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Čije je „žensko pitanje“?
Antifašistički Front Žena unutar i izvan socijalističke transformacije društva
Pitanje kojim bih volela da započnem jeste zašto bismo se bavili Antifašističkim Frontom Žena (AFŽ)
danas, u ovom kontekstu i gotovo šezdeset godina nakon njegovog (samo)ukidanja? Prvo, uverenja
sam da je AFŽ jedan redak primer ženske organizacije koja je počela da postoji tokom Drugog
svetskog rata, a koja je nastavila da postoji i posle njega, i što je možda još važnije, posle socijalističke
revolucije koja se dogodila tada na ovim prostorima. Drugo, radi se o organizaciji koja je, s jedne
strane, učestvovala u izgradnji jugoslovenskog socijalističkog društva, a koja se, s druge strane,
istovremeno bavila ženskom emancipacijom i oslobođenjem žena. Imajući to u vidu, verujem da bi
danas istoriju AFŽ-a trebalo uzeti u obzir prvenstveno fokusirajući se na dva važna i međusobno
povezana pitanja:
(1) Da li je socijalistički projekat per se dovoljan za prevazilaženje patrijarhalnih odnosa i ostvarivanje
ženskog oslobođenja? I, ako je odgovor na ovo negativan,
(2) šta onda možemo naučiti na osnovu AFŽ iskustva i iskoristiti u današnjem kontekstu sa ciljem da
razvijemo neki vid uspešnog oblika organizovanja ženske borbe?
Volela bih da započnem sa kratkim pregledom istorijata AFŽ-a u cilju da stavim stvari u njihov
kontekst, kao i da bi oni koji još uvek nisu dovoljno upoznati sa ovom temom dobili neki osnovni uvid
u nju, pre nego što pređem na analizu istog kako bih pokušala da dam odgovore na prethodna dva
pitanja.
AFŽ je započeo sa svojim radom već tokom prve godine Drugog svetskog rata na Balkanu. Mnoge od
njegovih članica već su bile uključene u levi aktivizam, a mnoge od njih su došle iz „Sekcije mladih“
jedne starije jugoslovenske ženske organizacije po imenu „Ženski pokret“. Važno je već na početku
naglasiti da je većina njih već tada bila učlanjena u tada ilegalnu Komunističku partiju Jugoslavije.
Postojala su dva važna razloga zbog kojih je oformljena druga ženska organizacija i sada ću ih samo
navesti ovde. Prvo, dok je tokom tridesetih godina dvadesetog veka bilo moguće da komunistkinje
rade sa i unutar ove starije, često vrlo liberalno i građanski orijentisane organizacije, ujedinjavajući se
povodom borbi za žensko pravo glasa, situacija se promenila kada je postalo očigledno da je početak
rata izvestan. Dok su žene iz ovog starijeg pokreta verovale da neki „veći događaji stupaju na svetsku
scenu“ i da „nije pravo vreme da se postavlja žensko pitanje“, mlade aktivistkinje koje su mahom
dolazile iz redova komunističke partije verovale su upravo suprotno: da žene jesu i da bi morale biti
sposobne da učestvuju u ovim događajima koji će promeniti svet. Drugo, već na samom početku rata,
praksa je pokazala da su u pravu: njihova uloga u ratu nije samo bila moguća, već je vrlo brzo postala
nužna. U ovom tekstu, neću se fokusirati na ulogu žena u ratu, jer mi to nije tema i jer verujem da je o
tome već dosta toga napisano.Volela bih samo da u tom pogledu naglasim jednu važnu poentu. Usled
mnogih različitih razloga i uslova, o kojima nažalost ne mogu ovde dublje govoriti, učešće žena u ratu
i njihova suštinska uloga u njemu bila je presudna za postizanje njihove jednakosti sa muškarcima,
barem na nivou narodnooslobodilačke borbe. One su na jednakom nivou kao i muškarci učestvovale u
borbi, bile su birale za načelnice partizanskih odbora, imale su jednako pravo glasa unutar njih, itd.
�Važna stvar koju bi ovde trebalo upamtiti jeste da ova sloboda nije bila samo formalna: radilo se o
stvarnoj jednakosti, koju su žene u borbi uživale svakog dana. 1
Takođe je vredno pomena da je relativno kratko pred početak Drugog svetskog rata ženska
organizacija okupljena u „Sekciji mladih“ predstavljala najveći i najbrojniji politički pokret u
Jugoslaviji. Kada je rat počeo, njihovi ciljevi izneti su veoma jasno: učešće u narodnooslobodilačkoj
borbi, ali i, „rame uz rame“ sa tim, rad na pitanju ženskog oslobođenja.
