The Woman and Society Feminist Collection at the Centre for Women's Studies in Zagreb was created in 1983 as an archive of lectures from the "Philosophy and Studies about Women" course, which was organized by the “Woman and Society” Section as a part of the first women's studies seminar, “Women's Studies of Philosophy and Literature” in the 1982/83 academic year. The lectures were held in the premises of the Association of University Professors every Friday at 5 p.m. from 18 February to 20 May 1983. The course was organized by Professor Rada Iveković, who was also the main coordinator and the person who saved the manuscripts of the lectures. Iveković kept the lectures with the intent of publishing them in the form of a collection of papers. However, since no such publication occurred, Iveković gave the manuscripts, i.e., the materials of the Woman and Society Section to the Centre for Women's Studies in 2006. The e-mail that Iveković sent to Jasminka Pešut explicitly stated that the manuscript was not granted for publication, but for “safekeeping and future history " (E-mail to Pešut, Jasminka, 29 May 2006).
The materials from the Woman and Society Feminist Collection testify to a smaller segment of the "Woman and Society" Section's work, which was in this case focused on the philosophical views of the woman question, including the Marxist view of it and feminism. It is precisely the relationship between Marxism and the woman question that is crucial to resolving, or improving, the status of women in socialist Yugoslavia. The participants in the seminar, from which this collection was created, emphasized that Marxism can only be fully realized when the woman question is resolved. Blaženka Despot criticized the achievement of Marxism in Yugoslavia, stating that it is "the liberation of women which is a prerequisite for the liberation of labor," and that "Marxism has a dangerous tendency to reduce the whole gender issue to the class issue, or the whole woman question to the question of the working class, the proletariat (although Marxism responded this way to every particular issue: national, peasant or even women), always thinking that the liberation of labor is a prerequisite. Matters were set successively, allegedly the issue of liberating labor was the first be solved, and then all other issues. However, the history of the workers' movement has shown that it is not so." (Despot 1983, 6-7).
The Woman and Society Feminist Collection has never before been used in research or publicly introduced.
