“In a reality in which the media manipulates with everything and primarily forces language, feminists on different sides of the world knew how to appropriate the strength of symbolic language, speaking with the help gestures, pictures, words; and above all with body language they rejected the logical forces that, with the flow of centuries of patriarchy, they thought with one force….To be a woman in the street means to be a bit gypsy. We are fascinated by that nomadic identity, which Rosi Braidotti thought is actually the female identity.” (Women in Black, Verona)
“With our bodies, like with a shout and a warning, we expressed indignation and offense against those who wanted and waged war.” (Women in Black, Belgrade)
“Women in Black makes rejecting war visible, they do not agree to passively observe violence and to mourn. That is a symbolic and provocative way in which women, taking themselves and their bodies out, express a cry against war, wanting to penetrate the conscience. “ (Stasa Zajovic)
“I do not participate in what men do. But I do not consider that passive, on the side, but with my own ‘body which screams’ I show disgust for all who want and wage war.” (Women in Black, Turin)
“We begin to recognize and value one another when we leave the peculiarity of our own kind, the inherence of our being in the experience of life in a body. Now we can value the subjectivity of our experience and the mediation through our body. From there, respect and concern are different. If the ingrained nature of our body is our limitation, we are conscious of that barrier. Not in the sense of impossibility, but of wisdom; not in the sense of reticence and rigidness, but of openness to the network of interdependence which marks the reality of the future, changes, and the confrontation with our new possibilities.” (Women in Black, Italy)
Always disobedient, and still in the streets...
Women in black - 30 years of resistance
9th october 1991 we took to the streets of Belgrade for the first time - that is when we began non- violent resistance to the war and the policies of the Serbian regime. So far, we have organized about 2,500 street actions. We are still in the streets ...
Women in Black / WiB is an activist group and network of feminist-anti-militarist orientation, consisting of women, but also men of different generational and ethnic backgrounds, educational levels, social status, lifestyles and sexual choices.