Sada ću preći na period posle završetka rata i pokušati da navedem neke bitne uloge koje su pripale
organizacijama AFŽ-a. Važno je da uzmemo u obzir situaciju i kontekst u kojem se Jugoslavija
nalazila u tom trenutku: rat je bio gotov i ostavio je zemlju opustošenom – nije bilo hrane, nije bilo
odeće, gotovo trista hiljada dece izgubilo je barem jednog roditelja, i dakle, zemlja je morala biti
izgrađena iz temelja. U toj situaciji, AFŽ preuzima ulogu javnih službi. Radilo se o dobro
organizovanom, delimično centralizovanom pokretu, koji je zahvaljujući svojoj ulozi u ratu bio veoma
poznat i blizak narodu, i imao moć da mobilizuje žensku populaciju u velikim brojkama. Njegovi
ciljevi samo su se malo promenili u odnosu na one iz ratnog stanja. Na prvom mestu, bilo je potrebno
da i žene učestvuju u izgradnji budućeg socijalističkog društva, a na drugom, iako je nova država
formalno prihvatila i pravno uvela formalnu rodnu jednakost, u to vreme je prevladalo mišljenje da je
ženama potrebna njihova sopstvena organizacija, koja neće biti odvojena od države, ali koja će i dalje
imati određenu autonomiju u bavljenju „ženskim pitanjem“. U to vreme, žensko pitanje značilo je
mnogo različitih stvari: emancipaciju, opismenjavanje, političko obrazovanje, ulazak u javnu sferu,
ulazak u sferu nadničkog rada, obrazovanje u pogledu majčinstva, zdravstveno obrazovanje, i tako
dalje. Žene su takođe predstavljale veliku potencijalnu radnu snagu koja je morala biti iskorišćena.
Centralni komitet KPJ napisao je pismo 1945. godine u kojem se izražava podrška organizacijama i
radu AFŽ-a, a gde se takođe navodi da je on integralni, ali ne i podređeni deo Narodnog Fronta,
tadašnje glavne političke organizacije. Na taj način, barem neko vreme, žene su bile u mogućnosti da
(p)ostanu subjekti svoje sopstvene emancipacije.
Stvari su se promenile već 1950. godine. Na trećem kongresu AFŽ-a, održanom u oktobru mesecu,
promenjen je njegov status: iako ostaje ženska organizacija, AFŽ-e postaje sekcija unutar Narodnog
Fronta, što donosi novu podelu rada u ove dve organizacije – žene bi od sada trebalo da se bave
posebno „ženskim problemima“, dok bi politički rad i rad na kulturnom uzdizanju bio prenet na
organe Narodnog Fronta. Pitanje o tome da li je nužno da postoji autonomna ženska organizacija
ponovo je počelo da se postavlja. Mnoštvo različitih teorija je strujalo unutar javnog mnjenja: usled
promene makroekonomske politike zemlje, došlo je do mnogih „seča“, a kao posledica toga zatvarane
su i ustanove za brigu o deci, mnogi ljudi su dobili otkaze, a pitanja poput „Da li bi žene uopšte trebalo
da budu radnice?“, „Nije li bolje da ostanu u kućama i rade ono što im je prirodno dodeljeno da rade?“
i slično, ponovo su došla na dnevni red. Iako vođstvo partije nije bilo blisko ovim shvatanjima, u
nekom trenutku je postalo očigledno da su ona počela da se šire i među drugim političarima, ali i među
narodom. Istaknute članice AFŽ-a bile su takođe svesne ovih tendencija. 1952. godine, na šestom
kongresu Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije, organizacije koja je zamenila komunističku partiju, vođstvo
AFŽ-a je postavilo ovo pitanje i insistiralo na tome da, citiram Vidu Tomšić, zakoni „koji štite žene i
1
Ovo naravno ne znači da unutar NOB-a nisu postojali različiti otpori ženskoj jednakosti i oslobođenju. Naime,
bilo bi veoma naivno misliti tako nešto – atmosfera na ovim prostorima u to vreme bila je dosta konzervativna,
a patrijarhalne strukture su prožimale i partizanske odrede kao i bilo koji drugi segment društva. No, važno je
primetiti da, pored velike podrške koju su žene uživale među nekim pripadnicima partizanskih odreda, one
same su se na dnevnom nivou borile za svoju jednakost i unutar ratnih borbi. Verujem da ne bi bilo
preambiciozno reći da je možda i taj momenat bio veoma važan za sticanje njihovog samopouzdanja i
neodustajanje od borbe za ženska prava tokom ratnih godina.
�garantuju im jednakost nisu dovoljni, niti bi oni mogli biti jedini uslov za realizaciju njihove stvarne
jednakosti. Veoma bismo pogrešili“, tvrdila je Vida, „ako bismo poverovali da put ka punoj jednakosti
žena nije prepun objektivnih i subjektivnih prepreka, počevši od opšte zaostalosti, koja je posebno
raširena među seoskim ženama, kao i velikog tereta koje one imaju da nose, usled kuće i porodice, do
pogrešnog shvatanja ženske pozicije“.
Iako im je komunističko vođstvo – uključujući Aleksandra Rankovića i samog Tita – ponovo pružilo
podršku, u godini koja će doći polako je postalo očigledno da nešto nije u redu i da stvari moraju da se
promene. Čak su i statistikegovorile isto: daleko manje žena nego muškaraca je učestvovalo u
političkom radu, pismenost među ženama nije rasla (iako je AFŽ učinio ogroman posao po ovom
pitanju, dolazilo je sve više novih generacija mladih žena koje nikada nisu naučile da čitaju i pišu, a u
nedostatku javnih škola, postalo je nemoguće da AFŽ aktivi sami obave sav taj posao), ustanove za
decu su zatvarane i sa uvođenjem novih dečijih dodataka, mnoge žene su odlučile da popuste pod
pritiscima, napuste svoje poslove i vrate se brizi o domaćinstvu.
