Lepa Mlađenović

Lepa Mlađenović ( Serbian - Cyrillic Лепа Млађеновић ; * 1954 in Belgrade ) is a feminist , lesbian and anti-war activist who is known as one of the pioneers of the second feminist movement in Serbia . She is a feminist consultant for female survivors of male violence or lesbophobia , moderator of workshops, author, lecturer and an active member of several international bodies and networks on lesbian rights and violence against women. Mlađenović is a symbol of women's activism in the former Yugoslavia .

Life

Mlađenović was born in Belgrade , Yugoslavia, spent her summer holidays in Sarajevo and on the Adriatic Sea and has lived in Belgrade since 2017.

Human rights work

Alternatives to patriarchy

Mlađenović graduated from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Belgrade , Philosophy Faculty in 1980 . During her studies, she stood up to a rigid educational system by writing letters of protest to professors and criticizing the conservative rules that do not enable students. The first social movement in which she participated actively, is the network for alternatives to psychiatry, whose aim was to psychiatry to desinstitutionalisieren and to be regarded as an institution of violence and exclusion. In 1983 Mlađenović initiated and organized the international meeting "Psychiatry and Society", a three-day conference in the student cultural center in Belgrade. She then volunteered at the Mental Health Centers in Trieste and wrote about Democratic Psychiatry in Italy, as well as the community therapy centers of the Arbors Association in London , which emerged from the anti-psychiatry movement.

Feminism and Anti-War Activism

Mlađenović's feminist activism began in 1978 when she took part in the first international women's conference "DRUG-ca Žena" / "Comrade Women" organized by Yugoslav feminists at the student cultural center in Belgrade. This conference was a turning point for feminist and civil society in the former Yugoslavia. In 1982 Mlađenović was one of the co-organizers of the feminist group "Women and Society" in Belgrade. In 1986 Mlađenović organized a feminist group as part of "Women and Society" based on a model of self-perception.

Mlađenović took part in the first Yugoslav feminist meeting in Ljubljana in 1987 , organized by the feminist group LILIT and the lesbian group LILIT LL from Slovenia. The meeting encouraged the Sisterhood to exchange ideas, to support women's activism, to organize discussions on violence against women, to consider women's reproductive health, to target the arts and culture of women and the first initiatives for the organization of lesbians. Together with other feminist activists from the group "Women and Society", Mlađenović founded the SOS hotline in 1990 for women and children who were victims of violence in Belgrade, where she worked as a coordinator and consultant for female survivors of male violence. Later she also worked with women who were victims of wars.

In 1991, Mlađenović joined Staša Zajović and several other women who were feminists and antiwar activists when they founded Women in Black . Women in Black, as an anti-war and feminist organization in Belgrade, started with weekly vigils against the Serbian regime and later became part of the worldwide network of Women in Black. The first meeting of the Women in Black of Belgrade took place on October 9, 1991.

From 1992 to 2012 Mlađenović worked as an educator and consultant with women who were victims of male violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia and Hungary . In 1993 Mlađenović and other feminist volunteers from the SOS hotline founded the Autonomni Ženski Centar AŽC (Autonomous Women's Center). Mlađenović worked there until 2011 as a psychological advisor and coordinator of the counseling team. Mlađenović has participated in hundreds of workshops for women and support groups for women victims of male violence from 2000 until today. She is also the moderator of experiential workshops on the emotional literacy of activists and especially lesbians in the Balkans. She also works in Italy with the NGO DiRe, Donne in Rete contro la violenza and published an article on feminist counseling on sexual violence that was used in several of her trainings.

Lesbian activism

Mlađenović was one of the two participants from Yugoslavia at the ILIS International Lesbian Information Service Conference, which took place in Geneva in 1986 , together with Suzana Tratnik. In 1990 Mlađenović, re activists initiated the first gay and lesbian organization Arkadia - the lesbian and gay lobby in Belgrade, which existed until 1997. Mlađenović is the first lesbian in Serbia who appeared on a public television program in 1994. She discussed gay and lesbian topics and represented the gay and lesbian group Arkadia. In 1995 Mlađenović and several other lesbian activists who had worked together in Arcadia founded the first lesbian organization, Labris. In 2001 Mlađenović described the experience with this work:

"I would write a solidarity letter with a package to an unknown woman in Sarajevo, knowing she is under the siege and bullets daily, and worry would she be embarrassed one day when she sees a lesbian in front of her door who wrote her letters? Why was it always so difficult to say that certain humanitarian aid came from lesbians? "

As part of Labris, Mlađenović was one of the organizers and participants of the first lesbian week in Slovenia in 1997, which was organized by the feminist lesbian group Kasandra from Slovenia. A total of 45 people from Novi Sad , Maribor , Skopje , Belgrade, Zagreb , Pristina , Split and Ljubljana took part. This event was a turning point and the beginning of another regional feminist collaboration. The lesbian week brought together lesbian activists and lesbian women on common issues that are important for a lesbian existence. The second lesbian week took place in Sombor , Vojvodina , in 2000 , organized by Labris. The third lesbian week took place in Novi Sad in 2004, also organized by Labris, and the fourth lesbian week took place in 2011.

