Künstlerin: Sanja Iveković (Zagreb)
Abgebildetes Werk: „Rastavljena“ (1982–2007)
Text von Suzana Kunac (B.a.b.e., Zagreb) [DE] [EN] [TR] [HR] [SI] [HU] [CZ]
Media creators in Croatia are attributing to women lower and lower social value by reducing their images to the reproductive function and physical looks thus idealizing attributes of feminine beauty such as fertility and dedication to housework. In the public sphere the media disseminate the image of women through pictures of their bodies – as mothers or sexual objects. The real experiences of women, their personal and cultural values and their professional achievements still remain invisible to the media audience. Such a stereotyped presentation in advertising and the media not only endangers the dignity of both women and men but also violates the principle of gender equality, in the private and in the public sphere. More than ten years of continued feminist resistance to stereotyping as well as consciousness-raising and learning about the unacceptability of the discrimination of women in the media have gradually brought about changes of fossilized social values.
The women have broken the “deafening silence” and now they are active both institutionally and individually
At the institutional level they’ve succeeded in founding the Board of Trustees for the Media (2006) and thus accomplished that, for the first time, the State finances media content that promotes gender equality. (July 2007). “With respect to issues concerning the violation of human rights, the State is obliged to intervene and to guarantee the equality of all citizens in any respect – thus in the media too. As long as there is general ignorance and patriarchal and sexist stereotypes prevail in the media, the State is obliged to react both by law or so called affirmative action or positive discrimination.” (Snježana Matejčić, Chair Woman of the Board of Trustees for the Media, July 2007)
At the individual level 75% of the women in Croatia are aware that “women are for the most part presented as beauties from the world of glamour in the media”, or as “young, beautiful and attractive”. But they also say they don’t like this image of women! An increasing number of women – who have become aware that the media show women mainly in a vulgar and humiliating way, reduce them to consumer goods and present them as sexual objects thus consolidating a stereotyped notion of the relationship between men and women – contributes to make ever-louder claims for positive social change. More and more women are personally demanding from those who are responsible for this perpetuum mobile of the patriarchate – the editors and media owners – that they redefine the role they have designated for women via advertising and the media.
Although there is still a long way to go until we have achieved the equal representation of men and women in the media, the women in Croatia have already shown that they are powerful and capable enough to have an impact on society and to push through changes of social values in order to obtain freedom of opinion and an active role in public life.