levels have influence on the change of the existing traditional framework
of families, and the role of women is somewhat back to that in a pre-industrial
stage of capitalism. That's the problem, I would say, even essential and existential
nature. When women become part of the labor market, this shift is automatically
transformed the essence of the "female" life, the existing structure of everyday's
life of family and women's role in social reproduction. Since women are mostly
employed in the public sector, deindustrialization, deregulation, privatization, cuts
are directly related to their modern-acquired modes of life in which they won their
specific substantive rights. Existentially speaking, the crisis has caused a strong
impact on women's lives in order to re-reduce women's work on non-progressive,
performed in the household / family, which put without reason single, unemployed mothers in the most difficult position. On one side, the "feminization of
labor" in the public and service sectors talks about gender division of labor, but on
the other side this analytical focus is not complete if simultaneously does not
takes into account the class predisposition of work. Women (still mostly) doing
unpaid work in part in the household sphere without which the accumulation of
surplus value is not possible. Function of household is not only consumption, but
also a production. Saying on a classical way, women are double opresionirane - as
workers and on the gender base and actually reproduction of class in the body of
labor strength of women has happened. When it comes to work, saving measures
are class-gender policy that strongest strikes the female labor force.
Since women have traditionally taken care of "microeconomic", i.e. costs
of household and family, ways of coping with the burden of the crisis suffered by
households, completely changing micro functionality of family, and inside it, restructuring of the roles of men and women is also changing. Getting around in
handling debts assumed additional responsibilities and informal employment
44
(which are often illegal, and the state charged heavy fines if discovered it; for example, women from textile industries after being fired, works in their homes, hairdressers, mechanics etc), less often stay of man in the sphere of the home working
"off the books", more often staying of woman in the home environment, more
greater resourcefulness in organizing the household economy without sufficient
financial resources. In the end, both physically and psychosocial reasons (fatigue,
stress, poor quality nutrition) affects leisure and sexuality between partners, and
an increase of male violence against women. Neoliberal ideology is not only a
new paradigm for relations between state and market, it ensures the position of
individualism which, in a strategic sense, means partialization of resistance, destroying the concepts of community and common goods, tactics with individualist
competition which in turn equips great conditions for the crisis of unionism. Unionism is traditionally male (with some exceptions such as self-management system, but he also had to activate women's quotas), so the male working solidarity is
also in crisis. Considering that liberalism is calculated with the family and its individual members as on the basic social units (and by that logic families bear the
burden of the crisis), ultimately three, not quite the same cases, takes place: a)
crisis actually functions as a moment of reproduction of preservation of malefemale roles within the family and a strong reaffirmation of patriarchy (as I have
already pointed out, with the increase of male violence within the family, as specifically reported by Greek activists), b) considering that the third stage of capitalism is (as in the historical analysis of the phase of relations of capitalism and the
family suggests Ben Fine) marked with increase in the number of divorces, single
parents and single-person households, for unemployed men is very difficult to
establish links with the practices of social responsibility and c) considering the
financialization of markets and bypassing conventional production in a market
system, more and more women emigrate performing nursing tasks (elderly and
sick ), and it puts unemployed men in some new position in which they depend on
their spouse / partner. With the unemployment crisis, we can follow expansion of
the whole range of psychosomatic illness, malnutrition of children and adults,
shorter life expectancy of poorer and increase of rates of suicide of men in the
first place.
45
Women's work and the co modification of public goods
Already recognizable attack on public sector and social services can be
traced from the 70s onwards, with early neoliberal ideology and the global economic meltdown. Consequently, since then, care for children and adults become
less socialized, and women again become in charge of conducting care-work. Certainly, it is becoming a great burden for women who are employed at the same
time. Specifically, this means that either seeks private care services or one of the
parents work part-time, usually the mother. This situation is perhaps most evident
in the UK where families are willing to spend on average a third of their net income on childcare. It is a similar thing when considering pension reform - since
women usually have interruptions in work life, with reduced working hours and
wages lower than the wages of male workers, female exploitation cycle is more
and more obvious in the activation of neoliberal reforms. In short, when the
"caring work" is treated as a job connected with the benefits or extra-cost
(because it is naturally or traditionally female and non-productive), it means that
it does not consider as a necessary part of social reproduction (about this, during
the late sixties, Marxist feminists started a critical debate "debate about household
work"). In addition to this problem, cuts in public health care have distinctly biopolitical potential, so they have impact on women's reproductive rights, the need
for sex (taking into account the difference of sex as biological reproduction and
sex "for pleasure") and the physical organization of the life of workers in their
spare time, without which drill and work habits are not possible (reproduction of
labor). So these are the reasons that points to the fact that the resistance against
the savings measures in the context of an orthodox understanding of work and
capitalism is the central question of feminist political economy and feminist economics. With this, and it seems no less important, the savings measures are not
only related to cuts and financial withdrawal of the state, it is about the fact that
the provision of financial assistance is co modified, cost subsides were introduced, as well as competition in the sector of social services which are directed
primarily according to market logic. The individualization of collective consumption means an attack on those who depend on wage disparities class, the poor,
ethnic minorities, senior citizens, people with disabilities, women.
