“New Yugoslav Feminism during Socialism between ‘Mainstreaming’ and ‘Disengagement’: The Possibilities of Resistance, Critical Opposition and Dissent”

Through a focus on early publications by feminist intellectuals in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, this paper aims at showing ways of feminist critiques of the theory and practice of women’s emancipation in the context of a state socialist (in this case, self-managing socialist) country in East Central Europe. After a brief overview of feminist organising in YU till the late 1980s, the paper looks at conferences and journal publications, which also gives a chance to understand a bit better the workings of the Yugoslav public space and publishing processes. The text, written with a conceptual and intellectual historical focus, analyses the discursive interventions and reformulations of matters related to women’s emancipation. The new Yugoslav feminist approaches rethink and reformulate the “women’s question”. Reading the recent currents of feminisms in North America and Western Europe, the feminists in Yugoslavia are in a search for ways to reframe this question into a critique that is constructive as well as innovative in their own context