ABSTRACT
In recent academic and journalistic writing on the former Yugoslavia and its dissolution, nationalism, cited as the main motivation, pretext, or even highly theorized justification for its war, is usually presented as a nongendered concept, something that victimizes both men and women, who are equally responsible for and equally immersed in it. There is hardly any reflection on differences between Yugoslav men’s and women’s cultures and discourses. The main topic concerning women that comes up is the loss of women’s legal and social rights and privileges, a feature said to be common to all post-socialist Eastern and Central European societies. But socialist Yugoslavia did not quite fit the pattern of pre-1989 Warsaw Pact countries, either politically, historically, or culturally Therefore, even while the loss of rights and the diminution of public and political representation has occurred, there are different reasons that this has happened.
