Lepa Mladjenovic

Lepa Mladjenovic
Born (1954-11-09) 9 November 1954
Belgrade
Occupation Counselor, facilitator and activist

Lepa Mladjenovic is a feminist, lesbian, anti-war activist who is known as one of the pioneers of the second wave feminist movement in Serbia.[1][2][3][4][5][6] She is a feminist counselor for women survivors of male violence or lesbophobia, a facilitator of workshops, writer, lecturer and active member of several international boards and networks regarding lesbian rights and violence against women.[7] Lepa Mladjenovic is considered a symbol of women’s activism in former Yugoslavia.[4] She was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, spent her childhood summer holidays in Sarajevo and Adriatic Sea and as of 2017 lives in Belgrade.[8]

Human rights work

Alternatives to Psychiatry

Lepa Mladjenovic graduated from the Department of Psychology Studies at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy in 1980. During her studies she stood up against a rigid educational system by writing protest letters to professors, criticizing the conservative rules which do not empower students.[4] The first social movement she was actively part of is the Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry, whose goal was to de-institutionalize psychiatry as an institution of violence and exclusion. She used to hitchhike to their meetings in Treste, Rome, Bremen, Seville.[9] In 1983 Lepa Mladjenovic initiated and co-organised the International Encounter "Psychiatry and Society", three days conference held at the student cultural center in Belgrade.[4] Afterwards she volunteered in the Mental Health Centers in Trieste and wrote about Democratic Psychiatry in Italy,[9] as well as in the community therapy centers of the Arbours Association in London which came out of the Anti-psychiatry movement.[10]

Feminist and anti-war activism

Lepa Mladjenovic's feminist activism began in 1978, when she participated at the first international women’s conference “DRUG-ca Žena” / "Comrade Women,"[11][12][4] organized by Yugoslav feminists at the student cultural center in Belgrade. This conference was a turning point for feminist and civil society history in former Yugoslavia.[13][14] In 1982, Lepa Mladjenovic was one of the co-organizers of the feminist group "Women and Society" in Belgrade, together with Sonja Drljević, Sofija Trivunac, Lina Vuškovič, Vera Smiljanić, Nadežda Ćetković, Ljiljana Gaković, Žarana Papić, Rada Iveković, Borka Pavićević and Jasmina Tešanović.[15][16] In 1986, Lepa Mladjenovic organized women-only feminist group as part of a "Women and Society" that was based on a self-awareness model.[17][4]

Lepa Mladjenovic participated in the first Yugoslav feminist meeting in Ljubljana in 1987, organized by the LILIT feminist group and LILIT LL lesbian group from Slovenia.[18][19] The meeting encouraged sisterhood, exchange, support for women’s activism, discussions on violence against women, women’s reproduction health, women’s art and culture and the first initiatives for lesbian organising.[20] With other feminist activists from the group "Women and Society", in 1990 Lepa Mladjenovic co-founded the SOS Hotline for Women and Children Victims of Violence in Belgrade where she was active as coordinator and counselor for women survivors of male violence and later on, also working with women victims of war.[21]

In 1991, when Stasa Zajovic and several other women who were feminists and anti-war activists founded Women in Black and Lepa Mladjenovic joined them from the first day.[22][23][24][25] Women in Black, as anti-war and feminist organisation in Belgrade, started with the weekly vigils against Serbian regime and later became part of the worldwide network of Women in Black. The first standing of Women in Black of Belgrade happened October 9, 1991.[25]

From 1992 to 2012, Lepa Mladjenovic worked as educator and counselor, working with women victims of male violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Hungary. In 1993, Lepa Mladjenovic and other feminist volunteers of the SOS Hotline established Autonomni Ženski Centar AŽC (Autonomous Women’s Center).[26] Lepa Mladjenovic worked there as a psychological counselor and coordinator of the counseling team until 2011. Lepa Mladjenovic participated in and facilitated hundreds of workshops for women and support groups for women victims of male violence from 2000 up to date.[27] She is also a facilitator of workshops of experience for emotional literacy of activists and particularly lesbians in the Balkans. She also works in Italy with the NGO DiRe, Donne in Rete contro la violenza and pubblished a papers about feminist conselling in sexual violence used in her serverals tranings.

