Had somebody told me that I would scorn a female candidate for president of my country, I would not have been surprised. The current female candidate, as well the one that was prime minister, belong to the same political party, the one whose penultimate prime minister is currently sitting in jail for his corrupt ways (while the same party’s 20 year President of the Croatian Chamber of Economy and one time minister of economy is awaiting trial for corruption). There is really no need to mention thieving and snake pits, is there?
But that I would ever rejoice at the fact that the majority of people in this lovely boomerang shaped country of mine, women especially, think feminism practically equals Satanism, idiocy or _insert appropriate derogatory term here_, that I would most emphatically not have believed.
In my Facebook feed today, an article kept appearing. In which an actual (female) university professor claiming to be a feminist concludes her letter of support for the current female candidate in the upcoming Croatian presidential election by saying that voting for the woman as opposed to voting for the only other, male candidate is, in fact, feminist. Not only that, she proceed to express surprise that younger feminists would “betray the solidarity among women by voting for a man.”
The state and level of Croatian academia is illustrated better than I ever could in the fact that this person goes on to invite all “who believe in gender equality” to actually vote for the candidate belonging to the party* that is at this very moment in the middle of a very loud to abolish abortion in Croatia. For the party that has repeatedly voted against civil partnership for gay people in Croatia and would probably repeal the existing law that is in effect despite them if only they could. (Facts really are not that big a deal in Croatian academic circles apparently. News to me, but then again I studied English, Italian and Journalism.)
Really, I never would have thought it possible I would be so relieved and so happy that such a very small percentage of people in living and voting Croatia want to be or perceive themselves to be feminist. Then again, I do live in Apsurdistan, so who knows? (And no, if you look us up on a map, we are not in South Africa. We just rent our corruption levels there!)
—
*The same one that has signed a treaty with the Vatican enabling generations of non-Catholic children in public, state-owned schools to be bullied for not attending Catholic religion classes (there are no others) conducted by teachers whose education (at local Catholic only universities who refuse to hire anyone not baptized) and salaries with benefits are paid by Croatian tax payer’s money and not by the Catholic church or the Vatican.) But feminism has nothing to do with motherhood, now does it? Or freedom for that matter.
