A celebration of women’s creativity and achievement was organised early this March by the VoxFeminae internet portal and social enterprise Fierce Women, publicly presenting five women and heroines for outstanding contribution to gender equality and social justice in Croatia in 2019. The award winners are: movie director Dana Budisavljević, Deputy Mayor of the City of Glina Branka Bakšić Mitić, Croatian Mountain Rescue Service (HGSS) member and mountaineering instructor Tatjana Bračanov, movie director Nora Krstulović, and the Women’s Room team led by coordinator Maja Mamula.
Awards are not what matters most in this story, what matters most is that one way or another, we each make changes in our environments. The more we connect, the better. And the preservation and expansion of the space of solidarity and justice should be a common mission for all of us, and there are no rules or criteria or awards that can tell whose work and contribution are better or more valuable. Just as we on VoxFeminae.net internet portal discover almost on a daily bases women who are either erased from history or not recognised enough by the present, there are many women who were unfortunately not present in this year’s nominations. But this is only the first award ceremony and we have done our best given the resources, however we are committed to improving the process of submission of nominations for the award yearly. The award is presented for an outstanding contribution to gender equality and social justice, and this year that was our guiding principle in the selection of winners, emphasised Gabrijela Ivanov, editor-in-chief of the VoxFeminae.net website and a co-founder of the Common Zone (K-zona) Association in our interview.
Fierce Women, equality parlour game developed by the Common Zone Association, celebrates and promotes the contribution of women to society. Fierce Women consist of sixty cards, original works of art with illustrated portraits and brief biographies of women who have contributed to society in various fields.
The parlour game presents members of different nationalities and religions from all over the world and is not focused only on Croatia, indeed there are only three women from Croatia represented within the pack of 60 cards. There is certainly enough room to be more inclusive in our selection of women and we will go into that direction in our future editions of this board game.
Fierce Women WoW Awards are part of the activities of the Women on Women project jointly conducted by the City of Women in Slovenia, Tiiiit! Inc. in Macedonia, the Outlandish Theatre Platform in Ireland and the aforementioned Gender and Media Common Zone in Croatia.
The facts about women and their work were not visible enough when I was introduced to the basics of feminist theory at the Centre for Women’s Studies Zagreb twenty years ago, which is why the VoxFeminae.net portal was launched. But unfortunately, even today, when the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists warns that the representation of women in television news in Croatia is only eight percent, the situation is not drastically better.
Ivanov states that she has no specific knowledge regarding the status of Rroma women in Croatian society, except for the general fact of double discrimination, very often within their family, and then additionally in society.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, not a single Rroma woman has volunteered to cooperate. Earlier this year, we tried to actively change this and participated in the Arise Roma project jointly implemented by the Arterarium, the Centre for Peace Studies and the Croatian Rroma Youth Organisation. As an organisation dealing with relevant social and cultural issues, Centre for Peace Studies and the Croatian Rroma Youth Organisation had chosen us to participate in a program of empowerment and support for a total of ten young Rroma activists. However, as young Rroma activists had the possibility of choosing mentoring support within organisations of their preference, they got passed us, which we regret because the whole team was looking forward to the opportunity.
