Testing the Limits: Christa Reinig's Radical Vision

Abstract

It was during my research women's studies that I found Christa Reinig, in Munich, in the summer of 1980? We met in the feminist bookstore Lillemor's. In a sideroom for women decorated with women's art and feminist posters, surrounded by women's books, feminist journals and the sound of women's music, we sat, drank tea and talked. We talked about women and utopia. Utopian (i.e., anticipatory, change-oriented) thinking was necessary, women in general and the women's movement in particular, on this point we were in complete and immediate agreement. However, insisted Reinig, although unarguably necessary, Utopian thinking alone was clearly not enough. If we as women want to create an alternative future, she said, indeed if we as human beings hope to have any liveable future at all, we will have to deal with the question of violence. When we set out in search of our utopia, we must leave our fears behind, she explained; and what women must leave behind is their fear of violence. Not only, she went on, their fear of the external violence all around them with which they are forced to live as a constant threat and daily reality, but also (and perhaps most importantly) their fear of their own, internalized violence ? the violence within. For it is this potential violence within us, she insisted, that can empower us to fight off those who see us as weak and ready victims. Violence, she concluded, is a useful weapon; we must merely learn to wield it effect ively. I was immediately convinced by the logic of her argument. Yes, I agreed, certainly the solution proposed by people like Marcuse, that we base our hopes the future on the feminine potential gentle ness, passivity and nurturance has not exactly been borne out by history.