From its very beginning the feminist movement has criticized the ways in which happiness is used to justify oppression. Some feminist scholars refer to an anti-utopian, tragic and nihilistic heritage, refusing social images of happiness, as well as ideas of progress and pursuit of happiness, but, on the other hand, promoting social interaction and political participation as a form of individual and collective well-being. In socialist and post-socialist Croatia Western feminist ideas have been adapted and reinvented, in order to respond to the specific context and the needs for political activism. This paper presents three examples of Croatian feminist performance art in which the motifs of pleasure and happiness are important elements of their social criticism.