Uzeću u obzir samo još jednu godinu, 1953., i četvrti kongres Narodnog Fronta, koji je zasedao u
januaru, a na kojem je ta organizacija promenila svoje ime u Socijalistički Savez Radnog Naroda
(SSRN), kao i svoje metode rada. Pored ostalih izmena, ponovljeno je da je AFŽ zaista obavio veoma
bitan posao, ali da je sada situacija promenjena i da će stvari i na tom nivou takođe morati da se
menjaju. Odlučeno je da će SSRN osnovati poseban odbor koji će raditi sa ženama, a AFŽ je prihvatio
svoju novu ulogu koja je bila svedena isključivo na emancipaciju seoskih žena i unapređenje zaostalih
domaćinstava, dok će čitav politički, javni i kulturni rad sa ženama biti prepušten novim odborima
SSRN-a.
Ne zadugo potom, u septembru iste godine, AFŽ je održao sopstveni kongres na kojem je, posle duge i
naporne rasprave, odlučeno da će se samoukinutu. Objašnjenje za ovu odluku glasilo je da „postojanje
autonomne ženske organizacije nekako čini da izgleda kao da je žensko pitanje izolovano od društva
kao celine i da to vodi separacijama unutar radničke klase“. Veoma je važno istaći da su mnoge AFŽ
aktivistkinje i delegatkinje na kongresu bile veoma nezadovoljne ovom odlukom, a neke od njih su i
protestovale. Kada je postalo jasno da nema vraćanja nazad, mnogi odbori su ukinuti i mnoge
aktivistkinje su se pasivizirale i isključile iz političkog rada kao takvog. Međutim, to nije bila jedina
reakcija: druga je došla od žena iz nižih slojeva društva, a posebno onih sa sela. One su bile veoma
iziritirane i razočarane ovom odlukom i često se moglo čuti kako govore „o onim sjajnim vremenima“
kada su imale političke sekcije, analfabetske kurseve, i dr. Česte reakcije su glasile: „Muškarci imaju
partiju da debatuju o politici, i imaju kafane da provode slobodno vreme, a mi sada nemamo ništa“.
Sa ovim ću završiti ovaj istorijski deo teksta i preći na analizu. Koristiću se trima linijama analize, i
izneti tri poente koje bih volela da istaknem s obzirom na njih. Svaka od njih predstavlja pokušaj da
odgovorim na prvo i delimično na drugo pitanje koja sam postavila na početku. Treba ih uzeti
provizorno i imati u vidu da bi ih dalje trebalo razvijati.
Prva poenta koju bih volela da iznesem je u vezi sa određenom napetošću na koju nailazimo kada
analiziramo odnos AFŽ-a kao ženske organizacije i ostalih socijalističkih organizacija. Radi se o
napetosti, ili možda čak protivrečnosti, između klasnog pitanja i ženskog pitanja. Kako bih ovo
objasnila i dodatno ilustrovala, iskoristiću već pomenuti dečiji dodatak kao primer. Kada je ova mera
uvedena, ona je takođe bila i društveno osetljiva: bogatije porodice su dobijale manju novčanu pomoć,
a siromašnije veću, shodno svojih drugim primanjima. Iz klasne perspektive, ovo ima itekako smisla.
Međutim, kada ovaj fenomen sagledamo iz ženske perspektive, uviđamo da ne samo da je ta mera
sama po sebi imala uticaj na to da žene odluče da se odreknu svojih poslova i vrate se kućnom radu i
�radu brige i nege dece, već je to učinila u nejednakoj meri: primarno su žene iz nižih slojeva radničke
klase bile te koje su donele takvu odluku, što je bilo poražavajuće ako se uzme u obzir da su upravo
one te koje su istovremeno bile najisključenije iz javne sfere, među kojima je stepen nepismenosti bio
najveći, koje su najmanje bile uključene u politička zbivanja, itd. Ukoliko nemamo žensku
organizaciju koja bi mogla da ukaže na aspekte poput ovoga i koja bi branila neka drukčija rešenja,
možda poput zahteva da se ta sredstva ulože u izgradnju više javnih vrtića i škola, imaćemo loše
posledice kao što je bila ova.
S druge strane, na osnovu iskustva AFŽ-a, možemo uvideti da odnos između ženske organizacije i
socijalističke organizacije ne može biti odnos između partikularnog i opšteg. Kao što je, nadam se,
jasno na osnovu istorijskog dela ovog teksta, jedna od glavnih problematičnih tendencija bila je
fenomen „specijalizacije“, odnosno procesa u kojem je AFŽ prestao da bude ženska organizacija za
socijalističku borbu i izgradnju socijalističkog društva i postao ženska organizacija za žensko pitanje.
Druga poenta koju bih želela da napravim je da je od samog početka svima bilo kristalno jasno, ne
samo AFŽ-u, već i vođstvu partije, da je problem koji je izazivao poteškoće na putu ka ženskom
oslobođenju ležao negde drugde, a ne u oblicima organizacije AFŽ-a. Problem je bio patrijarhat, a
patrijarhat nije isključivo žensko pitanje, već je u zbilji povezan sa oblikom društva kao celine. U tom
smislu, ukratko bi trebalo pomenuti i nužnost istorizacije onda kada govorimo o patrijarhatu, kako ne
bismo završili bilo u nekom vidu redukcionizma bilo u aistorijskom esencijalizmu.
