Vol. 3 No. 2 (2024): Warfare and Peacemaking Among Matricultures
Research Notes

“This Had To Be Done By Mothers Alone”: Research Notes on the Expansion of Women’s Agency During the Croatian Homeland War

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  • Matthew Cerjak
Matthew Cerjak
University of Michigan
Bio
Two Croation women soldiers at the Gospic Front. They are wearing camouflage and carrying rifles; the woman on the left is checking her gun and the woman on the right is staring at the ground. Photograph by Robert Belosevic, September 1991. Image courtesy of the Image of War Photography Museum.

Published 2024-05-09

Keywords

  • Women's history,
  • agency,
  • activism,
  • human rights,
  • Croatian Homeland War

Copyright (c) 2024 Matthew Cerjak (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

“This Had To Be Done By Mothers Alone”: Research Notes on the Expansion of Women’s Agency During the Croatian Homeland War. (2024). Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies, 3(2), 113-135. https://doi.org/10.60676/5kggpk60

Abstract

In the years prior to, during, and after the Croatian Homeland War (1991-95), thousands of women answered the call to serve their nation. This research note offers a preliminary exploration of their stories. Initial discoveries show that Croatian women created pre-war networks attempting to prevent war, defied restrictive gender norms by serving in the military during the war, and utilized their wartime service to enhance women’s political representation after having endured unspeakable wartime atrocities. Emphasizing their pivotal roles in reshaping societal norms amidst conflict, initial research navigates through findings that show Croatian women strengthening their agency through the organization of pre-war protests and military service, and the political leverage of social networks and military service to enhance their status during postwar reconstruction.

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