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

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

. 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 act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

and exclusion based on

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

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 (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

class Class 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 differentl ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

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

oppression Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination w ...

and exclusion, and to celebrate differences. After many negotiations, the University of Belgrade 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 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 ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

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 (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

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