In her lecture, Prof. Dr. Zilka Spahić Šiljak focused on the entanglement of gender, religion and politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, arguing that gender is one of the principal terrains upon which religious authority, ethnonational belonging and political power are negotiated. As she emphasized, gender controversies are rarely only about gender. They often become symbolic struggles over the family, morality, national identity, collective memory, religious belonging and the future of society. Prof. Spahić Šiljak explained that gender, religion and politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be adequately understood as three separate domains that occasionally influence one another. Rather, they are historically and institutionally intertwined. Political power is frequently legitimized through religious and ethnonational narratives, while religious authority is often strengthened through its proximity to national identity and political institutions. Gender norms, in this context, provide a powerful language through which ideas about family, collective survival, morality, citizenship and national belonging are expressed and defended. She highlighted that Bosnia and Herzegovina demonstrates the destructive consequences of entangling religion, nationalism and patriarchal power. These entanglements often reinforce exclusionary politics, limit women’s rights and freedoms, and reduce complex social questions to identity-based conflicts. At the same time, Prof. Spahić Šiljak stressed that other forms of entanglement are possible and necessary: between faith and justice, feminism and peacebuilding, memory and responsibility, religious belonging and democratic freedom, as well as between difference and solidarity.

Dr. Jadranka Rebeka Anić spoke about the development and impact of anti-gender movements in Croatia. She analyzed how anti-gender narratives have gained visibility through political mobilization, religious rhetoric, media campaigns and civil society initiatives that present gender equality, feminism and LGBTQ+ rights as threats to the family, children, national identity and religious tradition. In her presentation, Dr. Anić emphasized that anti-gender discourse often functions by producing moral panic and framing gender as an imported ideology, rather than recognizing gender equality as a democratic and human rights issue. She also pointed to the ways in which anti-gender actors in Croatia have mobilized around education, reproductive rights, sexual education, the Istanbul Convention and public debates on family and marriage. These campaigns, she noted, are not isolated events, but part of broader transnational anti-gender politics present across Europe. At the same time, Dr. Anić underlined the importance of feminist theology, critical scholarship, interreligious dialogue and civic education in responding to such narratives with knowledge, ethical responsibility and solidarity.

The participation of Prof. Spahić Šiljak and Dr. Anić contributed to a deeper understanding of how gender debates in Southeast Europe reveal broader struggles over democracy, religion, identity and social justice. Their lectures showed that the intersections of gender, religion and politics are not marginal issues, but central to understanding contemporary challenges faced by societies in the Balkans and beyond.

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By Zilka Spahić Šiljak

Anis Kalajdžić has been charged with the aggravated murder of Aldina Jahić, the unauthorized possession of a weapon, and endangering public safety. The defendant pleaded not guilty, while witnesses were allegedly asked to lie in his favor. Testimonies presented during the trial indicate that Aldina had documented threats and collected evidence with the intention of reporting them. The Prosecution claims that, on the day of the murder, she attempted to escape, seek help, and call the police before she was found in a hospitality establishment and killed.

These facts are particularly important because they dismantle one of the questions most frequently directed at victims: “Why didn’t she leave?”

Aldina, like many other victims of femicide, tried to leave. The problem was not that she did not know how to leave. The problem was a man who did not accept a woman’s right to leave.

According to information confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton to Detektor after the murder, at the time of his arrest the defendant was already awaiting trial for endangering public safety following a report filed by another woman, and no restraining measures had been imposed on him. This raises questions that go beyond individual criminal responsibility: How do institutions assess risk? How do they connect previous reports? How seriously do they treat threats and stalking? Why is protection so often activated only when it is already too late?

This is precisely why it is wrong to reduce femicide to unhappy love, jealousy, or a relationship dispute.

These are not neutral words. They conceal a relationship of power. A dispute involves two parties; in persecution, one person deprives another of safety. Love respects freedom; control abolishes it. Jealousy is an emotion; murder is a decision and a criminal offence.

Internalized Misogyny as an Accomplice to Femicide

When, following a femicide and abundant evidence of a criminal offence, a woman writes on social media:

“I do not support violence, especially murder, but… She thought she could take advantage of him while acting like a single woman. So, the man simply killed her and was done with her,”

we must ask ourselves why women seek to find justifications for the murder of another woman.

Sometimes a single sentence, such as the one above, reveals more about a society than dozens of reports, strategies, and conferences. The comment, written by a woman beneath a news article about Aldina’s murder, ends with words that should provoke collective horror and outrage in every healthy society:

“The man simply killed her and was done with her.”

