The struggle for women’s suffrage: The case of the magazine ‘Leskovački Glasnik in 1927 and 1928

Abstract

The paper starts from the following research questions: “How did the media present women’s issues and women’s struggle for the right to vote in Leskovac?” and “How did the newspapers participate in building public opinion?” Qualitative content analysis was used in the paper, and the unit of analysis is the newspaper texts of the weekly “Leskovački glasnik” from 1927 and 1928. In 1927, out of a total of fifty-two issues, only three texts dealt with the topic of women’s issues, and the analysis included two, one in sequels, which concern exclusively women’s political organization, while in 1928 there were three texts, one in sequels, dedicated to the same problem and all included in the content analysis. From the point of view of the subject of interest of this research, we can conclude that most of the texts of the weekly “Leskovački glasnik” in the 1920s dedicated to the women’s struggle for the right to vote are emotionally colored: regardless of being supported by historical facts and giving practical reasons, the authors of the newspaper texts represent the opinion of the majority of the public that family and home are the priority duties of a woman, thereby participating in the worldwar propaganda’s aspiration to “keep” a woman within the domain of the private.