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Gender and Religion in the Balkans. The Example of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper analyzes how the concept of gender is understood in socialist and post-socialist contexts, the models of gender relations in Christianity and Islam, and the way the secular-religious divide within the Balkan semiperiphery presents an obstacle in the path for acceptance of the concept of gender and achievement of gender equality. The central thesis with which we start this analysis is that the absence of significant dialogue between secular and religious communities regarding gender contributes to the rise of the anti-gender tendencies in the region. On one hand, the anti-gender discourse deepens the apprehension regarding emancipatory projects advocated by egalitarian models, and on the other, it instills distrust among secularists that religion can generate emancipation. The Catholic Church in Croatia and the Islamic community in BiH, the two most influential communities in these two countries, do not accept an egalitarian model of gender politics regulated by secular laws within the two countries and, influenced by the anti-gender movement that has spread from the Western center to the Balkan semiperiphery, reject the gender equality movement as a project that works against traditional values and family.

gender, religion, Balkans, secular, feminism

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