Asking to Be Saved: A Critique of Carceral Feminism in Croatia

This paper offers a critique of mainstream activism against gender-based violence in Croatia through a socialist-feminist and anti-carceral theoretical lens. In 2019, a Croatian version of #MeToo led to massive protests against gender-based violence, organised by the Facebook initiative #Spasime (#Saveme), founded by a Croatian actress. The initiative’s activism promotes a specific feminism reliant on carceral solutions and private donors. The initiative’s activism is analysed through 25 expert interviews with the members of the judiciary, police, social workers, feminist NGO coordinators, academics and journalists, using an intersectional abolition feminist framework. This article builds upon the already published academic critiques of #SpasiMe’s activism by identifying the following troubling trends arising from the initiative’s activism. The trends include essentialising motherhood and victimhood, overreliance on criminal punishment, and the initiative’s charity acting as a substitute for the welfare state, obliterating the legacy of state socialism.