From the anthropology of women to gender ideology

Abstract

Our motivation to reflect on the origin and the ways of using the concept of gender in the work of (mostly female) associates of the Zagreb Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research was prompted by the recent social moment, often recognized as the "cultural war", within which the term ‘gender’ occupies the central place of dispute. The need for an ethnological articulation of gender-sensitive approach to cultural phenomena in the domestic context emerged as the result of two outcomes. First, female scholars started to reflect shortcomings of their social and academic position in socialist society, and second, they were influenced by Western feminist critique within historiography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, literary theory, which resulted in women’s studies, later to be followed by gender studies as academic field and civil activism. Bearing in mind these diverse epistemological outcomes and the intellectual tradition of social critique of scholars in the IEF (sub)disciplines, this article aims to show when and how the concept of gender was created and constructed, starting with the female authorship of Radić-inspired ethnography (Kata Jajnčerova), through sociology and anthropology of family (Vera Stein Erlich), the ethnology of everyday life and the zadruga studies (Dunja Rihtman-Auguštin), feminist historiography (Lydia Sklevicky), and interdisciplinary research of the past twentyfive years in which almost all IEF associates have participated to a greater or lesser degree.

Keywords

• gender ideology
• anti-gender movements
• feminist anthropology
• history of croatian ethnology/folklore