Feminist Solidarity Research Articles

Central European Twins: Psychoanalysis and Cinema in Ildikó Enyedi's My Twentieth Century

Ildiko Enyedi's My 20th Century (1989), set at the turn of the previous century, presents a fictional narrative with documentary elements, evoking a moment of convergence when both cinema and psychoanalysis were, like the twins born during the film's opening sequences, in their infancy. Together, the twins incarnate the split schisms of modernity, the competing claims on women confronted by the dual demands of fem ale sexuality and equality, the implications of self in relation to other. The film's stylistic power is rendered through the use of strategies of paradox and irony, favored tropes of Central European artistic representation; while critiquing of national and patriarchal discourses, it problematizes and comments upon female pleasure and desire. By foregrounding the power of the feminine in the encounter between twin protagonists and the patriarchal world of Freud's Central Europe, the director places female subjectivity at the center of the action, setting the stage for a narrative of desire localized in and focalized by the female gaze. In a key sequence of feminist solidarity, the sisters test the evolution of scientific wisdom by attending the lectures of Otto Weininger on “Sex and Character,” a moment that satirizes and undermines Victorian Austro-Hungarian moeurs and acknowledges the history of early feminist suffrage, repressed from public discourse during the decades of communism in Eastern Europe. Re-reading My Twentieth Century through the double lens of psychoanalysis and feminism at a moment when Hungary rejoins the European Community at once affirms and reclaims female desire and hope for something new.

Negotiating the politics of difference in the project of feminist solidarity

AbstractThe article is concerned with the constitutive tension between solidarity and difference in feminist practice. It is argued that while a ‘politics of difference’ has dogged efforts to build feminist solidarity across the boundaries of class, nation, ethnicity and religion, this does not refute the continuing importance of the concept of solidarity in understanding the dynamic interaction of agents in transnational political space. Drawing upon a number of illustrations from contemporary feminist practice, it is further argued that differences among women do not preclude solidarity. On the contrary, respect for difference is a necessary condition for forging solidarity. Moreover, conflict need not be divisive and can be creative in this process.

Writing Rape, Trauma, and Transnationality onto the Female Body

AbstractIn Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman (1997), the Korean American protagonist reconciles with her Korean heritage through the act of spreading her mother's ashes. This essay looks at Keller's use of a “language of the body” that protests against rape and other forms of oppression of the female body. This language of the body does not rely on essentialist parameters of “race” or of women's “nature.” On the contrary, by depicting rape as universal, non-culture–specific issue, Keller's novel sketches a mother–daughter relationship where the daughter finds a way to identify with the mother despite the fact that the mother remains, at times, the cultural “Other.” It is a shared experience of rape and trauma that facilitates a means of understanding between mother and daughter and serves as a point of contact for the building of transnational feminist solidarity between women of different cultures.

The Currency of Feminist Theory

In her essay “what feminism means to me,” the second-wave feminist vivian gornick describes her entry into 1970s feminism in terms that have become very familiar. First, there is the “exhilaration” that comes from feminist analysis, “the particular type of joy [that arises] when a sufficiently large number of people are galvanized by a social explanation of how their lives have taken shape and are gathered together … elaborating the insight and repeating the analysis” (64–65). Then there is the seemingly inevitable declension. “[A]round 1980,” Gornick reports, “feminist solidarity began to unravel. As the world had failed to change sufficiently to reflect our efforts, that which had separated all women before began to reassert itself now in us…. Personalities began to jar, conversations to bore, ideas to repeat themselves” (66–67). While Gornick's account may at this point seem routine, her perspective on the routine makes her description remarkable: in contrast to countless other such reports, Gornick places no blame on the internal politics of feminism itself, either in the form of the critique by radical women of color or in the turn to theory. And, in the absence of this blame laying, something else becomes visible: in Gornick's reckoning, the problem was not so much that feminist analysis was challenged and hence destabilized by internal critique but rather that it remained the same for too long, so that it stopped being exciting and came to feel boring and repetitive instead. In suggesting that repetition in and of itself may be a problem for feminism, Gornick's account gestures toward some of the complex and, I think, usually unexplored relations that feminist theory implies between the new, the politically useful, and the intellectually compelling.