Otpor ženskom oslobođenju nije dolazio samo od žena, i nadam se da se ovo neće shvatiti
esencijalistički, već prvenstveno od muškaraca, i to ne samo od tzv. običnog čoveka, već i od nekih
pripadnika i nekih vođa partije (dobar primer za to bio je Milovan Đilas). AFŽ je bila ženska
organizacija, čije su članice bile samo žene i čija je ciljna grupa bila isključivo ženska populacija.
Izuzev različitih proklamacija i deklaracija koje su stizale od strane nekih članova vođstva partije,
pogotovo Tita, na organizacijskom nivou nije postojao nikakav konkretan rad sa muškarcima po ovom
pitanju. Iako su zakoni propagirali formalnu jednakost polova, praksa je pokazala da je to bilo daleko
od potpune jednakosti, čak dalje i od jednakosti koju su žene stekle i za koju su uspele da se izbore
tokom ratnih godina, a zahvaljujući nekim objektivnim okolnostima. Upravo je patrijarhat ono što
svodi pitanje rodne jednakosti na pitanje koje se tiče ekskluzivno žena. Dakle, možda možemo
zaključiti da nije dovoljno imati samo-žensku organizaciju, iako je to neophodno barem za neko
vreme, već da muškarci takođe moraju biti deo ovog projekta i procesa. Potreban je organizovan
konkretni terenski rad sa njima, i da se, umesto pasivnih posmatrača koji samo slušaju direktive, iako
ih ne razumeju i većinski se ne slažu sa njima, učine aktivnim učesnicima, tj. aktivnim saborcima žena
u ovoj borbi, koja, na kraju krajeva, nije borba samo za žensko oslobođenje, već za društvo kao celinu.
Konačno, treća poenta tiče se, a takođe je u tesnoj vezi sa prve dve, pitanja nuklearne porodice. Iako
su žene stekle mnoga prava u porodičnom zakonu koja nikada ranije nisu uživale, poput apsolutnog
prava na razvod, prava na legalni status vanbračne dece da budu priznata, i, u sedamdesetima, pravo
na abortus, nuklearna porodica kao model nikada nije dovedena u pitanja. Čak nasuprot, često je
predstavljana kao dobar model koji bi samo trebalo ojačati. I ponovo, u primeru dečijeg dodatka
možemo takođe da uočimo jednu drugu zanimljivu stvar: u trenutku kada je ekonomska sloboda žena
trebalo da raste s obzirom na sredstva koja su dobile, ono što se u zbilji desilo je da je ona gotovo
ukinuta. Zapravo, žene su vraćene na obavljanje ne-nadničnog reproduktivnog rada unutar nuklearne
porodice. U pokušaju da rasvetlimo ovaj proces, nailazimo na suštinsko pitanje: zašto se, pored
mnogih različitih procesa koji su mogli da započnu u ovom trenutku, nametnuo upravo proces
vraćanja žena isključivuna funkciju reproduktivne radnice?
�Teza koju bih ovde branila jeste da su istrajnost nuklearne porodice i ne-nadničnog ženskog kućnog
rada, čak i unutar nominalno socijalističkog jugoslovenskog društva, bili posledica istorijske činjenice
da se nadnični rad u svom modernom obliku mogao nametnuti kao dominantni oblik rada u Jugoslaviji
tek nakon socijalističke revolucije. Pre Drugog svetskog rata, Jugoslavija je bila zaostala i pretežno
poljoprivredna zemlja i postala je moderna industrijalizovana zemlja tek sa socijalizmom. To je u sebe
uključivalo razvitak modernih oblika nadničnog rada, sa svi kontradikcijama koje taj proces
podrazumeva, uključujući i domestikaciju radnji neophodnih za reprodukciju radne snage. Ovaj proces
se naravno razlikovao od istog u kapitalističkoj modernizaciji, međutim pokazuje neke uznemirujuće
sličnosti.
Na osnovu iskustva AFŽ-a i rodnog pitanja uopšte u Jugoslaviji možemo naučiti da je razvoj
socijalizma značio mnogo više od nacionalizacije ekonomije i stvaranja pune zaposlenosti radnika i
radnica, koji su i dalje ostali nadnična radna snaga. Nadnični oblik uvek ima svoje posledice, a jedna
od njih je da ponekad stavlja rodnu i klasnu emancipaciju u sukob jednu s drugom. Ove kontradikcije
nisu rešene u istorijskim socijalizmima i ostaju hitan zadatak za bilo koji sličan pokušaj u budućnosti.
Pored toga, da zaključim, pitanje odvajanja ženske političke organizacije takođe ostaje otvoreno.