Lesbian activism

Lepa Mladjenovic was one of the two participants from Yugoslavia at ILIS International Lesbian Information Service Conference held in Geneva in 1986, along with Suzana Tratnik. In 1990, Lepa Mladjenovic, Dejan Nebrigic and several other activists initiated the first gay and lesbian organisation Arkadia - the Lesbian and Gay Lobby in Belgrade, which was operational until 1997.[27][28] Lepa Mladjenovic is the first lesbian in Serbia who had come out during a public television broadcast service in Serbia in 1994 and who discussed gay and lesbian issues, representing the gay and lesbian group Arkadia.[29] In 1995, Lepa Mladjenovic and several other lesbian activists who worked together in Arkadia, formed the first lesbian organisation Labris.[20][28] In 2001, Lepa Mladjenovic described the experience of doing this work:[30]

I would write a solidarity letter with a package to an unknown woman in Sarajevo, knowing she is under the siege and bullets daily, and worry would she be embarrassed one day when she sees a lesbian in front of her door who wrote her letters? Why was it always so difficult to say that certain humanitarian aid came from lesbians?

As part of Labris, Lepa Mladjenovic was one of the organisers and participants in the first Lesbian Week held in Slovenia in 1997, organised by the feminist lesbian group Kasandra from Slovenia.[31] In total, 45 persons participated from Novi Sad, Maribor, Skopje, Belgrade, Zagreb, Pristina, Split and Ljubljana. This event was a turning point and the beginning of continued regional feminist cooperation. Lesbian Week gathered lesbian activists and lesbian women around common topics important for lesbian existence. The second Lesbian Week took place in Sombor, Vojvodina in 2000, organized by Labris. The third Lesbian Week was held in Novi Sad in 2004, also organized by Labris.,[32][33] and the fourth Lesbian Week was organised in 2011.

Lepa Mladjenovic was one of co-organizers of Belgrade Pride in 2001.

In 2012, Lepa Mladjenovic together with several other lesbian counselors founded Counseling SOS line for Lesbians where as of 2017 she has still been working as a workshop facilitator and psychological counselor.

Awards and recognition

Lepa Mladjenovic is a Felipa de Souza international award winner for her contribution to LGBT human rights activism in 1994, awarded by OutRight Action International.[34] She received the award in 1994 at a Pride Celebration in New York.[28] At the award ceremony, she stated: “The place I come from is not the nation where I was born, but a lost lesbian country that I never had – but I will manage to create it, somehow.”[4]

In 2011, Novi Sad Lesbian Organisation (NLO) opened a lesbian, feminist, radical anti-fascist reading room called “Lepa Mladjenovic”. The lesbian reading room "Lepa Mladjenovic" was initiated by feminist activist and professor Isabel Markus from the USA and NLO activists to credit and honor Lepa Mladjenovic for her work in the lesbian feminist community in Novi Sad and beyond.[35][27]

In 2013, Lepa Mladjenovic was awarded Anne Klein Women’s award,[5][36][37][6] presented by Heinrich Boell Foundation. The award ceremony took place in Berlin the same year,[38] what she took as an occasion to organize lesbian study visit and come with 22 lesbian activists from the region.[39]

Works and publications

From 1992 to 2012, Lepa Mladjenovic was an active member and lecturer of the Center for Women’s Studies in Belgrade.[7][27] She is an author of several essays on war rape, violence against women, lesbian rights, lesbians during war, femicide, feminist approach to transitional justice, women’s solidarity and emotional literacy.[40]

In her short Manifesto "Politics of Women’s Solidarity",[41] she says:

Women’s solidarity is a beginning of defascisation of each of us. Because we choose understanding and not accusation, we choose empathy and not hate. We choose to be responsible for our acts, emotions and thoughts, instead of taking a role of a victim. Women’s solidarity is a politics of anti-fascism. Because we choose to care about the Other, the different then me. When we watch children with eyes of solidarity then our children are not necessarily better nor more beautiful then those of others.