When it comes to the co modification of public goods, the reforms in science and higher education are obvious example of a un-socialization, introduced
46
as unprepared commercialization of education based on a mechanical connection
of science and higher education with the economy. In this way, the concept of
education as a public good is destroying and socio-economic status is becoming a
prerequisite for participation in higher education. This prepares students financial
penalty and less students have the right on free education. Since the crisis has
caused strengthening of patriarchy, on the one hand is less expected from female
students successful studying or entering into college and on the other - on the contrary - reinforces the concept of "successful women" who own her own with her
entrepreneurial spirit, fighting for her position. This fetishism of individualism is
one of the reasons that have the greatest effect on deepening the female student's
non-reflection about their own exploitation and oppression. When it comes to education and neoliberal measures that were responsible for the attack on public education, the emergence of "low production" (lean production) is unusually important. This practice of work is very specifically connected with the education
sector that is dominated by women. What makes this production different from
other forms is so-called stress management approach (management by stress approach) where stressful situations are intentionally provoked in the workplace in
order to exhaust the teachers and in order to justifiably extract work which is not
efficient, accurate, which is weak productive and is wasting of time. It is therefore
necessary to change the work‟s contracts in the education sector and providing
temporary work, i.e. "flexible" work. It is known that flexible forms of employment contract were started to apply parallel with the ideology of the mid-70's 20th
century and that it was mainly affirmed by women who then go out to the labor
market massively. The reason is very simple; women needed part time jobs in order to parallel perform non-paid household-nursing work.
Women make 70% of illiterate people in the world with a tendency to increase, this data becomes very important if education becomes a luxury (and the
tendency of commercialization of education is exactly like that). Of course, the
savings measures negatively affect the position of the student population in general, but they do not affect male and female students the same way. Given the
trend of re-patriarchalization, it is expected that women will be less educated and,
as much as it may sound presumptuous, that they will restore the historical position outside the labor market. The concept of lifelong education which women
were more likely than men, financially burden women that have bank borrowing
47
in order to later in life (usually when relieved of childcare) provide additional education. The effect of the "glass ceiling" says a lot about the position in which
there are female students and those who graduated. Although women have a higher percentage of complete university, they rarely pursue careers than men, usually
for establishing a family. Since the care for children and adults is less socialized
(or it is not at all), female students rarely continuing education after graduation,
invest in career etc. But again, for example, very few women are in technomanagerial sector and the quota would supposedly solve the existing problems of
gender differentiation of work, but that does not say much about the structural
causes of existing gender differences in occupations. In other words, why women
needs the quota in the highest-paying sectors and leading positions in politics, if
access to education is limited, therefore, the issue is not just about isolated identity politics, the issue of gender is structural in nature. Quota in its current form
without the practice that insists on systemic change is meaningless. This is about
the distribution, not about recognition.
We follow the relationship of gender and class in the line of several historical-material elements that defined the entry of women into the labor market:
demographic changes, the role of the nuclear family and its changes in the three
stages of capitalism, the historical facts of mass consumption that followed from
the expansion of factory production. Since the feminist movement occurs in parallel with the industrial revolution and the entry of women into the labor market,
then, women have become part of the formal labor force, it should follow that this
kind of "liberation" of women from the private sphere caused another "freedom",
freedom from ownership over the means of production. Paradoxically, with the
fight that was supposed to lead to economic emancipation of women simultaneously start a new wave of formalization of oppression of women. Since witnessing the changing forms of labor market and family structures, we parallel find that
models of woman housewives and husband feeder has been change. However,
regardless of the type of change, traditional forms of care, as well as deficit of
care, care and concern have not changed. The reason why the nursing work is associated with the oppression of women is reflected in the fact that the inclination
to concern is caused by oppression conditions which are based on the concepts of
gift economy. Underline prior to conclusion, specificity of problems of women's
work is most visible in relation to productive and unproductive labor. Unproduc48
tive (unpaid) women's work is extremely important for the market economy, in
order to reproduce capitalism; it is not enough just to provide exploiting wage
labor, necessary is also non-paid work in the house sphere which reproduces labor
force. When it comes to women's productive work, the three reasons of exploitation of female labor force proved to be fundamental: it is cheaper; women have
lower expectations of the outcome of the work process and female unionism is in
an even more difficult position than men. In the analysis of women's work we
must take into account the fact that in the labor market there are mechanisms of
social exclusion that are not activated in the same way as they do outside of it,
and that there is a tradition of negligence of empiric data on unequal position of
male and female workers. In addition, the structural causes of division between
male and female occupations and sectors (occupational segregation), feminization
of poverty, the privatization of unpaid work, the cost of allocation of free time,
exogenous factors that affect the structural elements of differentiation of labor and
the transformation modes of capitalist system of production are important in the
analysis of ambiguous causes of double subordination of female labor force. The
relationship between labor and capital that is moving towards neo-liberal paradigm of global economic policy affects two parallel processes. In developed countries, the economic restructuring is taking place through allocation of resource
which particularly affects the male labor force (transferring industrial production
into cheap labor countries) where conditions are poor in the physical sense, with
the legal and social attitudes toward foreigners and migrant workers and the expansion of the service sector in which mostly women works, while in the periphery countries in force is process to reduce restrictions on labor legislation and precariousness, which affects mostly female work force in the form of part-time and
the inevitability of flexibility. When it comes to women's labor and discrimination, we are talking about four levels: the level of control in employment (a monopoly on employment), statistical discrimination (before-entry, where the division of labor takes place according to the gender difference and after-entry, i.e.
within-sector), discrimination on the basis of personal assumptions (marital status,
parenthood, family relations, education) and the exploitation of labor (which is
reflected in the case of women in the so-called "deliberate" difference in wages in
two levels: different wages for the same efficiency and different wages for different efficiency). For the analysis of female labor force it is very useful dual system
49
theory, which criticizes the idea of a "neutral" market through both gender and
class position, as it was formerly developed by Heidi Hartmann.