Mnogi ortodoksni marksisti i socijalisti bi insistirali da odvojene ženske organizacije služe samo tome
da „razrede“ zajednički klasni interes ujedinjenog proleterijata u njegovom maršu ka slavnoj
socijalističkoj budućnosti. Međutim, šta ako žensko pitanje nije samo mala smetnja u takvom slavnom
maršu, već je nužni aspekt potpunog teorijskog i političkog razumevanja metoda i ciljeva same klasne
emancipacije? Odvojene ženske organizacije bi u tom slučaju bile nužne u cilju da žensko pitanje ne
bude automatski podvedeno pod navodno hitnije i bitnije političke ciljeve – ali nikada odvojene u
smislu da se žensko pitanje razume kao potpuno nezavisno i nepovezano sa drugim problemima čije
rešavanje podrazumeva jedna potpuna politička i društvena emancipacija. U tom smislu, česte
tendencije tzv. nove levice da žensko pitanje vide kao još jedan od privezaka koji će nakačiti svom
pokretu takođe nije zadovoljavaći put. Različitost-u-jedinstvu ženskog pitanja je politička zagonetka
koja je istorijski zaustavljena ukidanjem AFŽ-a i koja još uvek ostaje da se reši.
�
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Istraživački radovi
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Čije je žensko pitanje - Antifašistički Front Žena unutar i izvan socijalističke transformacije društva - Andrea Jovanović
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Andrea Jovanović
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Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena
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Andrea Jovanović
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5 str.
AFŽ
Andrea Jovanović
žensko pitanje
-
https://afzarhiv.org/files/original/2b05a84873642acdfe0f03b5cc65aa8d.pdf
469426b7864870aafcf495116a4e5067
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Text
Antifascist Front of Women within the socialist transformation of
society
Introduction
The question I would like to begin with in this article is why we should deal with
Antifascist Front of Women (AFW) today, in this context and almost 60 years after its
suppression. 1 Firstly, I believe that AFW is an example, even rare one, of a women’s
organization that started existing during Second World War and still continued to exist
after the end of war, and maybe more importantly, after the socialist revolution that took
place in Yugoslav region. Secondly, it’s an organization that, on the one hand,
participated in construction of Yugoslav socialist society and on the other, was dealing
with women’s emancipation and liberation. So I believe that today we need to consider
the history of AFW by focusing on two important and mutually related questions:
(1) Is socialist project per se enough for abolishing patriarchal relations and for achieving
women’s liberation? And, if the answer is “no”,
(2) What can be learned from AFW experience and be used in today’s context in order to
invent some successful form of organizing for women’s struggle?
I would like to begin with a very brief overview of AFW’s history in order to put things
in their context and to introduce those who don’t know a lot about this subject. In the
second part of this article I will analyze AFW in order to try to give the answers to abovementioned questions.
1
This paper is partly based on the lecture I gave at the Ljubljana’s Mayday school in 2013. In this form, it
appeared in slovenian journal Revija Borec (712-714, 2014).
�1. (Very) brief history of AFW
Antifascist Front of Women, although not by that name, started working already in the
first year of the Second World War. Many of its members were already activists before,
and many of them came from “Youth section” of an older women’s Yugoslav
organization called “Alliance of Women’s movements” and were members of Yugoslav
Communist Party that was illegal at the time. To understand difficulties and problems
these women encountered in every step of their way during pre-war period of their
activism, we should look at some indicators that can tell us more about the level of
women’s rights and positions in pre-war Yugoslavia.
This was a poor, mostly agrarian and underdeveloped country in the process of transition
to capitalism. Demand for industrialization, along with the formation of the new capitalist
class and also the working class shaped the conditions women were living in. These
processes couldn’t go without contradictions. On the one hand, strong church and
conservative moral imposed on women the roles of modest, dependent and subordinate
wife, mother and houseworker, but on the other, they were used as less legally protected
and less paid labor power. 2 Even though, the number of female workers was only 18-19%
of whole employed population at the time. 3 Women also had no political rights. Of
course, depicted situation didn’t pass without examples of organized resistance. We could
say that there were two different, but mutually intertwined levels of it, and I will name
them the same way as Neda Božinović did: civil 4 women movement, on the one hand,
and labor women movement 5 gathered around Communist Party, on the other. Because of
2
3
4
�
�
�
Vida Tomšič, p. 17
Ibid
I had a trouble to decide whether to translate this as „civil“ or „bourgeois“, because in Serbian
language, „civil“ can mean both of them. I chose „civil“ because not all of the value this movement was
fighting for could be described as „bourgeois“, although many of them can.
5
�many different reasons (state and police repression along with divergences which existed
within Party on this question, just to mention some), already in the late 1920’s it became
impossible for labor women movement to operate functionally 6. On the other hand,
different civil women’s organizations, and “Alliance” as the biggest of them, were legal
at the time and could perform their actions without such problems. That was the main
reason why most of the communist feminists at the time decided to join these civil
organizations and work within them. Now, I will shift to the period before the war and try
to explain briefly two important reasons for forming another women’s organization –
AFW, in the second year of the war.
(1) While during 1930’s it was possible and important for communist women to
cooperate with and within this older, often very liberal and bourgeois organizations,
gathering around struggle for women’s right to vote 7, the situation changed when it
became obvious that the war will start. While women from this older movement believed
that there are some “bigger events going on the world scale”, and that “it is not the right
time to pose women’s question”, young activist who came from the communist party
believed exactly the opposite: women are and should be able to participate in those lifeand-world-changing events. But, even more important – women’s question, as they
believed, their struggle for formal and real equality of women, is and must be part of
global struggle for equality of the whole human race.
