"A Bastion of Sanity in a Crazy World": A Local Feminist Movement and the Reconstitution of Scale, Space, and Place in an Eastern German City

Abstract

This article examines the development of the local women's movement in one city in eastern Germany since German unification in 1990. Utilizing a framework that attends to issues of scale, space, and place reveals how this women's movement has both participated in and benefited from the downward scaling of women's mobilizations in the immediate postunification period. Feminist activists and organizations contributed to the constitution of the city as a place defined by its emphasis on egalitarian values and high degrees of state intervention in gender inequality and to the emergence of the city as part of a transnational space tied as much to Sweden as to Germany. Through this reimagination of the scale, space, and place of the city, the women's movement was able to position itself as a legitimate and important part of the life of the city and to successfully collaborate with local state offices and institutions to secure funding for women's organizations and pass legislation to protect women from discrimination and abuse. [End Page 551]