Only with these processes, structural adjustment programs and variants of
flexibility of work we can more clearly understand the current position of the female labor force. Crudest and most succinctly saying, women are doing jobs that
are poorly paid (utility services, public and administrative services, care and education) and jobs that have lost on the symbolic capital, such as education or general medical practice. The process of feminization of work is an indicator of low
paid jobs and poor working conditions. Some data from the UN: Women perform
67% of the world work (that is, women are the proletariat), earning 10% of world
income, they own 1% of global wealth, worldwide earn 20-50% less for the same
work as men, from 1.3 billion people living in poverty 70% are women, they are
performed between 10 and 20% of managerial and administrative jobs, occupying
10% of the seats in parliament, and 5% were female president of the country. These data should be analyzed with structural elements that I mentioned earlier because they themselves do not meet the level of explanatory case. It would be foolish to say that economy and politics were "better" if they simply managed by
women. Liberal feminist fractions unfocused on changing the capitalist relations
of production and distribution of capital tend to this type of essentialising. So, it's
not just about gender, but also about class. The fundamental dilemma that remains
is: should you go to change the position of women so they can better function in
the current economic conditions or changes in the economy and the discourse
about woman so they can function according to the feminist principles?
Ankica Čakardić has PhD at the Department of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, where since 2010 been
working as Associate professor of the Department of Social Philosophy, deals with the social philosophy,
political philosophy, feminist theory and philosophy of gender, philosophy, culture and theory of
anarchism. From 2007-2010 she taught at the Cultural Studies Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka, where she
was Head of the Department for Cultural theory and discourse studies. She is directing the educational
programs at the Women’s Studies Centre where since 2006 she teaches the feminist epistemology. About
anarchofeminism and feminist political anthropology she teaches at the Centre for Peace Studies since
2005. She edited two books (Categorical feminism. Necessity of feminist theory and practice, CWS, 2007
and Privileges of the edges. Interventions and contributions to feminist epistemology, HFD and CWS,
2010), scientific and professional articles, essays, translations published in national and international
journals and books. Activist and participant of the feminist circles in political economy.
50
Milica Ružiĉić
Ecstasy of Bureaucracy
H
ere I will talk about my artwork, because it is my profession, in addition to
occasional activism that I have been considered a kind of intimate needs
for a long time, and that also started overflowing into the sphere of my creativity.
I'm not going to talk about all my work, but will mention a few of those which are
maybe the most engaged in the field of political thought.
First, I would mention the work that was never performed, but I am interpret it every time I have the opportunity to talk about my work, because I think it's
one of the ways for this work to be accomplished, because anyone can imagine it
in his head, and that is the way that exhibition is presented, as a kind of imaginary
images. This is the work that I have called "Ecstasy of bureaucracy" and it deals
with the relations of power and a network of legal-illegal relations in that structure. The idea was to turn to the police officially, with a wish to borrow for an
hour complete stock of drug ecstasy confiscated in the previous year and that was
the year when the largest laboratory for production of this drug in Europe was
found. My intention was to expose this amount of drug in the gallery space for an
hour and orderly return it after this time. I was ready to fulfill all the conditions
set by the police, and I assumed that it was necessary to pay transportation and fee
to a certain number of police officers who will guard the cargo during the
transport and during the exhibition. My questions and requests that I sent left
without replay. However, it may be enough to imagine this picture in your head;
dozen armed police officers exposed themselves into the gallery, they keep some
stock of drugs, and you will get some conclusions. Later, there was another scandal in which other drugs were found in a bank safe that belonged to state security,
and the relationship between the legal and illegal organizations become even more
obvious.
Another work is in relative connection with this of which I previously
spoke. The title of this work is "Ecstasy pills." It is about black and white photos
of tablets on which are engraved signs that represent specific national identities
and their ideological symbols. Depending on the presentation of these works, I
Ecstasy pills, photo,
35x45 cm, 2003
made a combination of photos for the triptych. The first set was made for an exhibition in Zagreb with Croatia flag, tablets
with a five-pointed star and tablets with
four "S". All three photos are framed into
modestly decorated frames and placed on
the wall above the eyes of observers i.e.
exactly on the level on which pictures of
national leaders usually stands, above the
blackboard in elementary school classrooms. There is an obvious link between
ideology and cheap psychoactive substances whose tablets are usually marked with the signs that indicate what kind of filling they produced after consumptions. In this sense, this work is criticism of national ideology as a means for manipulating the masses in order to implement a
government policy which often leads to different kinds of wars. Thus there is an
association on the drug as a means to change the consciousness of a man who
consumed it and encourages irrational behavior.
I want to mention now my last solo exhibition in 2010 under the title
"Images", which deals with themes of police and state violence against its citizens. This time I altered my strategy and I start out from the media, I decided to
paint, because painting on canvas is recognizable and most traditional artistic medium, today also a popular market object that is used as a status symbol. Then I
thought about what I want to be a theme that I want people to look at the context.
I wanted to start from that position, to think about the picture as the object of the
sale and do not run away from that character of the painting but to use it for my
aims. I've thought hard about what it is that what I want for somebody else to put
it onto a wall to watch, and then through a little research I came to the police violence, which I understand as a global current topic. I was interested for universality of the problem, it somehow become an image of the system of global politics
today. That picture is not hidden, we see these pictures in the media, but they so
often turns that we spend them and forget them quickly. I decided to, transformed
those images from newspapers, from the Internet, evidences of police brutality,
into paintings on canvas, because painting on canvas is an object that implies permanence.
52
So I made a series of 16 small paintings 30x40cm format. I chose the format in order to be commercially, small format is cheaper and easier to sell, Jasmina Čubrilo called them "citizen's formats", since such formats are commonly
found on the walls of citizen's apartments. Despite my efforts to make them commercially pieces, these pictures are not easy to watch, not something that anyone
wants to hold on the wall in the home or office because scenes of violence are
unpleasant, however, in this way they would not be forgotten. Those photos I was
treated as a document, a kind of evidence, so in that sense I did not want to
change them, to aestheticize that violence. My only intervention was that I threw
the background; behind figures that are in conflict is just a pure white screen, I
wanted on that way to unify and to de-contextualize. Context and information
about where specific scenes took place and on what occasion entered into the title
and legend of each image. These are pictures from different cities in the world, I
usually chose the protests which expresses the political will or a reaction to the
political decisions of the government and that the government suppresses by using
the police repression. This is the first part of the exhibition.
