THE POSITION OF FEMALE WORKERS IN YUGOSLAVIA BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS – A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE (1918 – 1939)

Apstrakt

The position of female workers from the middle of the 19th century, when they took a more active role in the world of work, was marked with double oppression, both gender- and class-conditioned. After World War I there was a strong conviction that legal framework would be changed and that it would enable women to have an equal social and political status. Although this did not happen, women still participated in the public domain. They were particularly active in the working sphere, which provided them with a more active social role, especially when it came to numerous strikes which were primarily a response to economic circumstances or demands for collective agreements and better working conditions. Within this context, the aim of the paper is to analyse the position of female workers in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, placing special emphasis on their social status and strikes as a means of gender and class emancipation. This analysis is conducted within the frameworks of microhistory and comparative history in order to create a thesis that women’s labour movement, influenced by communist ideas, was an important component of the Yugoslav labour movement in the interwar years, and that it had an impact on the formation and strengthening of the class and gender awareness in Yugoslav female workers.