Almost French (pages 167-184)

As these particular pages in the book have been a mine of information for me, I'm going to present you with all of the topics that were brought up by Turnbull and which are so intriguing that I had to inform myslef better about them.

I'm going to start off today by filling you in on feminism in France and Croatia. I thought this to be a noteworthy topic to research because in the case of France I wanted to find out if the French feminism is in such a bad state as Turnbull perceived it to be and in the case of Croatia because of the trite reason that I do not know much about the feminist movement in my homeland.

1. FEMINISM IN FRANCE SINCE 1970 source-http://www.well.ac.uk/cfol/feminism.asp

Although the feminist movement had existed in France long before 1968, its full impact was felt only then with the creation of the Mouvement de libération des femmes.

Despite the fact that this movement was centered around an umbrella organisation, the common goal of all the groups it consisted of was the same-the fight against injustice towards women, who had been designated to play the subordinate role, in the French society. One of the main intentions of the movement was to give women the right to choose themselves what they wanted to do with their bodies.

As all good things must come to an end, the movement ceased to exist in 1979. In the aftermath of it breaking up, both feminists and the public in general reflected on the achievements of the movement. Although its negative aspects mostly came to the fore, some feminists stressed that feminism had lead to changes in the behaviour and attitude of people.

After the victory of Socialists in France in 1981, feminism in France was lead to a new era. It became part of mainstream politics. This evolution led to the assumption that feminism was dead and replaced by its "weaker" form namely postfeminism.

The truth is that feminism is still present in France, but an reformed one. In 1995 the UN identified 1700 feminist groups in France which were at that time trying to combat poverty, exclusion and violence against women.

Even today, contrary to Turnbull's allegations, feminism is there in France, attempting more than ever to fight against the growing sexism in the French society.

2. FEMINISM IN CROATIA since the 1980s
source-http://www.the-declaration.com/1999/02_11/features/distance.shtml

In the 1980s there was an active feminist movement in former Yugoslavia. However, although it had two major centres namely Zagreb and Belgrade, it was only ever an academic trend and never became as firmly rooted in society as was the case in France. Accordingly, there aren't many feminist groups today in Croatia and those which do exist have to cope with restrictive laws towards women and their low legal status compared with those of Croatian men. For instance, if a Croatian woman requests an abortion, she has to take pains in talking to a priest, a social worker and a psychologist respectively before any other measure can be taken. (this answers the question Ms Joyce asked me on Thursday)
What's more, feminists in Croatia also have to find a way to break the ethnic and religious divisons between women which stem from the war. Still, not all is lost. There are places, like "The Centre for Women Studies", were Croatians can inform themselves on feminism and its goals, so as to become knowledgeable individuals with the power to change something.

3. HOW I FEEL

I was perturbed by what I found out about feminism today, especially in my home country, while researching for this entry. It is sad that as feminism isn't that militant and newsworthy as it used to be, people have almost but forgotten all about it. Especially nowadays, where the discrepancy between men and women has reached enormous proportions, we should have known better than letting the feminists' ideas ebb away. I hope that someone will soon put these ideas back on the map before it is too late and irrevocable steps against womens' rights had been taken.