Mlađenović was one of the co-organizers of Belgrade Pride in 2001.

In 2012 Mlađenović, together with several other lesbian counselors, founded the Counseling SOS line for lesbians, where she has been working as a workshop moderator and psychological counselor since 2017.

Awards and recognitions

Mlađenović is an international award winner from Felipa de Souza for her contribution to LGBT human rights activism in 1994, awarded by OutRight Action International. She received the award in 1994 at a Pride Celebration in New York . At the awards ceremony, she said, "The place I come from is not the nation I was born in, it's a lost lesbian country that I've never had - but I'll manage to make it somehow."

In 2011 the Novi Sad Lesbian Organization (NLO) honored Mlađenović by opening a lesbian, feminist, radical, anti-fascist reading room named after her.

In 2013 Mlađenović received the Anne Klein Women's Prize awarded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation . The award ceremony took place in Berlin and Mlađenović brought 22 lesbian activists from the region who attended the award ceremony and organized a lesbian study visit.

Works and publications

From 1992 to 2012 Mlađenović was an active member and lecturer at the Center for Women's Studies in Belgrade. She is the author of several essays on war rape, violence against women, lesbian rights, lesbians in war, feminism, the feminist approach to transitional justice, women's solidarity and emotional competence.

In her short manifesto "Politics of Women's Solidarity" she says:

"Women's solidarity is a beginning of defascization of each of us. Because we choose understanding and not accusation, we choose empathy and not hate. We choose to be responsible for our acts, emotions and thoughts, instead of taking a role of a victim. Women's solidarity is a politics of anti-fascism. Because we choose to care about the other, the different then me. When we watch children with eyes of solidarity then our children are not necessarily better nor more beautiful then those of others. "