Rethinking Documentary in the Digital Age

FGM (female genital mutilation) in which girls are portrayed as voiceless victims. The film is very usefully contrasted with Alice Walker and Pratibha Pannar's Marks, politics of which Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan have scrutinized in Warrior Marks: Global Womanism's Neo-colonial Discourse in a Multicultural Context, Camera Obscira 39 (1996): 4-33. The Day I Will Never Forget presents a remarkable occasion to discuss what Sobehak and Nichols have called the ethical gaze. In a scene depicting a clitoridectomy that Longinotto characterizes as the only time I ever disagreed with Mary [Milton, sound recordist] a girl cries out No, no. The camera rolls on (the cinematographer in tears) because Fardohsa, health care provider at center of film, had enjoined them not to intervene lest her work be undermined. She had gained confidence of community, persuading these girls to have a lesser and safer version of customary procedure. Had it been stopped during shoot, she assured Longinotto, girls would have undergone a less sanitary and more invasive operation. The next day Longinotto films girls, who, as Fardohsa had promised, reiterated that decision to undergo circumcision was their own and expressed no regrets. Interview with Longinotto, April 12, 2006. 9. Interview with Longinotto, April 12, 2006. 10. Chandra Mohanty, Under Western Eyes Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles, in Feminism without Borders, 221-51. 11. The writing of this section's editor, B. Ruby Rich, for a whole spectrum of publications over a considerable span of time is particularly significant, bringing feminist work to public. 12. Mohanty, Feminism without Borders, 7.

Introduction: Comparative gender mainstreaming in a global era

This article analyses gender mainstreaming as a new and essentially contested form of feminist politics and policy. The article addresses the different forms that gender mainstreaming takes, in different countries and different policy domains, in order to push forward the theoretical debates. Gender mainstreaming often draws on transnational processes, involving transnational networks and agencies and transformations of the discourse of universal human rights, challenging the traditional focus on national processes. These developments are facilitated by the rise of global processes and institutions, such as the UN. Tensions can arise as a result of actors seeking to mainstream quite different models of gender equality: based on equality through sameness; through equal valuation of difference; and through transformation. The intersection of gender with other complex forms of inequality has challenging implications for a primary focus on gender within gender mainstreaming. Nevertheless, certain forms of gender mainstreaming have, despite their evident weaknesses, provided a new basis for feminist solidarity and action at a global level. Gender mainstreaming is a leading-edge example of the potential implications of globalisation for gender politics.

NEGOTIATING NATIONAL BOUNDARIES: PALESTINIAN AND JEWISH WOMEN’S STUDIES STUDENTS IN ISRAEL

This article examines the intersection of gender and national identity in an Israeli university, focusing on the Women's Studies classroom. Taking into consideration the overshadowing effect of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, we wondered how exposure to Women's Studies’ egalitarian ethos and studying in a mixed Palestinian–Jewish classroom affects the feminist solidarity and national identity of young women students. In-depth interviews with eleven Palestinian and twelve Jewish Women's Studies’ graduates indicate that solidarity between women of the two groups is built around women's issues, such as equal employment opportunities and reforms in the educational system. Considering the solidarity built around women's, as opposed to feminist, issues, it seems that national differences override the potential for a feminist solidarity.

Remembering a 'multicultural' future through a history of emigration: Towards a feminist politics of solidarity across difference

Synopsis This article investigates the workings of empathy, identification, and solidarity across difference and argues that these represent urgent theoretical and political concerns for feminist politics today. It also points to the affective power of memory in political discourse, its potential to bolster identity, and its centrality to differentiation, all of which render the deployments of memory critical to understanding the politics of differentiation and belonging. These topics are addressed via a discussion of selected proimmigrant discourses in the Republic of Ireland at the turn of the 21st century and how these discourses invoke the ethical potential in memorializing past emigration from Ireland. Three questions are addressed: First, what kinds of analogies are drawn between new immigration to Ireland in the present and a past marked by emigration? Second, what can the notion of a “repressed national memory of emigration” contribute to the promotion of a critical multiculturalism and solidarity with immigrants? And finally, what can debates about difference and identification within feminist theory tell us about how ethnic, familial, or national ties might ground or inhibit the development of an ethical relationship to the other? The article concludes with a discussion of the possibilities for feminist solidarity in contexts of the multicultural and the global.

