ABSTRACT
Beyond elaborating and circulating discourses on appropriate Muslim gender relations, interwar associations also invested a huge amount of energy into trying to change the current state of affairs on the ground. Associational archives and press articles show the extent to which these organizations tirelessly elaborated, tested and refined a vast array of activities that aimed to transform the position of Muslim women in practice. This chapter will concentrate on the associational initiatives that aimed to forge the New Muslim Woman through education and work, and how these initiatives varied depending on social class. Of course, insofar as associations did not act in a vacuum, special attention will be dedicated to the relationships—shifting between cooperation, complementarity and opposition—that they developed with other institutions; most importantly, the Yugoslav State, the Islamic religious institutions, and to a more limited extent, the main Muslim political party.
