The New Yugoslav Woman

From 1945 to 1989, the Yugoslav state connected its claims of progressive politics and gender equality to its support of free healthcare, sex education and contraception, and laws that supported reproductive choice. Yugoslav men and women internalized these messages, proclaiming their homeland's superior care for its citizens in comparison to postwar Europe and the United States. Even as Yugoslav women faced stigma and abuse for their usage of contraceptives and medical practitioners grappled with new regulations and technology alongside personal ideologies, Yugoslavs celebrated their own reformation into new politically minded citizens who carefully navigated tradition and modernity as they reconstructed the nation. The New Yugoslav Woman provides a social and cultural history of how Yugoslav communists used reproductive regulation to build a platform of socialism through self-management and to position the country as a conduit between the global North and South. Author Branka...