Creating a Feminist Community on a Woman of Color Campus

This article examines the importance of centering the experiences of women of color in U.S. women's studies courses and the usefulness of this approach in building feminist solidarity among women of color students. Our observations are based on experiences as faculty members at a racially and ethnically diverse public university in the Los Angeles area. This campus is often described as being one of the most diverse universities in the United States. Thirty-one percent of the students are African American, 30 percent are Latino, 26 percent are white, 12 percent are Asian Pacific Islander, and less than i percent are Native American. In addition, a full 70 percent of the students are women. Drawing from observations in our classrooms and our reflections on the racial and gender politics of this unique university, this article describes our efforts to politicize students on a campus comprised primarily of women of color and the struggle to create a feminist community in that space. Our reflections are offered as a contribution to both old and new debates within feminist

Zina and the Moral Regulation of Pakistani Women

From 1998 to 1999, I interviewed women who had been incarcerated under the Zina Ordinance ( zina means illicit sex) in Pakistan. This led me to an examination of women's moral regulation by their families, a process in which I maintain the state is complicit. I argue against relativist explanations of this process, which view Pakistani culture or notions of timeless Islam as the reason for women's incarceration. Instead, I examine the interconnection of morality with the legal/judicial structures, the relationship between the state and patriarchy within families, and the plight of impoverished women in Pakistan within an era of globalization. In my analysis, I link economic development and human rights to globalization and the continuing costs of militarization. Such connections allow feminists to target the structural conditions that sustain the laws in Pakistan and help create an environment that will bring about the repeal of the laws while contributing to trans-national feminist solidarity.

Feminist Solidarity after Queer Theory: The Case of Transgender

Dans cet article, l'A se penche sur les visions feministes de la transsexualite. L'A reviste ici differents points de vue theoriques feministes concernant la construction socio-politique de l'identite heterosexuelle et homosexuelle feminine, ainsi que la definition de la transsexualite a travers l'identite de genre. L'A decrit ses experiences et ses motivations a propos de la transsexualite et de la bisexualite feminine, et analyse les points de vues feministes de ces dernieres annees

TAX, Meredith, THE RISING OF THE WOMEN: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict 1880-1917. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001, 331 pp., $18.95 softcover

TAX, Meredith, <b>THE RISING OF THE WOMEN: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict 1880-1917</b>. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001, 331 pp., $18.95 softcover

“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles

L'A. reprend son essai feministe Under western eyes ecrit seize annees auparavant, dans le contexte d'un mouvement feministe transnational en pleine vitalite. Apres en avoir rappele les arguments centraux, elle analyse la reception qu'a eu cet article, puis tente de clarifier le sens qu'elle donne a des concepts-cles comme l'Occident ou le Tiers-Monde. Elle reengage le debat sur la relation entre le particulier et l'universel dans la theorie feministe. Elle tente enfin d'evaluer ce qui a change durant la periode qui s'est ecoulee depuis la parution de la premiere edition de Under western eyes. Elle inscrit parmi les nouveaux defis du feminisme le combat contre la mondialisation capitaliste et ses effets de predation dont les femmes sont plus particulierement victimes. A la suite de Vandana Shiva, elle s'insurge notamment contre la confiscation imperialiste des savoirs indigenes par le biais des brevets

The value of alternative media

In October 1998, the Pacific Centre for Alternative Journalists convened its founding conference in Vancouver. The 60 participants represented a spectrum of media activists—from community radio, the student, feminist and Central American solidarity press, Latin American, labor and community television alliances, community‐based electronic nets, assorted “culture jammers"—as well as social justice activists from the anti‐poverty, student, aboriginal, environmental, and anti‐free trade movements. This article is based on my presentation to the opening plenary, which was called “What makes alternative media valuable to the communities it serves?”

Sati: a review article

The last recorded case of sati in India, the murder (for such it undoubtedly was) of Roop Kanwar, which took place in the large Rajasthani village of Deorala in 1987, has had many reverberations. In particular, it has served as a focus for international and Indian women activists' opposition to continuing gender violence and to male domination in general. Not surprisingly, the responses have been wide-ranging, from individual and collective acts of feminist solidarity to various attempts at local level, mainly by men and political agencies, to discredit this particular women's movement.

Feminist Solidarity, Reflective Solidarity

ABSTRACT This article presents the concept of reflective solidarity as an ideal of feminist coalition. Reflective solidarity is defined as the mutual expectation of a responsible orientation to relationship. Situating itself among other feminist efforts to theorize connections after identity politics, the article builds from a critical appraisal of recent work by Shane Phelan (1994), Lee Quinby (1994), and Donna Haraway (1991). It argues that these works contribute significantly to feminist theory when they are understood in the context of communication and dialogue. The remainder of the paper develops this context through an analysis of the communicative underpinnings of the word “we” and through the development of the concept of the perspective of situated, hypothetical thirds.