(2) At the very beginning of the war, practice proved them right: their role in war was not
only possible, but soon became necessary. As active participants in national liberation
struggle and antifascist movement, women in the war finally established their own
centralized organization on its first conference in December 1942, and named it
�
6
7
�
�
Neda Božinović, p. 105
Ibid, p. 108
See more: Neda Božinović, p.122
�Antifascist Front of Women. 8 In this article, I will not focus on women’s role in the war; I
would just like to emphasize one important point: due to many different reasons and
causes, which cannot be elaborated in this article since the lack of space, women’s
participation in the war and their crucial role in it made them equal within national
liberation struggle - they participated on an equal level in the struggle as men did, they
were elected as leaders of partisan boards, they had an equal right to vote, and so on. The
important thing to remember is that this equality wasn’t only a formal one: it was a real
equality, enjoyed by women in struggle every day.
It is also worth mentioning that shortly before the Second World War women’s
organization that was gathered around “Youth section” was the biggest political
movement in Yugoslavia. When the war started, they’ve made their objectives very clear:
to participate in national liberation struggle and, not less important, to work on women’s
liberation question.
I will now shift to the period after the war and try to mention some important roles that
were assigned to AFW. We need to take into account the situation in which now socialist
Yugoslavia was: the war was over, and it left the country devastated – there was no food,
no clothes, almost 300.000 of children lost their parents, and so the country had to be
rebuilt from the ashes 9. AFW took the role of social services. It was a well-organized,
partly centralized organization, very familiar among the people, who had the power to
mobilize female population in huge numbers.
Its objectives shifted only a little from those during the war time. First, women were
needed to participate in building the socialist society, and second, although the new state
formally accepted and legally introduced formal gender equality, it was at that time
considered that women still should have their own organization, that wouldn’t be separate
8
9
�
Neda Božinović, p.146
�
Neda Božinović, p.153
�from the state, but would still have some autonomy in dealing with “women’s question”.
And back then, women’s question meant a lot of different things: emancipation, literacy,
political education, entrance into the public sphere, entrance into the sphere of wagedwork, education in terms of motherhood, and so on, and so forth. Women were also a
huge labor force that had to be used. Central committee of Communist Party of
Yugoslavia wrote a letter in 1945 that gave support to AFW and stated that it was an
integral, but not subordinated part of the National Front, the main political organization
at the time 10. In that way, at least for some time, women were able to stay the subjects of
their own emancipation.
Things changed in 1950. At the third Congress of AFW in October, they changed their
own status: they remained a women’s organization, but they became a section within the
National Front, which brought a new division of labor – women should deal with specific
“women problems”, and work of political and cultural emancipation should now be
passed to the organs of the National Front. The question of the necessity of existence of
an autonomous women’s organization started to be posed again. Many different theories
on this matter were formed within the public opinion: because the macroeconomic policy
changed, and there were many cuts, facilities for childcare were closing and many people
got fired from work, the questions like “should women be workers at all”, “shouldn’t they
stay at home and do what they are naturally supposed to be doing”, were posed again.
Although the leadership of the party wasn’t keen to support these views, at some moment
it became obvious that they were starting to spread among other politicians and also, the
people. Many leaders of AFW were also aware of these tendencies. At the sixth Congress
of the League of Communist of Yugoslavia (an organization that replaced the communist
party) that took place in 1952, AFW’s leaders were posing question of autonomy of AFW
and insisted that, I quote Bosa Cvetić 11, laws “that protect women and guarantee them
equality weren’t enough, neither they can be the only condition for the realization of their
10
11
�
�
Ibid, p. 165
Ivana Pantelić, p.139
�real equality. We would be mistaken”, Bosa said, “if we believed that the road towards
full equality of women isn’t full of objective and subjective obstacles, starting from the
general backwardness, which is especially spread among countryside women, and great
burden they have to carry, because of the house and family, to the wrong conceptions of
women’s position.” 12
And although communist leadership – including Aleksandar Ranković and Tito himself –
had supported them again, in a year to come it slowly became obvious that something
wasn’t right and that things had to change. Even the statistics told the same: there were
far fewer women in politics, literacy wasn’t improving fast enough (although AFW did a
great work on this question, there were new and new generations of young women who
never learned to read and write, and with no public schools yet, it became impossible for
AFW actives to do it by themselves alone), children facilities were closing and with
introducing new child allowances, many women decided to give in to the pressures, give
up their jobs and go “back to the household”.
I will take only one more year into consideration, a year 1953, and the fourth Congress of
Liberation Front, that took place in January, when that organization both changed its
name to Socialist League of Working people (SLWP), and also changed its methods of
work. Among other changes, it has been stated that although AFW has done really
important work, now the situation is changed – things had to change on that level as well.
It was decided that SLWP will form a special commission for working with women, and
AFW accepted its new role that was reduced only to emancipation of countryside women
and advancement of backward households, while whole political, public and cultural
work with women would be left to SLWP’s new commissions.
