Searching for room of her own, finding commercialized maket : gender determination of contemporary croatian female authors
Abstract
Aim of the paper is to map out the development of female prose in Croatian literature from "women's writing" represented by 1980s generation of authors Irena Vrkljan, Slavenka Drakulić and Dubravka Ugrešić, to the current situation that is heavily influenced by war for independence, post feminism and above all commercialization as found in "chick-lit" and Vedrana Rudan hateful media raging games. Methodology For further analysis is necessary to engage gender and culturology approach based on portrayal of women in androcentric patriarchal canon.
Whilst "women's writing" focuses on the female subject that had been expelled from literature designated as "classic"; fight against gender determination comprises of transitioning from private object to public subject and asserting figures of otherness by intensifying their femininity, sensibility and sexuality, which are in opposition to traditional values of patriarchal society;.nowadays popular writing for women primarily aims for acquiring symbolic cultural capital. There is no hunger for recognition as an equal in society, no wish for career development or fight for liberation, quite the opposite deliberate over sexualized image consolidates patriarchal falogocentric concepts of femininity.
Therefore, the question stays put, to which extent gender determination of Croatian female authors that "women's writing" fought against is present in Croatian milieu or to be more precise how exactly was modified under the commercialization of culture.