Then I wanted to put in a local story, and how it is the most important for
the local audience, I gave it another format. For this I chose museum format of a
big historical painting. In this case it is about 3x2 meters. On this picture there
was the story of a labor strike, strike of small shareholders in pharmaceutical factory Jugoremedija, who at the time of bad privatizations fought to keep their factory, with the continuous struggle and perseverance, which is still continuing. I
chose a scene from the documentary of Ivan Zlatić that follows the struggle in the
for years period. In a given scene, police intervention is happening at the moment
when trial is still in progress, trial for proving ownership of the factory. In this
intervention the police take sides of suspicious director (who was already on the
wanted list of Interpol) and his violent private security (men in black) and driven
workers out of the factory, although workers are the owners of stakes as well as
director, and despite the fact that the workers acted with much more responsibility
for the factory than the director. In this sense, it becomes clear that there is a need
to examine for whom the police are doing, which interest they defends, whether
the rights and freedoms of citizens, or personal interests of powerful individuals?
That's what I wanted to be essence of the whole exhibition, from small images of
police violence in the world, to this local story, asking exactly that question. It is
the second part of the exhibition. This big picture is framed in a large gold ba53
Jugoremedija, 2x3 m, 2010
roque frame similar as paintings of historic events in the museum gallery. Why?
Because I wanted make history out of that small segment of contemporary labor
struggle, to write into historical events, to be recorded, remembered, and retold. It
is my intention, now we will see if this will happen. I hope it will.
The third part is that I exhibited, near to the big picture of "Jugoremedija",
products of Jugoremedija factory, some of the drugs they produce. They were succeeded after a long struggle to introduce self-management and to save the factory
from bankruptcy, and even customize it to European standards. Not only that I
want to show those drugs that they produce, but I intentionally chose drugs used
tranquilizers, pain and injury. As a kind of cynical answer to all these police beatings, it is ironic little twist on the whole issue, in order for someone to still go out
of the exhibition with a smile. And the last thing I want to say about this exhibition is fabrics itself on which all these images are painted, fabrics are produced in
a correctional center in Sombor, made by prisoners. That‟s why I turned one
screen on the back with the stamp that shows the origin of the fabric. Clearly, this
exhibition focuses on the display of police brutality which is a global problem for
a while. The world is increasingly looking like it was constantly in some kind of
civil war in which one side are the citizens, and the other side is state that use po54
lice to fulfill their interests. It becomes obvious that the interests of the police in
such cases protects are generally the interests of the ruling minority, which performs various kinds of pressures, discrimination and violence against citizens. It
is my intention to present this problem as globally uniform, so today‟s political
perspective could be observe from such an angle.
Other papers and topics that I have processed, I would just mention because they are not so obviously political, or they are not such interesting for the
discussion on the topic of feminism and the Left. So I'm in the paper "Animalije"
dealt the topic of genetic engineering and general hypocrisy of superficiality and
essence, through a series of sculptures of animals with Inverted skins, which are
associated to cover or clothing. In "Theoretical tyranny," I dealt with criticism of
Industry of production of meaning, as a subject in the role of production of excess
information that causes noise in understanding things. Series "Emotional Denture"
deals with the question of alienation in technologically advanced society, which
often causes a general feeling of loneliness, with the aim to produce an individualistic approach at the market.
Question from the audience: I can see where it touches the left, but where
is connection of your work and feminism?
Well I am a supporter of the third wave of feminism and what we call
queer theory, something in between precisely, which is probably just my interpretation of these theories. In this sense, I believe that the fight for equality should
not be divided and limited to gender, racial or religious groups, but all discriminated positions and identity groups should unite in a common struggle against
discrimination. I think today is once again actual a
new kind of class struggle, that‟s why is for me
the left, more precisely anarchism, a wider concept that incorporates: feminism as the struggle for
women's equality, but also struggle of other discriminated positions and identities, such as gypsies, people of different sexual orientation, religion or color of the skin, but also the workers, students and pensioners whose rights are now visibly
affected, and whose often belong to one of the
previously mentioned groups. So I think that it is
necessary to fight against discrimination general-
Ljubakalo,
sculpture, 23x12x7
cm, 2005
55
ly, parallel in all fields, because it is the only way to achieve true equality. In accordance with this conviction I am practically trying to deal with criticism of various positions of power.
Panel: "New left
and feminist movement, present trends
and challenges ",
Milica Ružičić and
Marijana Radulović
Dome omladine
Beograd, jun 2012.
Milica Ružičić born in 1979. in Belgrade, MA and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of
Sculpture, is currently a doctoral student. Co-founder of artists' associations Dez.org. and internet project
Čačkalica. Since 2009. teaches sculpture at the College of Fine and Applied Arts Applied Studies in
Belgrade. Since 2005. by 2008.she was a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Architecture. Solo show 8 times
in Belgrade, Zagreb, Vienna and Sopot. She has participated in over 40 group exhibitions at home and
abroad, and workshops in Belgrade, Zagreb, Salzburg, Vienna, Berlin, Helsinki, Priština and residency in
New York. The singer in the band The Cruellas.
56
Marijana Radulović
Self-organized choirs
in ex-Yugoslavia
T
his will be the review of self-organized choirs, coming from ex-SFRJ: Horkeškart, Horkestar, Prrroba, Le wHORe, Le Zbor, Kombinat and
Raspeani Skopjani. These choirs‟ activities can be observed as a new cultural
movement, which promotes the ideas of unity, self-organization, freedom of musical expression and active participation in social life.