Feminist solidarity, reflective solidarity: Theorizing Connections after identity politics

Feminist solidarity, reflective solidarity: Theorizing Connections after identity politics

Introduction

Adèle King3 Women In French Studies Introduction The essays in this volume range from the sixteenth century to the present , and from metropolitan France to several corners of die world where French is written: Algeria, Canada, Belgium, Guadeloupe. The old distinction of French and Francophone seems increasingly irrelevant in the modem world. The work of Maryse Condé, set in her native Guadeloupe but also in France, West Africa and the Linited States, where she has lived, spans three continents. We are publishing a new interview with Marie Cardinal, of French parents, but born in Algeria and now living in Canada. And where do we place Leila Sebbar, of Algerian parentage but living in France? The collection begins with our Graduate Prize Essay, on Madeleine Ouellette-Michalska. Other subjects range from interesting new insights into such well-known authors as Christine de Pizan, Marguerite Yourcenar, Marguerite Duras and Maryse Condé, to studies of lesser-known authors, such as Adélaïde de Souza, Angele Vannier and Claire Lejeune. While most of the essays deal with literature, there is also an essay showing how the didactic work of G. Bruno influenced the philosophical ideas of her husband, Alfred Fouillée. In rereading our collection, I am again aware of the recurring themes of women's work that transcend differences in eras, nations, genres and styles. While we must not, as Michelle Donovan warns us, try to read a "modem political feminist consciousness" into writers of earlier centuries, nor adopt a reductive essentialism, it is possible to define a new kind of "universalism," which as Carolyn Duffey remarks in speaking of Françoise Lionnet's work, "could lead to common theoretical and ethical ground for developing global feminist solidarity ," a solidarity among cultures, without any sense of one dominating another. Thérèse Migraine-George and Gabriella Ricciardi analyze the refusal of an easy exoticism in the work of Ouelette-Michalska and of Leila Sebbar. Is there not even a solidarity across time? Essays on Christine de Pizan show how women have used their pens for centuries to criticize a powerful male culture. Women writers contribute to a literary culture that goes beyond gender; they often, as Judith Sarnecki shows in a poem of Marguerite Yourcenar, and Medha Kannarkar analyses in a novel of Adélaïde de Souza, subvert simple notions of gender. Women writers also extend traditional ideas of genre, as ClaireAntoinette Lindenlaub suggests in her study of the mnemonic in a novel by Marguerite Duras. Michèle Bacholle and Karen Bouvver study the use of feminine rhythms and imagery of birth in the poetic works of Angèle Vannier and Claire Lejeune. Colette Hall, editor of Volume 3 of Women in French Studies, invited our readers to send commentaries on the journal, to begin a Dialogue, the reactions of our readers to WIF Studies articles. Dialogues are often considered one way in which women are less hierarchical than men, at least in our present culture . We had no contributions to the dialogue, but I again extend our invitation. Adèle King ...

Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom

Introduction: Teaching to Transgress 1. Engaged Pedagogy 2. A Revolution of Values: The Promise of Multicultural Change 3. Embracing Change: Teaching in a Multicultural World 4. Paulo Freire 5. Theory as Liberatory Practice 6. Essentialism and Experience 7. Holding My Sister's Hand: Feminist Solidarity 8. Feminist Thinking: In the Classroom Right Now 9. Feminist Scholarship: Black Scholars 10. Building a Teaching Community: A Dialogue 11. Language: Teaching New Worlds / New Words 12. Confronting Class in the Classroom 13. Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedgagogical Process 14. Ecstasy: Teaching and Learning Without Limits

The Cunning of History:

Part polemic, part theory, part history, part personal narrative, this essay charts the volatile terrain of multiculturalism. As a metaphor of empire, the approaching Columbian Quincentenary serves as the symbolic vehicle to thread together postcolonial discourse, feminist theory in the flesh, and identity politics. The explosion of issues of diversity, pluralism and anti-racism in social theory-particularly feminist theory and politics- has engendered a passionate debate over identity and experience in the construction of oppositional "subjects." Against the hegemonic cultures-whether Euro-American or mainstream white feminist-activists of color are creating counter representations of "self" and theories of identity politics. The argument developed here celebrates such decolonization moments in feminism but critiques certain implications of identity politics. When "identities" become pure, exclusive, innocent, the potential for diverse and democratic collectives is threatened. The essay reminds "us" that we are all others of invention, and asks that otherness not be reified, but put forward as one fertile resource of feminist solidarity.