Od feminizma do feminizma – dva koraka natrag, jedan korak naprijed, ili: Feministkinje pred penzijom
From Feminism to Feminism – Two Steps Back, One Step Forward, or: Feminists Facing Retirement

Summary/Abstract: In the context of a potentially new wave of feminism in Croatia (but also in the wider area of the region), the "classical" feminism since its beginnings in the late seventies in Yugoslavia is being compared to the somewhat different aspects of feminism in the eighties and the nineties. The basic thesis is that the first feminist wave had a subversive charge, maintained by the intrusion into the basic political tenets of the Yugoslavian system, and a fairly balanced ratio of academic and activist approaches. The later period is characterised by a predominant orientation towards activism, leading to a near-full loss of a critical theoretical (and political) position. The author poses a number of questions that she considers to be open to this very day, but she also points to the dire need for these questions to actually be answered. In particular, questions such as: Are the existing relations problematic from the standpoint of human equality in all the essential capacities, and hence also in rights, or from the standpoint of irreducible specificity of women? Is the basic problem that of domination, or that of domination being male? What is the relation between maleness and domination, or femaleness and subjugation anyway? Furthermore, what is accepted as a legitimate framework of action? In what relation to this stands the endeavour (nearly at any price) to acquire the acknowledgement of the government and the public (merely upon the fluid foundation of group identity), instead of bringing into question the prevailing principles of current politics? In what function does professionalisation stand – professionalisation which, lacking an autonomous political position won by public action, leads to a dependence upon the institutions offering financing and on their agendas, and reintroduces the spirit of competition, the effort to somehow exclude (and often to disqualify) others, instead of cooperation in the struggle with common problems?

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