Searching for Room of her Own, Finding Commercialized Maket : Gender Determination of Contemporary Croatian Female Authors
Abstract
The paper maps out the shift in gender identity of contemporary Croatian female authors. Although it focuses mainly on autonomous female subject in prose, it addresses problem of feminism as equality in Croatian milieu from the 1980s to present times.
Whilst "women's writing" focuses on the subject that aims on transitioning from private object to public subject in asserting figures of otherness by intensifying their femininity, sensibility and sexuality as represented in works of authors Irena Vrkljan, Slavenka Drakulić and Dubravka Ugrešić, contemporary portrayal is heavily influenced by war for independence, post feminism and above all commercialization. Even though political discourse in popular women's fiction, as found in trashed "chick-lit" or Vedrana Rudan media games, is replaced by tongue-in-cheek quest to embody traditional femininity in emphasizing outwardly appearance, the paper is founded on the contention that effort to become the "superwoman" is in dialogue with feminism.