This comment was not written by a man openly boasting about his hatred of women. It was written by a woman. That is precisely why it deserves attention.

Not because its author should be subjected to public lynching, insults, or threats. Such a response would merely reproduce the same pattern of violence. It is important to analyze the comment because it demonstrates how patriarchy survives: not only through men’s use of force, but also through values that women may adopt, defend, and transmit as though they represented a natural moral order.

This is what we call internalized misogyny: a process through which women, growing up in a society that systematically judges them more harshly than men, begin to accept its prejudices as their own beliefs.

They learn that a woman is responsible for a man’s anger; that her behavior “provokes” violence; that gifts create a debt toward a man; that being in a romantic relationship means losing one’s freedom; and that a woman who rejects a man must be selfish, immoral, or ungrateful.

Patriarchy is most successful when its commands no longer need to be spoken only by a man, because a woman repeats them on his behalf. This is why the social media comment begins with an apparent disclaimer:

“I do not support violence, especially murder, but…”

Everything that follows that “but” invalidates what came before it:

“I do not justify murder, but she used him.”

“Violence is not the answer, but she should have known what kind of man he was.”

“No one had the right to kill her, but why didn’t she report him earlier?”

“I feel sorry for the woman, but she also provoked him; she was no saint either.”

That “but” is not an innocent linguistic habit. It is a bridge across which responsibility is transferred from the perpetrator to the murdered woman.

At the very moment when attention should be focused on the person who threatened, stalked, controlled, obtained a weapon, and took a life, the public begins investigating the woman’s character: What did she accept? With whom did she travel? Where did she live? Why did she stay? Why did she leave? Why did she not report him sooner? Did she perhaps “give him false hope”?

In this way, after her death, the murdered woman becomes the accused.

A Gift Is Not a Property Deed

In the comment cited above, a car, a journey, and a paid apartment are presented as evidence that the woman owed the man something. It is as though material gifts constituted a contract through which he purchased her availability, obedience, sexual fidelity, and the right to decide whether she could be a “single woman.”

This is one of the most dangerous patterns of patriarchal thinking: the idea that a man’s investment gives him a right to a woman—her body, her time, and her movement.

No gift, service, emotion, or previous promise abolishes a person’s right to change their mind, end a relationship, refuse contact, or continue living their own life.

Even if all the allegations contained in the social media comment were true—and the commentator presents them without evidence—they would have no relevance whatsoever to a man’s supposed right to take a woman’s life.

Possible disappointment, jealousy, a sense of having been exploited, or a wounded ego are not mitigating circumstances for murder. They are emotions that adults must manage without violence.

What the comment reveals is the belief that a man who has given something also has the right to take something in return. When a woman attempts to leave such a relationship, he does not experience it as her decision, but as the theft of his property.

This is where the logic of femicide begins:

“If she will not be mine, she will be no one’s.”

Why Do Women Defend Abusers?

Internalized misogyny does not mean that women are naturally more cruel toward other women. It means that women, like men, are raised within the same patriarchal society.

From an early age, they hear that a “good woman” does not provoke a man, does not speak too loudly, does not leave a man, does not change partners, does not exercise her sexual freedom, and must be grateful for the attention she receives.

They learn that a woman’s value is measured by whether a man has chosen her and whether she has managed to keep him.

At the same time, male possessiveness is romanticized: if he is jealous, it means he loves her; if he is persistent, it means he cares; if he controls her, it means he is protecting her.

In such a system, some women attempt to prove their own moral worth by distancing themselves from other women:

“I would never behave like that.”

“That could never happen to me.”

“I respect my husband.”

“She must have done something to make him angry.”

By condemning the victim, the commentator creates an illusion of safety. If she believes that the woman was killed because she behaved wrongly, she can convince herself that she will remain safe as long as she is “good,” obedient, and careful.

It is far more frightening to acknowledge the truth: a woman may do everything “right” and still be subjected to violence because the perpetrator chooses to control and punish her violently.

Victim-blaming therefore often functions as a psychological defense mechanism. At the same time, however, it becomes politically and socially dangerous.

Every sentence that seeks an excuse for an abuser sends a message to other women that, when they report violence, their morality will be examined first.

It tells them that their messages, clothing, sexual life, and financial relationships will be analyzed before the threats made by the man they fear.

Because of such reactions, many women remain silent. They remain silent not only because they fear the abuser, but also because they fear that their families, the police, their employers, their neighbors, and the wider public will not believe them.

From a Social Media Comment to a Culture That Enables Femicide

The author of the comment did not pull the trigger. Responsibility for the criminal offence lies with the person whose guilt is established through lawful judicial proceedings.