I will consider the ways these choirs relate to gender and left wing
through 4 aspects of functioning:
1. Songs / lyrics
2. Performances / actions
3. Visual identity / uniforms
4. Internal organization / self-organization
HORKEŠKART (hor + orkestar + Škart)
Artistic group Škart was founded in 1990 in Belgrade. Since then, they
had several actions involving different choirs. In the end of Fall 2000, Škart was
invited to present their self-publishing action YOUR SHIT – YOUR RESPONSIBILITY in Centre for Cultural Decontamination (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju).
On that occasion, special choir was formed in order to sing Svete krave
(Holy Cows), song by Arsen Dedić. There was an ad
on radio B92 that invited listeners to audition that never really happened, because everyone who came was
accepted without any testing.
This first performance paved the way to Horkeškart, but also to some other choirs that were started
later. Admission of new members regardless of their musical education or vocal
abilities became a rule. Also, song Svete krave clearly criticizes social inequality
and privileged minority, illustrates social consciousness and activist orientation of
Škart:
“A mi koje smo smjerno vukle kola
I davale putem mlijeka i mesa
Nas već polako klanici vode
Dok svete krave dižu u nebesa”.
“And we who were humbly pulling the carriage
And were giving milk and meat along the way
We are slowly taken to the slaughterhouse
While sacred cows are praised to the skies“
Škart had aims :
- to sing in unexpected places for choirs – streets, schools, hospitals, open markets, institutions for children without parents, refugee camps…
- to sing songs written by Yugoslav authors, songs with strong political messages
- to sing songs of renovation and construction from socialist period, to evoke the
spirit of optimism and to preserve remembrance of that time
- to empower young people over long period of being a member of the choir
Repertoire of workers‟ and songs of renovation and construction were:
Internacionala, Polet mladosti, Nabrusimo kose, Pesma radu, Pesma izgradnje 1.
These songs celebrate solidarity, freedom, labour, revolution. Illustration can be:
“Ruke rade, srca gore,
Svud se pesma ori sad,
Srp i čekić nama tvore,
čvrsti zbor i miran san”.
1 International,
Upswing of youth,
Sharpen the billhook,
Work song,
Construction song
58
„Hands work, hearts burn,
The song resounds everywhere now,
Hammer and Sickle create for us,
strong choir and peaceful sleep”
So left wing orientation is clear
with Horkeškart, while gender issues are
not directly addressed. The approach is simple: singers in the choir and people regardless of their sex or gender. Members of orchestra were mostly men and conductors
were mostly women. Song authors were
both men and women. Horkestar, Prrroba
and Raspeani Skopjani were also mixed
choirs, while su LeZbor, Le wHORe and
Kombinat are women choirs. These choirs
also cooperated with male musicians.
Horheškart, Rijeka
2006
There is a song performed by Horkeškart that deals with homophobia,
more concretely it‟s about gay‟s fear to walk the street. It is a cover of Macedonian band T.B. Tračeri named „Stra mi e“:
„на улицата некој невидлив ми вика:
Додо педерррр, Додо педерррр
Стра ми е стварно стра ми е…”
„Someone invisible shouts at me in the street
Dodo gay, Dodo fagot
I‟m afraid, I‟m really afraid…”
Apart from performing in various places in Serbia, Horkeškart performed
in Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Germany, Great Britain, Korea, France, Austria.
Concerning visual identity, Horkeškart wore workers‟ uniforms for a long
time. Similar visual identity and the idea of „uniforms“ as a symbol of unity is
common to most of other choirs as well. This idea never came to life with
Raspeani Skopjani.
Action REWIND2 (organized on Jun 9, 2006) is a very important moment
for Horkeškart. It was the bravest and the most direct action, as it very openly
criticized the work of several institutions, as regressive social phenomena that
make much more harm than good. Those were: Rectorate of Belgrade University,
Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Patriarchy of the Serbian Orthodox
2
Akcija NAZAD
59
Church, Supreme Court and the Government of Serbia. Song REWIND was
sang in front of each institution. Action
was announced and fallowed by the media, so it was also dangerous for Horkeškart members.
This action put some important questions into focus, like if the choir should
deal with daily politics and what does it
mean actually. Can a collective be engaged and activist if it doesn‟t react to current events?
Početak bune na
dahije, opera of
Luka Stanisavljević,
Libretto by
Stanislava Vinavera
2008.
60
In any case, there is a realistic fear from misuse and connection with political parties and other interest groups, but does it mean that the choir should lose
its activist character? What are the themes that move the choir or its members?
Question why they are members of the choir logically follows. Since everyone
can become a member, there is no statute, rule book or application, in reality
choirs gather musicians, activists and those who just love to sing. Members are
there by their free will, free to come and leave when they want, so number of
members is constantly changing. Choir decides by argumentation and voting, ideally by consensus, so current members decide on songs to be performed, where
and when to perform, how to dress and everything else. But choir also has its tradition; some people started the choir and developed it in accordance with their
ideas. So is a choir simple sum of members or something more than that? Should
it repeat things from the past or it
should develop and change? How
much can it change and still remain
the same choir? Another important
question is what minimum of consensus is needed for functioning and
development of choirs. Is it enough
that everyone likes to sing or they
should share some values and aims?
There is a belief that everyone who
fits in as persons will stay. But this
can be complicated and problemat-
ic, like in every other collective. All these questions Horkestar inherited and they
stay unsolved with diverse opinions.
In time the choir gained popularity and performances occurred in more
and more in classical places for concerts and festivals, though choir never gave up
on non-conventional places to perform. Škart didn‟t see their place inside the collective any more, so they left Horkeškart in 2006, together with some other members and started another choir, Prrroba.
Horkeškart becomes HORKESTAR (choir + orchestra)
The choir changed its name. It was a period of experimentation with
music gendres and looks. Choir developed as part of Belgrade alternative scene,
guided also by a vision of a punk choir.
