Violence against Women in Serbia: Collective Body of Woman or where the “Flowers of Evil” Blossom

Abstract

Researchers in Serbia have been trying for decades — without much success — to find the causes and factors that would unequivocally establish the origin of domestic violence as a social phenomenon. This is partly due to the fact that the Serbian society, through a dynamic development matrix, has not transformed from the traditional form into a modern one, but rather into an underdeveloped society of conspicuous social risks with prevalent re­traditionalization of collective entities, family in particular. This is why we have stud­ ied available ethnographic materials looking for sources and “roots” of culturological guidelines which still define the position of the woman and the distribution of social power within the family. The study has showed diachronic stability of the culturological inherited stereotype of the woman, its traditional founda­ tion and (ir)rational justification, the relation between social power(lessness) of the woman and domestic violence.