User:Elena Premate/sandbox3

Andjelka Milic (April 4, 1942 - April 11, 2014) was a Serbian sociologist, feminist and antiwar activist.

She graduated in 1965, received her master's degree in 1970, and her doctorate in sociology in 1975 at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, where she taught from 1971 until her retirement in 2009. She was a guest lecturer at Universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and the USA. As a scholar of the Fulbright Foundation, she taught at Berkeley (1990-1991).

In an effort to bring the feminist perspective to the university where it would be systematically studied through theory and empirical research, she proposed a women's studies program to the teaching-scientific council of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade together with Zarana Papic and Marina Blagojevic in 1992.

She was a long-time member of the Office for Gender Equality of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. In 2012, she became the first president of the Section for Feminist Research and Critical Studies of Masculinity of the Serbian Sociological Association (SEFEM).

The first multi-party elections were being prepared in Serbia in 1990 and in parallel, nationalism was bursting in former Yugoslav republics. Political tensions foreshadowed the disintegration of the then-state. In such a political climate in Serbia, the danger of militarization and the return of patriarchal values, which were a constant threat to the rights and emancipation of women gained in Yugoslav socialism, was recognized, but also a chance to put the women's movement on the political map. With that in mind, Andjelka Milic, together with Lina Vuskovic, Marina Blagojevic, Zarana Papic, Zorica Trifunovic, Nena Kovandzic, Nela Bebler, Branislava Jevtic, and Srpka Arsenijevic founded the Women's Party in November 1990.

The Women's Party encountered a number of problems immediately after its constitution. The party was financed exclusively from the personal funds of its members and did not have enough time and funds to prepare its candidates for the parliamentary elections or to organize local government elections. They decided to participate in the presidential elections and, in the spirit of gender equality, proposed a male-female couple, Vesna Colic and Milan Blagojevic, who would jointly perform the role of president. The submitted candidacy was rejected by the competent judicial body and the Women's Party did not participate.

The party continued its work against discrimination and for the affirmation of women in science, media, new technologies, ecology, and arts, but after the outbreak of armed conflicts, the focus of the Party's activities turned to peace and antiwar initiatives. In July 1991, the Party joined the Women's Parliament and other feminist groups and publicly submitted a formal request to the National Assembly to immediately stop all armed conflicts in the country and start peace negotiations.

Three women's organizations: the Women's Parliament, the Belgrade Women's Lobby, and the Women's Party jointly organized the first antiwar demonstrations in Belgrade, in front of the Serbian Parliament building.

The Women's Party was involved in the establishment of the Center for Anti-War Action (CAA), which coordinated antiwar and peace actions on the territory of Serbia and Yugoslavia.