It is important to state this clearly because the concept of internalized misogyny must not be used to transfer responsibility for male violence back onto women.

Nevertheless, public discourse is not insignificant.

There is no simple, automatic cause-and-effect relationship between a misogynistic comment and femicide, but there is a cultural continuum.

At one end of that continuum are “jokes” about beating women, checking their phones, insulting divorced and sexually active women, ridiculing reports of violence, and claiming that a woman “made her own choice.”

At the other end are stalking, threats, physical violence, and murder.

Femicide does not arise out of nothing. It grows within a culture that associates masculinity with domination and women’s freedom with disobedience.

It grows where saying NO is treated as the beginning of a negotiation, where ending a relationship is regarded as a man’s humiliation, and where rejecting a man becomes a reason for revenge.

It also grows in environments where those around the perpetrator describe him as “a good man who snapped,” while the murdered woman is investigated to determine what kind of girlfriend she was.

When someone writes that a man “simply killed her and was done with her,” that person is not merely commenting on one crime.

She is affirming the idea that a woman’s life can become the object of a man’s decision.

In that sentence, murder is not described as the taking of a human life, but as the resolution of a problem.

The woman is the problem. Murder is the conclusion.

That is the very essence of dehumanization.

The Law Is Important, but It Is Not Enough

Through amendments to its Criminal Code adopted in 2025, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina introduced the separate criminal offence of the aggravated murder of a woman.

Article 166a provides that anyone who commits the gender-based murder of a woman shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of at least ten years or by long-term imprisonment.

The law requires that, when determining whether the offence is gender-based, consideration must be given to previous abuse, relationships of intimacy, subordination or dependency, sexual violence, and other circumstances demonstrating that the crime constitutes gender-based violence.

The same amendments also introduced the criminal offence of stalking.

This represents a major legal advancement. The law has finally recognized what feminist organizations have been saying for decades: some women are not killed accidentally or simply because they happened to be in the wrong place.

They are killed within a context of control, inequality, possessiveness, and gender-based violence.

But the law will not protect women on its own.

It will not help if the police treat threats as a private dispute.

It will not help if prosecutors fail to connect earlier reports and patterns of behavior.

It will not help if restraining orders are not imposed quickly and monitored seriously.

It will not help if a woman’s family tells her to remain silent so that she does not bring shame upon the household.

And it will not help if society continues, even after a murder, to search for reasons why the victim allegedly deserved to be punished.

Society often shows empathy only toward the “ideal victim”: a quiet, modest, faithful, completely helpless, and morally irreproachable woman.

If she defended herself, argued, returned to the abuser, accepted gifts, had another partner, or did not immediately report the violence, the amount of compassion that the public is prepared to offer begins to diminish.

The question “Why didn’t she report him?” is especially hypocritical when it comes from a society that asks a woman who does report violence what she did to provoke the man.

Reporting violence is not a simple administrative act. It is often the period of greatest danger because the abuser feels that he is losing control.

At that moment, a woman does not need advice offered from the safety of someone else’s home. She needs trust, legal protection, a risk assessment, safe accommodation, and institutions that will act before a threat becomes a death notice.

What We Must Learn from This Trial

The trial for the murder of Aldina Jahić must not become merely another media spectacle in which the public waits for new and disturbing details.

Its purpose does not lie in collective voyeurism, but in accountability.

The court must establish individual criminal responsibility on the basis of evidence. Institutions must examine whether there were failures in prevention and protection. The media must report without sensationalism and without romanticizing violence.

The education system must teach young people about consent, emotional literacy, equal relationships, and accepting the end of a relationship.

Social media platforms must respond more seriously to the open justification of violence.

And every one of us must stop participating in the ritual trial of a dead woman.

The real question is not why she was not careful, grateful, or obedient enough.

The real questions are:

Why did a man believe he had the right to decide whether she would live?

Why are threats and stalking so frequently normalized?

Did the institutions have enough information to assess the danger?

Why does society continue to defend abusers by referring to money, gifts, and wounded masculinity?

And why do even some women believe that a woman’s freedom can be punished by death?

No “But” After a Murder

Internalized misogyny is not a personal deficiency belonging to individual women. It is the result of long-term social conditioning.

It cannot therefore be eliminated by insulting the commentator, but through education, public opposition, feminist solidarity, and the consistent identification of patterns that sustain violence.

Women are not natural allies of patriarchy. However, the mere fact that they are women does not automatically make them feminists.

Solidarity must be learned.

So must disobedience toward a system that demands that a woman understand the abuser more than she understands the victim.

