Gender and nation: Preservation (and construction) of national identity through gender discriminative nationalistic politics: A case of Croatia

Abstract

This paper analyses interconnection of gender, nation and national identity. Argumentation is based on the case study which is in this paper Croatia. At the beginning of its independence in the 90's Croatia faced with transition from totalitarian undemocratic system to a democratic one but also with a need for constructing the national identity which has not always been strongly incorporated in the society not obsessed with nationality and national identity, in a multinational state as Yugoslavia was. That construction of the national identity was made possible with so called return to the tradition where women were supposed to serve the country with theirs reproductive functions meant to enforce the nationalist politics of ethnical reproduction. In the past, Croatian political thought was not meant to be ethnical but civil, and therefore the nationalistic authorities wanted to nationalize the society and breast feed it with the idea of desire for independence that existed since ancient times, and gender played a crucial role in this politics. Only with political changes of 2000 a new era began but consequences of this radical nationalistic politics are still felt in the attitudes of the citizenship which still sees women in the traditional position and private sphere. .