Not long after that, in September the same year, AFW had its own Congress where it was
decided, after a long and exhausting debate, that it will deactivate itself. Explanation for
that decision was that “existence of autonomous women organization somehow makes it
12
�
Ibid, p. 168
�looks like women question is isolated from the society as a whole and that it leads to
separations within the working class”. 13 It is really important to note that many AFW
activists and delegates at the Congress felt angry about this decision and some of them
protested. When it was clear that there’s no turning back, many AFW boards were
abolished and many activists just became passive and excluded themselves from politics
as such. But that wasn’t the only reaction: another one came from the women in lower
classes and especially those in villages. They were really annoyed and disappointed with
this resolution and you could often hear them speak about those great times when they
had politics sessions, literacy lessons, and so. Usual reactions were: “It’s over, it’s all
over! Men have the party to debate politics, and they have taverns to spend fun-time at,
and we now have nothing”. 14 This only shows how important AFW’s actions were in
everyday life of many women who had a chance, in those several years, to experience
completely different kind of life: for most of them, it was the first time they had a place to
talk about politics, to socialize with one another and share experiences, to have a vote and
a right to decide about the way they would like to organize their time, and so on.
With this, I would like to finish this historical part of the article, since it has already taken
me more space than I planned, and to proceed to analysis. There will be three levels of
the analysis and three points I would like to make accordingly. All of them are attempts to
answer the first and partly the second question I posed at the beginning of the talk. They
will be only provisional and intended to induce further thinking and elaborating this
subject.
2. (Very) brief analysis
(1) The first point that I would like to make is related to the tension that we can come
across when we analyze the relation between AFW as women organization and other
13
14
�
�
Ibid, p.173
Ibid, p. 174
�different socialist organizations. It is a well-known tension, or maybe even contradiction,
between the so called class question and the women question. To explain and illustrate it,
I will use the already mentioned child allowance measure introduced in the beginning of
50’s as an example. I’m using this example because I believe it is a very simple way to
show how this contradiction works in praxis. So, when this measure was introduced, it
was also socially sensitive: richer families were supposed to get less money, and poorer
ones more. It depended on family’s other incomes. From class perspective, this made a
lot of sense. But, when we consider it from women’s perspective, it is not only that this
measure by itself had an impact on women to choose to give up their jobs and go back to
the house work and children care work, but it did it unequally: it was primarily women
from lower parts of the working class who made such a decision, which was devastating
when you consider that exactly those women were at the same time also the most
excluded from the public sphere, mostly illiterate, prevented from politics etc. If you
don’t have a women organization that can point at aspects like this one and that will argue
for some different solutions, like perhaps a demand to build more public kindergartens
and schools, you will have bad consequences like this one.
Ever since the first labor and women movements came to life there existed different kinds
of tension between them. Whether it was a question more of a practical issues (should
women vote, should they have reproductive rights, should they have the same rights as
workers as men have, and so on) or more of theoretical ones (like the relations between
class and gender, which one of them have supremacy over the other), by looking at their
mutual history we can see many examples of the same logic appearing in almost every
attempt for socialist and feminist movements to work together. That tempestuous history
couldn’t be better named than as a history full of “marriages and divorces between
Marxism and Feminism” and a whole bunch of advocates on each side trying to work in
their client’s best interest 15. I believe that the example of AFW can be extremely helpful
15
�
I borrowed this phrase from the title of Cinzia Arruzza’s book. For a very good historical
overview of this history, see her:
�in understanding this issue and even giving some guidelines for resolving it. There are
few reasons for that.
First, most of AFW’s membership and its founders were women who were both feminist
and socialist activists from the beginning. For them, question of transformation of society
as a whole couldn’t be thought of if any of these aspects were missing. They were
socialist women and feminist socialists, but, what is more important, for them, to be a
socialist, a true one, exactly meant to be a feminist altogether, and vice versa. This selfunderstanding of AFW activists was very important for shaping the course of actions
AFW will take after the war, but, as we shall see, it can also give some indicators for
explaining self-dissolution of AFW at the end.
Second reason why AFW experience is helpful in trying to resolve conflicts between
socialists and feminists movements is the very specific situation in which AFW was
actually formed: the war situation. As I mentioned before, women were needed in this
war and in this revolution if communist were to win on both fronts. Not only they were
the biggest organization, but they also had a good territorial coverage and already
established operating boards in the whole country. These and some other things resulted
in their equal participation in war and revolutions. The “real equality” I spoke about at
the beginning of the article that they enjoyed was both the result of these objective
conditions as well as their own everyday struggle for it. So, when the war was over,
things were already irreversibly changed. Women activists weren’t very keen to give up
all the possibilities they gained during wartime. Keeping their organization functional
was thought as the first step of keeping that ground upon which a true feminist-socialist
society will be built.
On the other hand, from AFW experience, we can see that the relation of women’s
organization and socialist organizations cannot be a relation between the particular and
the general. As I hope it was clear from my historical account, one of the main
problematic tendencies was the one of “specialization”, that is, the process in which AFW
stopped being women’s organization for socialist struggle and was becoming women’s
�organization for women’s question. This is extremely important point if we take into
account the tendency that emerges in some parts of today’s so called “modern left”, to
take feminist struggle as one of the many other “particular” signifiers that should be
added to central class struggle. I shall not go deeper into this subject in here, but we
should note that patriarchy that exists in this world is a capitalist one and that it is
structurally connected to the capitalist system as a whole. There are different levels of
abstraction when we are to analyze capitalism, and there are different forms of
domination in capitalism, so that doesn’t mean “the left” should focus solely on the so
called production sphere and concern every other issue as a particular one that should be
solved independently in a better case scenario, or even automatically, how some
reductionist would argue. It’s a lesson that AFW learned in a harder way.
