Jasenka Kodrnja: The Diary of a Woman in Labor

Ana Maskalan, PhD is the author of the chapter “Jasenka Kodrnja: The Diary of a Woman in Labor”, which a part of the book “Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights. East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century”. The chapter is dedicated to our former colleague and distinguished women philosopher, sociologist and feminist Jasenka Kodrnja. The book is published by Central European University Press, Budapest, and the editors are Lóránd, Hîncu, Trbovc and Stańczak-Wiślicz.

Abstract: Jasenka Kodrnja (1946, Zagreb–2010, Zagreb) was a Croatian sociologist, philosopher, feminist activist, a poet, and one of the certainly more interesting figures on the Yugoslav and, later, Croatian intellectual scene. The argument for the latter should be found in her uncompromising nature and exceptional courage in the fight for her own convictions, a fight she was more than happy to bring to the public sphere without worrying too much about how many feathers she would ruffle while doing so. A good example of this is precisely the article “The Diary of a Woman in Labor,” published in 1981 in one of the most popular and widely read Yugoslav magazines, Start.

The book is available in open access here.