A complete list of her works can be found here.

References

  1. ↑ Ivekovic, Rada; Mostov, Julie (2002). From Gender to Nation. Longo. p. 122. ISBN 8880633414.
  2. ↑ Giles, Wenona Mary; Women in Conflict Zones Network (2003). Feminists Under Fire: Exchanges Across War Zones. Toronto: Between The Lines. p. 226. ISBN 9781896357782.
  3. ↑ Nestle, Joan (2000). "At home with Lepa Mladjenovic". Joan Nestle. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Zaharijevic, Adrijana (December 6, 2012). "Short Portrait: Lepa Mlađenović". Heinrich Böll Foundation. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Press release (December 6, 2012). "Anne Klein Women's Award 2013: Lepa Mlađenović, Serbian Women's and Human Rights Activist". Heinrich Boell Foundation. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Petrović, Ivica (December 7, 2012). "Živeti sa svojim izborima". Deutsche Welle (in Serbian). Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  7. 1 2 "About us: Lecturers". Women's Studies Center. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  8. ↑ Mladjenovic, Lepa (2000). "At-Home with Lepa Mladjenovic". Joan Nestle. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  9. 1 2 Obradovic, Milka (1987). "Lepa Mladjenovic, (Anti) psihologistkinja: Menjati odnos prema ljudima koji pate (1987)". Yugopapir (Glas omladine) (in Serbian). Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  10. ↑ "Zatvorimo bolnice koje ne lijece vec ponizavaju". Radio Kotor (in Serbian). November 29, 2016. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  11. ↑ McLeod, Laura (2015). Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in 'Post-conflict' Serbia. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 9780822315483.
  12. ↑ Mikula, Maja (2006). Women, Activism and Social Change: Stretching Boundaries. Routledge. p. 87. ISBN 9781136782718.
  13. ↑ Chiara, Bonfiglioli (2008). Remembering the conference "Drugarica Zena. Zensko Pitanje – Novi Pristup?"/ "Comrade Woman.The Women’s Question: A New Approach?" thirty years after. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht. pp. 54–55, 86. OCLC 428113304.
  14. ↑ Zaharijevic, Adriana; Ivanovic, Zorica; Duhacek, Dasa, eds. (2012). Žarana Papić. Tekstovi 1977-2002. Beograd: Centar za studije roda i politike, Rekonstrukcija Ženski fond, Žene u crnom. pp. 11–12, 31. ISBN 978-86-84031-54-1.
  15. ↑ Hughson (Blagojevic), Marina (November 2016). "Unpacking Silence and Distortion: Mapping Misogyny in Serbia". Academia edu: 5 – via Academia edu.
  16. ↑ Vušković, Lina; Trivunac, Sofija. "Feministička grupa Žena i društvo". Autonomni Ženski Centar Beograd. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  17. ↑ Ramet, Sabrina P. (1995). Social Currents in Eastern Europe: The Sources and Consequences of the Great Transformation. Duke University Press. p. 225. ISBN 9780822315483.
  18. ↑ Spasovska, Ljubica (Apr 18, 2017). The Last Yugoslav Generation: The Rethinking of Youth Politics and Cultures in Late Socialism. Oxford University Press. p. 136. ISBN 9781526106315.
  19. ↑ Dobnikar, Mojca; Pamuković, Nela, eds. (2009). Jaz, ti, one...Za nas: dokumenti jugoslavenskih feminističkih susreta 1987-1991 (Print book) (in Slovenian). Društvo Vita Activa, Ljubljana; Centar za žene žrtve rata / ROSA - Zagreb. p. 14. ISBN 978-961-92800-0-3.
  20. 1 2 Mima, Rašić (January 1, 2008). "Lezbejska egzistencija, lezbejska vidljivost". In Zaharijević, Adriana. Neko je rekao feminizam? Kako je feminizam uticao na Žene XXI veka (PDF). Belgrade: Heinrich Böll Stiftung. pp. 208, 233.