The comment with which this article began is not merely an “ugly comment from the internet.” It is a small textbook of the culture of femicide.

It contains all of its key elements: distrust of the victim, the material ownership of a woman, the punishment of female freedom, sympathy for the man, and, finally, the presentation of murder as an understandable solution.

This is why the sentence “I do not support murder, but…” must be answered without any continuation and without negotiation:

There is no BUT.

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Within the Lifelong Learning academic program at the University of Sarajevo, the FER School offered two courses in English: Gender, Religion and Peacebuilding and Gender, Religion and GBV, as well as two courses in BCS languages: Gender, Religion and Media and The History of Feminism in the East and West. Among the participants were students from Germany, the Netherlands, Venezuela, Jamaica, South Africa, and the Balkan region.

At the non-academic level, the FER School offered five courses in the summer semester in BCS languages: Who Killed God in Her?, What Gender Is God?, Is Woman Human?, My Wife, If You’ll Pardon the Expression, and Who Plays and How: AI and Social Media. More than 70 participants completed these five courses, which shows that these topics are both timely and important.

Through lectures, discussions, and joint work, the participants had the opportunity to critically reflect on contemporary social challenges, as well as on the role of religious and feminist approaches in building more just and inclusive communities.

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Prof. Dr. Maja Arslanagić-Kalajdžić spoke about the foundations of feminist research methodology. Through two lecture blocks, participants had the opportunity to become familiar with key epistemological and methodological questions in feminist research, including the positionality of the researcher, the ethics of the research process, and the importance of including marginalized voices in the production of knowledge.

Associate Professor Dr. Jasna Kovačević spoke about intersectionality, linking issues of gender, religion, and violence, drawing on the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins. Intersectionality is an approach that shows that different forms of inequality and discrimination, such as gender, class, religion, ethnicity, race, disability, age, or sexuality, cannot be viewed separately, because they often intersect and together shape people’s experiences.

In the continuation of the program, Prof. Dr. Zilka Spahić Šiljak delivered a lecture on gender in the academic sphere and the principles of feminist academic research, with special emphasis on the challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups in academic institutions, both in building academic careers and in publishing scholarly work and positioning themselves within the academic community.

The training program was designed as a space for learning, exchange of experiences, and critical dialogue on the ways in which feminist methodology can contribute to more just, responsible, and socially engaged research. Special emphasis was placed on understanding research as a process that not only describes social reality but can also contribute to its transformation.

Participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and North Macedonia had the opportunity not only to learn and practice the basics of academic writing and feminist approaches to research, but also to create new networks of cooperation in the region through joint work and socializing. The training represents a continuation of the cooperation between the Ecumenical Women’s Initiative and TPO Foundation in the field of feminist education, strengthening women’s capacities, and developing critical approaches, which will also contribute to the further development of the FER School, which brings together a large number of women scholars from the region and the world.

At the end of the seminar, the participants received certificates of attendance as well as instructions for online consultations with the lecturers.

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Professor Duderija stressed that interreligious dialogue cannot remain merely at the level of courteous encounters and general messages of peace, but must include a serious engagement with the ways in which religious texts, doctrines, and traditions are interpreted in concrete social contexts. He particularly emphasized the importance of feminist and ethical hermeneutics that question patriarchal, exclusivist, and violent interpretations, while opening space for readings that affirm dignity, justice, equality, and responsibility toward the other. Professor Duderija presented several concrete recommendations that could help make dialogue deeper, more relevant, and socially transformative.

The first recommendation concerns the establishment of an interreligious theological seminar in comparative theology, within which sacred texts of different religious traditions would be read comparatively, with special emphasis on addressing historical and contemporary injustices. Such a seminar could become a space for developing ethically responsible interpretations, learning from other traditions, and critically engaging with one’s own theological heritage.

The second recommendation concerns the development of tools for Friday and Sunday sermons, which would include inclusive readings and shared Abrahamic ethical motifs. Such resources could help religious leaders speak in their communities about peace, justice, solidarity, gender equality, human dignity, and social responsibility in a way that connects people rather than deepening divisions.

The third recommendation concerns the deradicalization of doctrinal boundary markers. Professor Duderija pointed to the need to critically re-examine theological rhetoric that reinforces polarization, exclusivity, and mistrust toward others. Instead of rigidly emphasizing the boundaries between “us” and “them,” interreligious theology should develop a language that enables encounter, self-criticism, and responsible recognition of the values present in other traditions.