Horkestar kept part of Horkeškart‟s repertoire, revolutionary and workers‟
songs, song composed to domestic poets‟ lyrics (Vasko Popa, Stanislav Vinaver,
Duško Radović), covers of new wave bands‟ songs (Šarlo Akrobata, Paraf, Dobri
Isak) and more and more songs written by members of the choir. Le Zbor, Le
wHORe, Raspeani Skopjani and Kombinat, almost only did covers until now.
Škart (ĐorĎe Balmazović and Dragan Protić) who started choir, were also
some kind of leaders, but through time and empowerment of members, choir
became more and more self-organized. What does it really mean? It means that
it‟s a non-hierarchically organized collective, where everyone is equal, everyone
contributes to functioning and takes part in decision making. High level of social
consciousness and solidarity, as
well as low level of vanity is
needed for success. Members of
choirs, like other people, are not
immune to power or to laziness. So
in reality, self-organized sometimes
means disorganized. Being part of
self-organized collective is some
kind of experiment or practicing for
different
world
and
social
functioning.
Performance
celebrating 10 years
of the choir,
Dom omladine
Beograd, 2010
61
Let me number some difficulties in self-organizetion of choirs. Division
in choir and orchestra leads to putting more pressure on musicians because it is
harder to replace them. Seems that singers have more freedom, they don‟t tend to
be regular, but it‟s a much bigger problem if musicians don‟t come to a rehersal or
performance. Furthermore, musicians are more engaged in composing and making
arrangements, as well in transport of musical equipment, so the idea that they
should also have more rights comes quite often. It would be possible to overcome
this problem if musicians could be more easily replaced (to have more musicians)
and singers would have more solidarity with musicians, help them transport
musical instruments and be regular in rehearsals. Also, composing is not the only
way to contribute to functioning of the choir.
Conductor also has a special place in the choir. Choir had professional
conductors as well as ex singers, without musical education who started conducting. Choir is also a place to learn. While being in a choir, many people learnt or
realized they could sing, write songs, organize, conduct, play instruments, make
music etc. Experience showed that choir can survive without conductors but it can
hardly move forward. Conductor shouldn‟t ever do all the things, actually no one
should do everything, because he or she would naturally spend too much energy,
feel used and eventually leave. Danger of burning out is multiplying because all
the activities are done without any material reward. If any money is earned for
performances, it all goes to choir‟s piggy bank. Choir decides if and how to spend
that money, but mostly it goes to printing posters, t-shirts, badges, purchasing instruments etc. On the other hand, it is very important that the choir doesn‟t earn
money if it wants to keep its activist nature. So the best solution is that everyone
takes a bit of responsibility. If someone doesn‟t know how to make music, maybe
they can write some lyrics, work on visual identity, scenography, posters, organize performances, rehearsals, make announcements, maintain website, FB page
etc. Everyone can be useful and should find their place in the collective.
3 Festival
samoorganizovanih
horova “SVI U
GLAS!”
62
Horkestar organized Festival of self-organized choirs ”EVERYBODY
IN UNISON!”3 in Belgrade in 2011. Where all self-organized choirs from ex-YU
gathered (Horkestar, Prrroba, Le Zbor, Kombinat, Raspeani Skopjani, Le
wHORe). Choir 29. Novembar from Vienna, that gathers people from ex-YU,
was also planned to participate but there was not enough money for that. Among
some of these choirs there was cooperation on individual level, guest and joint
performances and mutual influence. It is possible to say that these choirs form
some kind of movement, in spite of differences in concepts and causes that
brought them together. All these choirs are independant from institutions, gather
non-professional singers and they were founded with ideas of social and cultural
angagement. During the Festival, there were concerts in Dom omladine, street
performances, video projections, presentation from Tanja Petrović4, as well as
workshop of Phil Minton’s Feral choir5, British musician and impoviser in
Cultural centre REX. Tanja Petrović presented her publication “The Political
Dimension of Post-Socialist Memory Practices: Self-Organized Choirs in the
Former Yugoslavia”. She believes that dealing with past can be a source of
emancipation, reflection and resistance, as well as call to solidarity and
collectivity in post-Yugoslav worlds and beyond.
The Festival provided more visibility to choirs, they got to know each
other better, exchanged experiance, planned future cooperation and learnt from
each other.
PRRROBA
Prrroba, 2011.
Choir Prrroba was founded in 2007 from ex members of Horkeškart who
wanted to work in small and experimental collective. Choir performs their own
songs, songs from Pesničenje6 and songs from ex-YU authors.
Apart from choir performances Prrroba held many public rehearsals and
initiated work of new groups. Social angagement is very important Prrroba. They
support activist actions (for example of Women in black), supports feminist and
LGBT movement. They try to support as many people as possible to play
4 Tanja
Petrović,
researcher in
Association for Slavic,
Eastern European and
Euro-Asian studies in
Ljubljana
5 www.philminton.co.uk
6
http://pesnicenje.org/
63
instruments and make songs. Interesting iillustration can be a song Budite sretni
što niste latentni7 written by Mileta Mijatović:
Lako je geju da se grli i ljubi na keju
A kako je latentnom dok šeta sa ženom sretnom
I gleda gleda geja kako se ljubi sred keja
Ljubi sa drugim gejom zamislite
E baš mu se ne da da ih gleda
Mora da psuje, protestvuje
Lako je vama, njemu je stalno drama
Sitna deca, a žena bi da se keca
„It is easy for a gay to hug and kiss in the quay
But how is it for latent when he walks with his happy wife
And looks at gay who kisses in the quay
He kisses with another gay, can you imagine?
Oh he can’t ever look at them
He has to curse, to protest
It’s easy for you, but it’s a drama for him all the time
Small kids and his wife wants to screw“
Raspeani Skopjani
It‟s a self-organized choir founded in Skopje in 2009 that gathers young
people who have chosen music as their means of civil and political activism. In
the beginning they gathered each weekend and sang in public places in town.
