Not only on Women’s Day: Women in Croatian photography after the 1950s

The role of women photographers was rarely considered in the national history of art in the former Yugoslavia. The so-called “women’s position” was in many cases “concealed” by the “gender-neutral” position of photographer, and frequently the word „fotograf“ was used to refer to photographers, rather than distinguishing between male „fotografs“ and female „fotografkinje“. This can be found not only in photography, but also in other creative professions, where the gender marker was considered as a sign of weakness and inferiority. Furthermore, existing reviews of this topic are inadequate as they largely bypass the problem of women’s rights in photography, while a discussion with respect to their economic and social position has yet to take place. After WWII women in ex-Yugoslavia – and at this point I would like to emphasize that I am only dealing with the Croatian part of it here – entered photography relatively late and not without problems. Although women achieved an equivalent gender status and could work without being paid less or treated as a weaker sex after the end of World War II, the situation was different in the field of photography. Among other reasons, this may have been because photography was considered a “skill” that was therefore more suitable for men than for women. The fact that there was no academy where one could study photography meant that the majority of people learnt about photography through photo-clubs. Moreover, the theory and criticism of photography were insufficiently and, indeed, rarely taught at the university level. In the 1990s, this situation changed with the establishment of an MA programme in photography at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, but for the earlier generations this improvement had come too late.