Women's International Democratic Federation Research Articles

‘Work locally but think globally’: The Alliance Against Women's Oppression and transnational multiracial grassroots activism in the 1980s

AbstractThis article examines the transnational history of the Alliance Against Women's Oppression (AAWO), a multiracial and Marxist US women's organisation founded in California in 1979. By focusing on the political connection between the AAWO, the so‐called ‘Third World’ and other international organisations such as the Women International Democratic Federation, the article intends to delve into the relationship between global far‐left, non‐White women's organisations in the United States and the Global South. Using extensive archival sources internal to the organisation, this work highlights the 1980s as a central period for anti‐imperialist women's activism against the Reagan administration and for the formation of international grassroots connections.

Women, Gender and Human Rights: Women's International Organisations and Solidarity with Chile

AbstractThis article analyses the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's (WILPF) and Women's International Democratic Federation's (WIDF) fact‐finding missions sent to Chile in 1974. It explains how women's international organisations presented reports and information about human rights abuses during Genera Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship (1973–1990). By using their publications, oral interviews, memoirs and press reports, the study sheds light on the extensive efforts deployed by the WILPF and WIDF to disseminate knowledge and promote actions designed to improve the lives of Chilean women. The article shows that women's international organisations promoted inclusive ideas of rights, including women's particular experiences under military rule, and that such efforts built in the organisations' previous experiences of human rights activism.

A Transnational History of Left Feminism in Turkey (1974–1979): Relations and Exchanges between the IKD and the WIDF

This article presents a transnational history of left feminism in Turkey between 1974–1979 when international women’s movements gained momentum on a global scale with the designation of 1975 as International Women’s Year (IWY). With this article, my aim is to go beyond methodological nationalism in the established historiography on women’s movements in Turkey. I study in particular the local and international activities of the international activities of the Progressive Women’s Association (İlerici Kadınlar Derneği, IKD), the mass left-feminist organisation between 1975 and 1980 that engaged in left-wing women’s activism all around Turkey. I explore the bilateral relations, connections, exchange, interaction, and collaboration between the IKD and international women’s movements, particularly the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), which was a global coalition of women of the anti-fascist, pro-communist left. I use the term left feminism that, in my opinion, expands the definition of feminism by going beyond the liberal political goal of individual emancipation. Against the overarching premise that women’s agency cannot be actualised under state-socialism or within communist-socialist women’s organisations, my article shows the overlapping issues between communism and feminism as well as the diverse agendas that constitute history of feminism in twentieth-century Turkey from a transnational perspective.

Radicalizing Feminism: The Mexican and Cuban Associations within the Women's International Democratic Federation in the Early Cold War

AbstractThis article analyses the interactions between the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and its Mexican and Cuban national chapters and affiliated organizations. Focusing on the National Bloc of Revolutionary Women, the Democratic Union of Mexican Women, and the Democratic Federation of Cuban Women, this article studies the ideological foundations these organizations defended and the action programmes they used to materialize them. One of its main contributions is to argue that Mexican and Cuban socialist and communist women contributed to the struggle for women's emancipation within the Eastern Bloc through grass-roots contributions that did not simply emulate European communist organizations, but drew on, and were informed by, national contexts, material conditions, and historical backgrounds. The increasing number of requests, demands, and proposals emerging from Latin America, and more specifically from Mexico and Cuba, ultimately fostered a steady process of decentralization that broadened visions of women's progress within the global leftist feminist movement during the early Cold War.

Women's Rights and Global Socialism: Gendering Socialist Internationalism during the Cold War

AbstractThis Special Issue explores the complicated relationship between women's rights and global socialism during the Cold War. This Introduction describes how the articles deal with this relationship in three, partly overlapping, periods. The first set of articles looks at how the ethos of the Popular Front resonated among women's movements in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, and examines the connections between interwar anti-fascist and anti-imperialist feminisms and those that re-emerged after World War II. The second set of articles focuses on the role and development of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and its model of internationalism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China in the early Cold War. The final articles centre on the challenges faced by the WIDF from the 1960s, exploring issues such as the anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa, the Portuguese wars of decolonization, and the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985). Together with this process of decolonization, this Special Issue also examines how the consequences of postsocialism, in particular for women's rights (the loss of social rights, material security, and substantial challenges to reproductive freedoms), have triggered renewed debates about the history and legacies of communist women's liberation movements in the former socialist world.

Between National and International: Women's Transnational Activism in Twentieth-Century Chile

AbstractThis article explores the transnational dimension of women's mobilization in twentieth-century Chile and the connections they established with women's international non-governmental organizations, particularly the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). It sheds light on the political choices women made when forging transnational alliances to expand and make their activism more effective, together with the material and ideological dynamics that shaped their collaboration. The article analyses this topic by focusing on key but little-explored figures of women's activism in Chile – especially, but not solely, feminist academic Olga Poblete – and their personal communications with the leadership of women's organizations in the US and Europe. The article contends that, although both the WILPF and WIDF shared strengths and weaknesses in promoting their ideas and establishing links with activists in Chile, the alliances that Chilean women chose to pursue were mostly defined by their own political priorities and local contexts.

“The Call of the World”: Women's Memories of Global Socialist Feminism in India

AbstractThis article explores the juncture between historical time and space in the context of socialist feminism, primarily through the memoir of an Indian woman activist who spent four years in East Berlin as the Asian Secretary at the Women's International Democratic Federation. This primary source material is drawn from a longer history of Indian leftist women's participation in political mobilizations and organizational work, the literary tradition of travel writing, found especially in Bengal, and academic histories of socialist feminism.

The Women's International Democratic Federation, the Global South, and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the “Whole World?” By Yulia Gradskova. London: Routledge, 2021. 222 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $128.00, hard bound.