Their umbrella organization is Ploštad sloboda8. They took part in protests against
Be happy for you are
not latent
8
Freedom square
7
64
Stop se gradi,
Skopje 2010
changing the face of Skopje, new „antique“ architecture, against police brutality,
in support to the band Pussy riot, they react quickly to social and political events.
Members of the choir say they are very diverse, very often
methodologically dissonant, vain, but hardworking, open, honest and fighting.
They consider all sort of topics for their activism: gender issues, LGBTIQ,
antifascism, green politics, nationalism, corruption, all evil of the system. Vice
president of Macedonian government labeled them anti-state element.
Their repertoire constitutes
of covers, left wing, social,
antifascist, contextualized double
meaning texts, as well as explicit
lyrics of revolt and resistance. They
don’t use uniforms, only from time
to time some visual tools, for the
sake of humor or symbolics.
Bella ciao formation
Kombinat
This women choir was founded in 2008 in Ljubljana.
Their mission is to raise awareness about values of today‟s societies that
prioritize success, competitiveness and looks, and don‟t care about basic human
rights. They promote: solidarity, courage, social justice and friendship. They sing
revolutionary, partisan and songs of resistance, as well as songs that deal with
women‟s rights. They continue, in a way, tradition of partisan choirs from World
War 2, which were numerous in Slovenia. They promote socialism, social security, free education and
Sestre, le k soncu, svobodi,
sestre, le k luči na plan!
Noč je bolestna za nami,
pred nami svobode je dan.
„Sisters, go towards the Sun, freedom
Sisters got towards the light
Sick night is behind us
Beyond us is the day of freedom..."
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health services, but they state that they
are not nostalgic about SFRJ. They have
so many singers and their appearance on
stage seems like workers in a combine or
women division. They are mostly dressed
the same, usually in special Kombinat tshirts. They use soc-realistic esthetics.
Members of the choir are women from
all parts of Slovenia, aged from 20 to 55,
coming from various professions and
they sing accompanied by accordion and
guitar. Musicians are men.
KOMBINAT
together with
partisan choir Pinko
Tomažić, 2011
Le Zbor
Le Zbor was founded in 2005 in Zagreb, as the first lesbian-feminist choir
in the Balkans. They perform covers, revolutionary, antifascist songs (Po šumama
i gorama, Ay Carmela, Crveni makovi, Internacionala), but also pop/rock (Dolly
Parton, Rammstein, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Velvet Underground...) and
traditional songs in new arrangements that get a completely different dimension
because women are singing them. Example
"Oj Zagorko lijepa li si,
can be Moja mala nema mane, Jovano
Oj Slavonko, zlatna ti si,
Jovanke, Riječke pičke (Let 3), Lijepa li si
Hercegovko, srce ponosno,
(Thompson). There is a lot of humor and civil
Dalmatinka more mi je,
courage in Le Zbor's activities.
jedna duša a nas dvije.
Lička vilo, Velebita tilo..."
This choir differs from the rest
Thompson
because members pay monthly fees and tthey
„Hey Zagorka you are beutiful,
pay the conductor. They mostly sing a
hey Slavonka you are golden
capella.
They mark important dates in relation
to human rights: International Human Rights
Day,
Internatioanl
Women's
Day,
International Day of Antifascist struggle,
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Hercegovka is a proud heart,
Dalmatinka is my sea
One soul and we are two.
Fairy from Lika, body of
Velebit...“
Thompson
International Day against Homophobia. They give open support by performing in
gay prides in Croatia. Their first performance was organized on the day of
orthodox Christmas when they sang Christmas carols. Theirr idea was to raise
awareness about discrimination oof LGBT community as well as Serbian minority
in Croatia.
Le wHORe
Le wHORe was founded in 2010 in Belgrade under great influence of Le
Zbor. It’s also lesbian-feminist choir open for all women (and transgender
people). Activists try to develop and empower their voices, promoting joy and
freedom of women and their activism. Their mission is to promote policy of joy
as a basis for feminist platforms. They copied internal organization from Le Zbor,
with payed conductor, as well as cooperation with women NGOs. It is important
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for them to pay the conducor because they see it as women’s labour that very
often stays unpaid.
Ay Carmela,
Le Zbor +
Le wHORe,
Festival od self
-organized
choirs, 2011
“we are
against the
oppressors
and their
helpers,
legions and
fascists...“
They performed in BeFem festival, in Cultural centre REX, during the
exibition on LGBT history and within Pesničenje and in Rdeče Zore festival in
Slovenia .
Repertoire:
 Višnjičica rod rodila
 Djevojke u letnjim haljinama
 Kad se neko nečem dobrom nada
 True colors
 Bikini sa žutim tačkicama “2,3,5 I want/I don’t want the world to
watch me”
 Ay Carmela
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow
BeFem 2010.
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Choirs have a great possibility of activist influence and it’s a pitty not to
use it. They can promote different ideas, through choice of songs, places to
perform, their visual identity and the way of (self)organization.
In the end, I will quote Ivana Dragšić from Raspeani Skopjani:
“Being in a big and diverse collective is activism in itself, it’s a left wing
idea. It is not a perfect model, sometimes it is depressively non-functional, but it
exists and influences environment, discours, theory...“
Horkestar,
30th Anniversary
of the First
Feminist
Conference
DRUG-CA
ŽENA, Student
Cultural Centre,
Belgrade 2008
Marijana Radulović studied Andragogy at Philosophy Faculty in Belgrade and she is psychodrama psychotherapist under supervision. She worked in the area of education and psycho-social support of different
groups such as youth, women victims of the violence and trafficking. She is the founder and president of
the NVO ALTERO - Association for personal training, education, development and empowerment. She
published "Educative potential of the theatre art" She sings in the self organized choir Horkestar.