(2) The second point that I want to address is that from the beginning it was clear for
everybody, not just AFW, but also the leadership of the party, that the problem that caused
difficulties laid elsewhere, and not in AFW’s form of organization. The problem was
patriarchy, and patriarchy is not only a women’s question, but in truth, it is related to the
form of the whole society.
The resistance to women’s liberation wasn’t coming only from women, and I hope this
won’t sound too essentialist, but it was coming mostly from men, and not just from the
so-called common men, but also from the members and some leaders of the party (good
example is Milovan Đilas). AFW was a women organization, whose members were only
women, and whose target group was women only. Except for the different proclamations
and declarations that were coming from some members of the party leadership, especially
Tito, on the organizational level there was no concrete work with men on this question.
Although the law was propagating a formal equality between the sexes, practice showed
that it was far from full equality, even far from equality that some women gained during
the war time and due to some objective circumstances. It is precisely patriarchal forms of
dominations that reduce the question of gender equality to the question concerning
exclusively women.
�So, maybe we can conclude that it is not enough to have women-only organization, even
though it is necessary for a time, but that men must also be a part of this project and
process. If you don’t organize concrete field work and make men not only passive
observers that simply listen to the directives even though they don’t understand them and
mostly don’t agree with them, but to make them actively participate with women in this
struggle, that, in the end, is not only a struggle for women’s emancipation, but for the
community as a whole.
(3) And, thirdly, also closely connected to the first two points, is a question of a capitalist
form of nuclear family. Even though women gained many family law rights that they
never had before, like an absolute right to divorce, the right for extramarital children to
be recognized, and, in the 70’s, abortion rights, nuclear family as a model was never
questioned. Quite to the contrary, it was often represented as a good model that should
only be strengthened more. And in the example of child allowances we can also observe
another peculiar thing: at the moment when women’s economic freedom should have
been raised because of supplementary funds they acquired, what in fact happened is that
it diminished. In fact, they returned to providing unwaged reproductive labor within the
nuclear family. In trying to make sense of this process, we have stumbled upon a crucial
question: why was it that, amongst many different possible processes that could be
initiated at this point, it was precisely the return of women to the sole function of
reproductive laborers that imposed itself?
My thesis would be that the persistence of the nuclear family and the unwaged female
domestic labor even within the nominally socialist society in Yugoslavia was a
consequence of the historical fact that wage labor in its modern form only ever asserted
itself as the dominant form of labor after the socialist revolution. Before the 2nd WW
Yugoslavia was a backward and agrarian country and it became a modern industrialized
country only with socialism. That included the development of modern forms of wage
labor, with all the contradiction that process involves, including the domestication of the
activities, necessary for the reproduction of labor power. This process was of course not
the same as in capitalist modernization, but showed some disturbing similarities.
�Conclusion
From the experience of AFW and the gender question in general in Yugoslavia we can
learn that developing socialism means a lot more than nationalizing the economy and
creating full employment for workers, which still remain wage workers. The wage form
always has its consequences and one of them is that it sometimes puts the gender and
class emancipation at odds with one another. These contradictions were not solved in
historical socialism and remain urgent tasks for any attempts in the future.
Also, to conclude, the question of separate women’s political organizations remains open.
Many orthodox Marxists and socialists would insist that separate women’s organizations
only serve to disarticulate the common class interest of the united proletariat, marching
ahead into a glorious socialist future. But what if the women’s question is not merely a
slight disturbance in such glorious march, but a necessary aspect of full theoretical and
political understanding of the methods and goals of the class emancipation itself?
Separate women’s organizations are in that case necessary in order for women’s question
to not be automatically subsumed under supposedly more urgent and important political
goals – but never separate in a sense that would understand women’s question as a
completely independent and unrelated to all other issues of full political and social
emancipation. Difference-in-unity of the women’s question is a political puzzle that was
historically suspended by the dissolution of AFW and still remains to be solved.
�Literature
Arruzza, Cinzia, Dangerous Liaisons: The marriages and divorces between Marxism and
Feminism, Merlin Press, Wales, 2013
Božinović, Neda, Žensko pitanje u Srbiji u XIX i XX veku, Žene u crnom, Beograd, 1996
Pantelić, Ivana, Partizanke kao građanke: Društvena emancipacija partizanki u Srbiji
1945-1953, EVOLUTA, Beograd, 2011
Stojaković, Gordana, Ekonomija nege i brige izgradila je zemlju
http://www.voxfeminae.net/cunterview/politika-drustvo/item/2905-gordana-stojakovicekonomija-nege-i-brige-izgradila-je-zemlju/2905-gordana-stojakovic-ekonomija-nege-ibrige-izgradila-je-zemlju
Tomšič, Vida, Žena u razvoju socijalističke samoupravne Jugoslavije, Jugoslovenska
stvarnost, Beograd, 1981
�
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Istraživački radovi
Ostalo
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Antifascist Front of Women within the socialist transformation of society - Andrea Jovanović
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Andrea Jovanović
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Udruženje za kulturu i umjetnost Crvena
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Andrea Jovanović
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PDF
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English
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9-IR
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13 pages
Andrea Jovanović
Antifascist Front of Women
socialism
woman question
Yugoslavia