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1] , the daily newspaper online, March 7, 2013
2. ^ Rada Ivekovic, Julie Mostov: From Gender to Nation . Longo, 2002, ISBN 978-8880633419 , p. 122.
3. ↑ Wenona Mary Giles, Women in Conflict Zones Network: Feminists Under Fire: Exchanges Across War Zones . Between The Lines, Toronto 2003, ISBN 9781896357782 , p. 226.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Adrijana Zaharijevic: Short Portrait: Lepa Mlađenović . December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Adrijana Zaharijevic: Short Portrait: Lepa Mlađenović . December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Ivica Petrović: Živeti sa svojim izborima ( Serbian ) December 7, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
7. ↑ ^{a b} About us: Lecturers . Retrieved October 27, 2017.
8. ↑ Lepa Mladjenovic: At-Home with Lepa Mladjenovic . 2000. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Milka Obradovic: Lepa Mladjenovic, (Anti) psihologistkinja: Menjati odnos prema ljudima koji pate (1987) ( Serbian ) 1987. Accessed December 8, 2017.
10. ↑ Zatvorimo bolnice koje ne lijece vec ponizavaju ( Serbian ) November 29, 2016. Accessed December 8, 2017.
11. ↑ Laura McLeod: Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in 'Post-conflict' Serbia . Routledge, 2015, ISBN 9780822315483 , p. 49.
12. ^ Maja Mikula: Women, Activism and Social Change: Stretching Boundaries . Routledge, 2006, ISBN 9781136782718 , p. 87.
13. ↑ Chiara Bonfiglioli: Remembering the conference "Drugarica Zena. Zensko Pitanje - Novi Pristup?" / "Comrade Woman.The Women's Question: A New Approach?" thirty years after . Universiteit Utrecht, Utrecht 2008, pp. 54-55, 86, OCLC 428113304 .
14. ↑ Adriana Zaharijevic, Zorica Ivanovic, Dasa Duhacek (eds.): Žarana Papić. Tekstovi 1977-2002 . Centar za studije roda i politike, Re Konstrukcija Ženski fond, Žene u crnom, Belgrade 2012, ISBN 978-86-84031-54-1 , pp. 11-12, 31.
15. ↑ Marina Hughson (Blagojevic): Unpacking Silence and Distortion: Mapping Misogyny in Serbia . In: Knjizenstvo . November 2016, p. 5.
16. ↑ Lina Vuskovic, Sofija Trivunac: Feministička grupa Žena i društvo . Retrieved December 8, 2017.
17. ^ Social Currents in Eastern Europe: The Sources and Consequences of the Great Transformation . Duke University Press, 1995, ISBN 9780822315483 , p. 225.
18. ↑ Ljubica Spasovska: The Last Yugoslav Generation: The Rethinking of Youth Politics and Cultures in Late Socialism . Oxford University Press, Apr 18, 2017, ISBN 9781526106315 , p. 136.
19. ↑ Mojca Dobnikar (ed.): Jaz, ti, one ... Za nas: dokumenti jugoslavenskih feminističkih susreta 1987-1991 ( Slovenian , print book), Društvo Vita Activa, Ljubljana; Centar za žene žrtve rata / ROSA - Zagreb, 2009, ISBN 978-961-92800-0-3 , p. 14.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Mima Rašić: Lezbejska egzistencija, lezbejska vidljivost . In: Adriana Zaharijević (ed.): Neko je rekao feminizam? Kako je feminizam uticao na Žene XXI veka . Heinrich Böll Foundation, Belgrade January 1, 2008, pp. 208, 233.
21. ↑ Charlotte Bunch, Niamh Reilly, Douglass College. Center for Women's Global Leadership, United Nations Development Fund for Women: Demanding accountability: the global campaign and Vienna Tribunal for women's human rights . Rutgers University, Center for Women's Global Leadership, 1994, ISBN 9780912917290 , p. 37.
22. ↑ Cynthia Enloe: Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 9781442265455 , p. 134.
23. ↑ Living in War Zones: Thoughts on War and Domestic Violence (PDF) March 9, 2001. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
24. ↑ Living in War Zones: Thoughts on War and Domestic Violence (PDF) March 9, 2001. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
25. ↑ ^{a b} Jasmina Tesanović: Mothering in War . In: Marguerite Guzman Bouvard (Ed.): Mothers of Adult Children . Lexington Books, 2013, ISBN 9780739183014 , p. 110.
26. ↑ Laura McLeod: Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in 'Post-conflict' Serbia . Routledge, Jul 16, 2015, ISBN 9781317635628 , p. 52.
27. ↑ ^{a b c d} Short biography: Lepa Mladjenovic . December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
28. ↑ ^{a b c} Marija Savić: Istorija LGBT aktivizma u Srbiji . In: Saša Gavrić, Lejla Huremović, Marija Savić (eds.): Čitanka lezbejskih i gej ljudskih prava (PDF), Sarajevski otvoreni centar, Fondacija Heinrich Böll, Sarajevo 2011, ISBN 978-9958-9959-3-4 , p. 102 -103.
29. ↑ Julie Mertus: One Step Forward . March 1, 1995. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
30. ↑ Lepa Mladjenovic, 2001 "Notes of a Feminist Lesbian during Wartime", European Journal of Women's Studies Vol 8, Issue 3, pp. 381–391.
31. ↑ Prva lezbejska nedjelja ( Croatian ) 2010. Accessed October 29, 2017th
32. ↑ Treća lezbejska nedjelja ( Croatian ) 2010. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
33. ↑ Our network-our strength: Third Lesbian Week 2004 . February 8, 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
34. ^ Human rights Awards, The Felipa de Souza Award . Retrieved October 29, 2017.
35. ↑ U Novom Sadu otvorena Čitaonica Lepa Mlađenović ( Croatian ) July 6, 2011. Accessed October 29, 2017th
36. ↑ Lepa Mladjenovic, Serbia, Wins 2013 Anne Klein Women's Award - Statement by the jury . December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
37. ^ Tanya Domi: Lesbian Activist Lepa Mladjenovic Selected For Ann Klein Award . December 9th, 2012. Archived from the original on September 21st, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 29, 2017. 
38. ↑ Jodie Roy: Lepa Mladjenovic - Speech on the Anne Klein Award . November 26, 2013. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
39. ^ Anne Klein Women's Prize Award Ceremony for Lepa Mladjenovic | Vi på Kvinna till Kvinna ( en-GB )
40. ^ Joan Nestle: Publications, Talks, Interviews and Broadcasts . 2010. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
41. ^ "POLITICS OF WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY" by Lepa Mladjenovic (Belgrade) - One Billion Rising Revolution (en-US) . In: One Billion Rising Revolution , September 18, 2016. Retrieved December 8, 2017.