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Ženski informaciono-dokumentacioni trening centar
Women’s information-documentation Training Centre
e-mail: indokcentar@gmail.com
web: www.zindokcentar.org
Women's INDOC Training Centre is women non-profitable organization whose main aim is
establishing gender equality in the public sphere with a focus on media. By creating critical media analyses, researches and education, we are enabling communication between media itself
and its users. Our goal is to reduce misogyny and stereotypes in media content.
GOALS
Reduction of misogyny and gender-based stereotypes, and balanced portrayal of women and men in
the public by:
- creating non stereotyped picture of women in media trough researches and education analyses and
education
- increasing the visibility about stereotypes in public sphere trough updating documentation and information data bases
HISTORY
Program of INDOC Center has been made gradually, and was developed within the Belgrade's Center
for Women's Studies, Research and Communication (BCWSRC). The first detailed project of the
INDOC center was made in 1997, for the needs of
BCWSRC. The new concept, developed within
Association for the Women's Initiative (AWIN), is
adapted to the abilities and needs of feminist scene
in Belgrade and FRY for information on activities
of women's movement and women's groups.
Since 1997 activities of INDOC are media monitoring and creating the data bases and archives of
women‟s activism, following the processes of
women‟s organizations and their work. In 1999
INDOC created bulletin “News from Women‟s
Scene” and press clipping bulletin “Presarijum”.
Main focuses of our work were media, law and
women position in the related public and political
concept.
In 2003, INDOC became a part of the Regional
Network of Informative and Documentary Centers
(REWIND Net) for South-East Europe, and in
2005 INDOC joined the Global Media Monitoring
Network that gathers more than 120 countries of
the world. INDOC participated in the creation of
“National action plan for improving the position of
women and promoting gender equality in Serbia”
of the section – Women and media - and became
one of the groups for the promotion and
implementation of NAP in Serbia.
Also, in October 2003 it was organized two days
conference as a celebration of 25 years of feminist
movement in ex-YU “Drug-ca ţena”. INDOC
conducted about 15 researches, and organized
trainings for WNGO„s and politicians on the issue
of gender equality and media. For the first 10 years
of its existence INDOC was the part of AWIN‟s
Initiatives that were autonomous in fund rising.
After 10 years of experience, creating the largest
data base of the women‟s movement and a well
established contact with women NGO‟s and other
organizations and networks, INDOC Centre became an independent organization in 2007 - Women INDOC Centre, growing out of the AWIN Initiative.
Since becoming an independent organization WINDOC has maintained as main goal and focus the
advancement of gender equality in the public
sphere. WINDOC has enlarged the range of initiatives and included new programs in previous scope
of work. By continuing previous (core) activities
and adding new ones, WINDOC has also enlarged
the field of its activities from information, research
and documentation centre to education and continuous networking and public sphere development.
During 2007/08 WINDOC initiated two round
tables about women in media, established women
activist media network, created first on-line press
clipping bulletin Ţenerama and presented their
researches at several International conferences.
In March 2008, Women‟s INDOC Centre initiated
the creation of the Women's Activists Media
Network with the main aim to increase public
awareness about women's issues and misogyny in
media. In 2008, WINDOC has established good
contacts and started cooperation with different
cultural institutions (Goethe institute, Centre for
cultural decontamination) and educational centers.
Since spring 2008, WINDOC is an associate
(partner) for the practical work of students of the
Faculty for Media and Communication University
“Singidunum” at the subject called ”Othernes in
Media”.
In June 2008 Women‟s INDOC Centre organized
panel discussion “‟68 Movement and Feminism in
YU – Hers/His 68?”, and in October 2008 it was
organized two days conference as a celebration of
30 years of feminist movement in ex-YU “Drug-ca
žena”.
published first issue of the new on-line bulletin
“Media Monitoring Magazine 3M” and in 2010
it‟s first blog.
During 2010 we created documentary „12 -15 %“
dedicated to the topic of women and marginalized
groups in media and public sphere, and a brochure
with transcripts of interviews which we are promoting locally and internationally.
In 2011 it changed its name in Women‟s Information Documentation Training Centre.
WINDOC continued with its educational program
and in November 2011 it organized both the Autumn School: Gender and Media and Course: Gender, Equality, Inclusion for the students of Singidunum.
During 2011, WINDOC issued 4 publication made
on the materials of the documentation archive and
analyze of the History of the Women's movement
in Serbia and region, with the goal of the visibility
of women‟s movement: Solidarity or Likening:
Diary of an feminist about feminism and left in
Serbia, Future and visibility of the women‟s organizations in Serbia, In the zone of the political:
Feminist responses and initiatives in Serbia, 8th of
March: History of one Holiday.
During 2012, in cooperation with Youth Centre
Belgrade, WINDOC organized the serial of the
panels on the topic Gender and left, and this project is still on going in 2013.
In January 2009, WINDOC Centre published
“Report on presentation of women in local media”
that includes results of monitoring local media in 7
cities of Serbia. In March 2009, it was issues se- In Autumn 2012, WINDOC organized the First
cond edition of the Report. Report is available on Women‟s Media Forum: ZENERAMA in the
our web page. WINDOC organized training on the Youth Centre Belgrade.
topic “Picture of women in media” for 14 women
members of 7 women‟s NGO‟s from Serbia.
In June 2009, in cooperation with Youth Centre
CK 13 and Alternative Culture Organization AKO
(Novi Sad), we organized the Conference “1968
and new social movements in ex-YU”.
During 2009, WINDOC held both trainings for
more than 50 journalists from different Serbian
media in 4 cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Valjevo and
Nis) and lectures for more than 40 students of journalism around the country on the topic
“Engendering Media”. In that time, WINDOC
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