A particularly interesting proposal was the establishment of the Sarajevo Forum “Hospitality Toward Truth.” The Forum would involve regular public dialogues in which each religious tradition would present one teaching, practice, or value that it has sincerely learned to appreciate in another tradition. In addition, participants would speak about a concrete change that emerged from that encounter and learning. In this way, dialogue would not be merely an exchange of opinions, but a process of mutual learning and transformation.

The fifth recommendation focused on joint ethical actions by religious communities, academic institutions, and civil society organizations. Gender justice, ecological care, care for the elderly, prevention of youth violence, and the fight against corruption were highlighted as particularly important areas of joint action. These topics show that interreligious dialogue must not remain confined to theological discussions, but should be connected to the concrete needs of people and communities. Professor Duderija’s lecture reminded participants that religious traditions can be a powerful resource for peace, justice, and solidarity when they are interpreted responsibly, contextually, and self-critically. Feminist interreligious Islamic theology, as emphasized during the event, does not reject tradition, but reads it more deeply, carefully, and ethically, recognizing within it possibilities for a liberating and more just understanding of faith.

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Unlike laws or formal institutions, which clearly regulate society, gender differences are often produced through everyday, almost unnoticed practices, language, humor, and habits. These “small things” function as micro-rituals of the symbolic order. Through them, certain ideas are constantly repeated until they begin to appear as “common sense.”

The phrase “Forgive Me, My Wife”implicitly carries several important assumptions: that a woman is a potential source of impurity or shame; that mentioning her requires an apology or qualification; and that female identity is something that needs to be “softened” in public speech. In other words, although it may sound like a joke, the phrase actually suggests that a woman is something problematic or of lesser value.

We can observe similar logic in other sayings and beliefs, such as: “A woman brings bad luck if she is the first to enter the house,” as well as various jokes that portray women as less rational or capable. All these statements contribute to the same image: woman as the “other”, something impure, dangerous, or inferior.

The problem is not in a single saying, but in their repetition. When we hear them daily, we begin to perceive them as natural and normal. In this way, gender hierarchy is not imposed openly, but is quietly embedded in our way of thinking.

It is precisely through such “small things” that we learn what is considered normal and who, within that order, has more or less value. Therefore, understanding language is not only a matter of communication, but also a matter of power.

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A special focus of the course is placed on analyzing contemporary challenges brought about by the rapid development of digital technologies. In this context, participants will have the opportunity to explore in greater depth the phenomenon of bots and their role in shaping public opinion, as well as the ways in which automated content influences the perception of reality in the digital space.

The course will also address the important relationship between artificial intelligence and education, with an emphasis on both the opportunities and the ethical dilemmas arising from the use of AI tools in teaching and learning processes. Particular attention will be given to critically examining how technology can enhance education, but also potentially deepen existing social inequalities.

One of the key segments of the course focuses on recognizing and deconstructing gender stereotypes reproduced through social media, video games, and animated content. Participants will analyze how digital media shape perceptions of gender and identity, and how algorithms may unconsciously perpetuate stereotypes.

Through this interdisciplinary approach, the course aims to connect issues of technology, gender, and social responsibility, empowering participants to develop an informed, critical, and ethical relationship with the digital environment in which they operate daily.

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In her lecture, Professor Spahić Šiljak discussed the importance of gender-sensitive language, emphasizing that the way we speak about God is not neutral, but deeply shaped by historical, cultural, and social contexts. She particularly highlighted the fact that, although God is understood as being beyond all human comprehension, identity, and categories, in religious language and practice God is most often represented and addressed in the masculine form.

Through an analysis of religious texts, traditions, and symbolism, she pointed to the dominance of male metaphors and images of God, opening space for critical reflection: is such language merely a grammatical convention, or does it carry deeper implications for how believers understand the divine, authority, and power?

One of the key questions raised during the lecture was: what would change if God were addressed in the feminine form? Would such a shift influence religious experience, the perception of God, as well as social relations and gender roles?

The course “The Female Face of God” will continue through a series of lectures and discussions aimed at fostering interdisciplinary reflection on the relationship between religion, language, and gender, while offering new perspectives on understanding spirituality in a contemporary context.

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Through an analytical approach, she opened space for reflection on foundational religious texts and their influence on the understanding of human nature and gender relations. The question “Is a woman human?” may appear provocative, but it points to a long-standing social reality in which women are still denied full humanity and equality.

The particular value of this course lies in its interreligious approach—this question is explored through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic perspectives, creating space for dialogue, comparison, and a deeper understanding of different theological and social traditions.

This course represents an important segment of the FER program, reaffirming its commitment to critical reflection on religion and gender issues in a contemporary context.

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