The Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, congratulated the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 183 years since its foundation and emphasized the importance of the fact that today, 12 women were presented who are among the newly elected corresponding members of SASA. The Academy sent an important message that equality is one of the basic human rights and a condition for the progress and development of a democratic society in which the quality of each individual is recognized regardless of gender, added Janković.

I welcome the promotion of women’s scientific and artistic contributions to our society, and I am proud that the Academy took into account the Commissioner’s recommendations regarding the recognition of women’s achievements in scientific and artistic creativity and their membership in an institution of special national importance, Janković points out.

The Commissioner reminded that she sent the recommendation of measures regarding the improvement of the representation of women in the ranks of SASA in 2022 and then again at the beginning of 2024. The motive was the regular elections for SASA members, held in November 2021, when only one woman was elected as a foreign member. Now 12 women have fulfilled all the criteria for correspondence membership, one woman has been elected as a new foreign member, and four women have become regular members of SASA. The Academy now has 137 members, of which 22 are women.

Achieving equality is not easy and requires everyone’s involvement in continuous activities in this field. We still have a lot of work ahead of us. Members of the Academy and President Zoran Knežević have already shown a clear commitment to the need to achieve a fairer balance in the membership so that the composition of SASA reflects the real contribution of each individual to science and art, added Janković.

Although many deserving women scientists and artists shaped our society with their work and knowledge, they remained insufficiently recognized and inadequately valued for decades. That’s why the outcome of the last SASA elections is an incentive for changing the dominant narrative about the role and importance of women in our society, something that Isidora Sekulić would certainly be particularly proud of as the first woman to join SASA, concludes Janković.