The Women's Studies Center () is an independent non-profit and non-governmental organization in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

. Its mission is to create and promote alternative education opportunities through a variety of teaching, research, and publishing programs. The aim of these programs is to explore social practices of

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

and

exclusion Exclusion may refer to: Legal or regulatory * Exclusion zone, a geographic area in which some sanctioning authority prohibits specific activities * Exclusion Crisis and Exclusion Bill, a 17th-century attempt to ensure a Protestant succession in En ...

based on

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

nationality Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture. In international law, n ...

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

, etc., to theoretically consider potential models of resistance to

oppression Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. No universally accepted model ...

and exclusion, and to celebrate differences. After many negotiations, the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade () is a public university, public research university in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it me ...

at the Faculty of Political Sciences officially recognized and accredited a set of the Center’s programs, which enabled the establishment of the Center for Gender and Politics, an institution founded to further promote gender studies. The Women’s Studies Center continues to have a long-term goal of further

institutionalization In sociology, institutionalisation (or institutionalization) is the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a w ...

by formally establishing and institutionalizing a Women’s Studies program at the University of Belgrade.

Founding and history

Belgrade Women's Studies Center was initiated by a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

activist group "Women and Society” in 1992. The first experimental one-semester course started symbolically on March 8, 1992. It was conceptualized at the beginning of the 90s as a peacetime endeavor. From its inception and throughout the first decade of its history, the Center worked against the backdrop of the wars fought between 1991–1999 as an alternative to the mainstream education of the time. It was founded an

anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...

and anti-nationalist educational enlightenment project, grounded-in and supported by feminist activism. One co-founder was the academic

Biljana Dojčinović Biljana Dojčinović-Nešić ( sr-Cyrl, Биљана Дојчиновић; born 1963) is a Serbian feminist academic, who specialises in Serbian literature and Gender Studies, and who co-founded the Center for Women's Studies in Belgrade. She is ...

References

{{Authority control Women's organizations based in Serbia Anti-nationalism in Europe