  21. ↑ Bunch, Charlotte; Reilly, Niamh; Douglass College. Center for Women's Global Leadership; United Nations Development Fund for Women (1994). Demanding accountability: the global campaign and Vienna Tribunal for women's human rights. Rutgers University, Center for Women's Global Leadership. p. 37. ISBN 9780912917290.
  22. ↑ Enloe, Cynthia (2016). Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 134. ISBN 9781442265455.
  23. ↑ "Living in War Zones: Thoughts on War and Domestic Violence" (PDF). Judith Armatta (Presented at the Conference on “INTEGRATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EDUCATION INTO LAW SCHOOLS,” sponsored by the American Bar Association Committee on Domestic violence). March 9, 2001. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
  24. ↑ Presented by: Keri Phillips (2001-12-03). "Women in Black, The Europeans program". Radio National. Retrieved 2017-10-30.
  25. 1 2 Tesanović, Jasmina (2013). "Mothering in War". In Guzman Bouvard, Marguerite. Mothers of Adult Children. Lexington Books. p. 110. ISBN 9780739183014.
  26. ↑ McLeod, Laura (Jul 16, 2015). Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in 'Post-conflict' Serbia. Routledge. p. 52. ISBN 9781317635628.
  27. 1 2 3 4 "Short biography: Lepa Mladjenovic". Heinrich Boell Foundation. December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
  28. 1 2 3 Savić, Marija (2011). "Istorija LGBT aktivizma u Srbiji". In Gavrić, Saša; Huremović, Lejla; Savić, Marija. Čitanka lezbejskih i gej ljudskih prava (PDF) (PDF). Sarajevo: Sarajevski otvoreni centar, Fondacija Heinrich Böll. pp. 102–103. ISBN 978-9958-9959-3-4.
  29. ↑ Mertus, Julie (March 1, 1995). "One Step Forward". War Resisters International. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
  30. ↑ Lepa Mladjenovic, 2001 "Notes of a Feminist Lesbian during Wartime", European Journal of Women's Studies Vol 8, Issue 3, pp. 381 - 391.
  31. ↑ "Prva lezbejska nedjelja". Lori (in Croatian). 2010. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  32. ↑ "Treća lezbejska nedjelja". Lori (in Croatian). 2010. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  33. ↑ "Our network-our strength: Third Lesbian Week 2004". Labris. February 8, 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  34. ↑ "Human rights Awards, The Felipa de Souza Award". OutRight Action International. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  35. ↑ "U Novom Sadu otvorena Čitaonica Lepa Mlađenović". Libela (in Croatian). July 6, 2011. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  36. ↑ "Lepa Mladjenovic, Serbia, Wins 2013 Anne Klein Women's Award - Statement by the jury". Heinrich Boell Foundation. December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  37. ↑ Domi, Tanya (December 9, 2012). "Lesbian Activist Lepa Mladjenovic Selected For Ann Klein Award". The new civil rights movement. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  38. ↑ Roy, Jodie (November 26, 2013). "Lepa Mladjenovic - Speech on the Anne Klein Award". You Tube (Video). Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  39. ↑ "Anne Klein Frauenpreis Award Ceremony for Lepa Mladjenovic | Vi på Kvinna till Kvinna". vipa.kvinnatillkvinna.se. Retrieved 2017-12-08.
  40. ↑ Nestle, Joan (2010). "Publications, Talks, Interviews and Broadcasts". Joan Nestle. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  41. ↑ ""POLITICS OF WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY" by Lepa Mladjenovic (Belgrade) - One Billion Rising Revolution". One Billion Rising Revolution. 2016-09-18. Retrieved 2017-12-08.
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