ABOUT THE LECTURE: 
How does the ongoing struggle of women’s and feminist movements contribute to democratization processes over time? Analyzing the ten most significant protests in Croatia since independence, this presentation shows how women’s movement actions create long-term legacies that continue to kindle further mobilizations. Utilizing a historical interpretation of struggles for democracy and feminist activism, I argue that the growing requests for participatory democracy initiated a horizontal ‘sidestreaming’ of feminism(s) to other social movements, communities and spaces in which they had not previously been present. Broad coalitions and networks within and outside of civil society, interconnecting communal grassroots protests, progressive social movements, and civil society ‘professionals’, linked the call for gender justice with demands for more participation.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: 
Leda Sutlović holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna, and has studied at the University of Zagreb and the Central European University in Budapest. Her doctoral research dealt with the issue of (post)-socialist transformations of Eastern European gender regimes (title: “Interpreting Post-Socialist Gendered Transformations through Feminist Institutionalism, Ideas and Knowledge – the case of Croatia (1970-2010)”). She has written on feminist movements and gender politics, state-society relations, participation and socio-cultural centers, and the role of knowledge and ideas in politics. Before Rijeka she worked on the project “Gendering democratization: path dependencies or rupture in the face of anti-gender campaigns”, hosted at the CEU Democracy Institute, where she researched protest activity and social movements in Croatia, with the focus on the interrelation of popular requests for democracy and gender equality.