SEKSUALNO NASILJE I NOVI OBLICI RELIGIOZNOG TRADICIONALIZMA U POST-KONFLIKTNOM HRVATSKOM POLITIČKOM KONTEKSTU
SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND NEW FORMS OF RELIGIOUS TRADITIONALISM IN THE CROATIAN POST-CONFLICT CONTEXT

Summary/Abstract: This paper will focus on sexual violence and new forms of religious traditionalism emerging in the Croatian political context, and their interpretation of the term “gender”. The methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis will be used to investigate the debates surrounding the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence) in Croatia in 2018. Religious conservative organisations started to frequently utilize the term “gender ideology” to create fear, confusion and moral panic in the public discourse in connection to the ratification. According to their interpretations, “gender ideology” in the Istanbul Convention was “smuggled in” to destroy the traditional Croatian Catholic heterosexual family by enabling children to choose their own gender. Croatia has undergone significant changes since the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, dismissing its socialist legacy with the support of the Catholic Church and its staunch anti-communist rhetoric which seeks to undo any progress in terms of gender equality achieved during socialism. Researching sexual violence from the intersectional feminist framework poses a challenge in a climate where the conservative discourse has hijacked any discussion on sexual violence in the public sphere by contesting the term gender itself and making it a questioned category of social analysis. Even though Croatia has ratified the Istanbul Convention in April 2018, the government has issued an “interpretative statement” further legitimizing the term “gender ideology.”

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