Nationalist power and Women (by Rada Ivekovic)

by Rada Iveković

This paper is part of the 'Europe and the Balkans' Occasional Papers Series, published by the Istituto per l'Europa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica of the University of Bologna.  

This article was written by Rada Iveković, who has been teaching at the University of Zagreb as well as in Paris. Iveković’s main academic interests are Indian philosophy, political philosophy and feminist studies.
This article on women and nationalist power was written, in French, as the first Occasional Paper published by the Institute for Central Eastern and Balkan Europe on PECOB.  The articles deals with the complex relationship between nationalism and women. The author claims that nationalism is misogynous, albeit it does not always show it openly. In fact, nationalism works by excluding those that can be identified as “others”, including women.
Iveković states that nationalism and war are extreme manifestations of the establishment of a sovereign political subject, since this process implies the identification of the “other” as inferior. Violence is defined as the projection on the “other” of all the negative aspects that the subject rejects of itself. Iveković’s philosophical argumentation continues with the analysis of the relationship between women and violence. Moreover, the author discusses the issue of representation and power before taking into consideration the specific topic of women and nationalism.