The Women's International Democratic Federation, the Global South, and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the “Whole World?” By Yulia Gradskova. London: Routledge, 2021. 222 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $128.00, hard bound. - Volume 81 Issue 2

Fanny Edelman and Jewish Argentine Antifascist Women, 1930–47

Fanny Edelman and Jewish Argentine Antifascist Women, 1930–47 Sandra McGee Deutsch (bio) Keywords Anti-fascism, Argentina, Jewish women, Latin America Fanny Edelman's Story illustrates the women of Jewish origins who were key players in Argentine as well as Uruguayan antifascism. As described largely in her autobiography, Banderas, pasiones, camaradas,1 Edelman's fascinating trajectory sheds light on the significant yet largely unexplored topic of Jewish women's participation in Latin American antifascist movements. It also suggests avenues for research. Fanny Edelman was born in 1911 in Argentina, the daughter of impoverished Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. She grew up in a secular socialist household that prized reading and learning. When Edelman finished primary school, she entered the labor force. The poverty around her, the Socialist and Communist events she attended, the progressive cultural circles in which she circulated, and her future husband's influence led her into the Communist Party in 1934. From the beginning, her Communism intertwined with antifascism. From 1930 to 1932, a military dictatorship brutally repressed union, anarchist, and Communist militants; expelled foreign-born leftists; and endorsed fascist groups. Successive fraudulently elected governments kept some of these policies and, in Edelman's view, increased Argentine dependency on Britain and the United States. Edelman defined fascism expansively to include imperialism, exploitation, authoritarianism, and antisemitism. During her earliest days in the party, she participated in what became known as the Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre, which defended liberal freedoms and helped political prisoners and their families. A Liga publicist and fundraiser, Edelman admired the bold women—many of them Jews—who took food and supplies to incarcerated militants and confronted prison officials. She also joined the Unión Argentina de Mujeres, whose main [End Page 517] goal was to fend off Nazi-like attempts to limit women's rights. Edelman helped usher women workers into this group's orbit. Imprisoned briefly for her Liga activities, the day she left jail in 1936 marked the start of Francisco Franco's uprising against the Spanish Republic. She connected the two in her mind: solidarity with political prisoners and the Spanish people lay at the heart of her identity. Edelman served as assistant secretary of the Comité Argentino de Mujeres Pro Huérfanos Españoles, a large women's organization providing clothing, shelter, and food for Republican children. In Spain she worked in Socorro Rojo, gathering provisions and garments for Republican troops and their families and manifesting, as she put it, her "profound love for the cause." When the Francoists took over, Edelman was back in Argentina, working from afar for Spanish political prisoners and refugees. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Edelman affiliated with the Junta de la Victoria (JV), a Popular Front movement that sent aid to the Allies, supported democracy at home, and advocated for women's rights. It was perhaps the largest and most diverse Argentine women's political organization until this time. The JV organized numerous chapters around the country; its members made garments and hospital supplies day and night. The military coup of 1943 drove the JV underground but could not halt its activities. The JV had mentored a sister organization, the Uruguayan Acción Femenina por la Victoria (AF). Clandestinely, the JV sent funds to AF so that the latter could continue to ship goods to the Allies. In her words, Edelman "worked without pause, without rest, in the Junta de la Victoria."2 As the JV faded by 1947, she transferred some of her energies to the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), founded by veterans of the French Resistance, which continues to labor for peace, antifascism, women's and children's welfare, and women's rights today. As WIDF secretary general, Edelman contested what she considered fascist: U.S. Cold War militarism and the Chilean dictatorship's (1973–90) human rights abuses. Edelman was far from the only Argentine woman of Jewish origins to take part in antifascism. Several others went to Spain; one of them became a captain in the Trotskyite militia. Many engaged in solidarity with local political prisoners and the Spanish Republic and joined the JV. In neighboring Uruguay, a Jewish women...

The Women's International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the "Whole World"? by Yulia Gradskova

The Women's International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the "Whole World"? by Yulia Gradskova

Women’s Internationalism and Yugoslav-Indian Connections: From the Non-Aligned Movement to the UN Decade for Women

AbstractThis article addresses women’s cross-border internationalist connections within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), focusing on the exchanges between women’s organizations in socialist Yugoslavia and the Global South during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as during the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985). As a result of the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), the main organization federating antifascist, communist, and socialist women, in 1949. To overcome international isolation, Yugoslav representatives established their own bilateral connections with women’s organizations internationally, particularly in the Global South. Throughout the Cold War, the main figure behind women’s internationalism in Yugoslavia was Vida Tomšič (1913–1998), a former partisan and leading politician, trained as a lawyer, who had a fundamental role both in nonaligned and UN settings. In this article, I further analyze Vida Tomšič’s visits to India, and examine her correspondence with Indian scholar and Women’s Studies pioneer Vina Mazumdar (1927–2013). The exchanges between Vina and Vida, as they amicably addressed each other, exemplify the significance of the alliance between activists from socialist countries and activists from the Global South during the UN Decade for Women.

Better than CD: Eugénie Cotton (1881-1967).

Aimé Cotton is known for his invention of circular dichroism spectroscopy. In 1913, he married Eugénie Feytis, a scientist who studied physics with Marie Curie. Following the Second World War, Eugénie Cotton was determined to advance the rights and standing of women, sure in the belief that doing so was necessary not only because it was just but also because a world with women in the forefront would be more secure and less susceptible to the catastrophe worldwide military conflict. She was a cofounder of the Women's International Democratic Federation and served as its first president. In 1951, she was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize, and in 1961, the gold medal from the World Peace Council. The extraordinary life of Eugénie Cotton is reconstructed in a new biography by Loukia Efthymiou, Eugénie Cotton (1881-1967) (Éditions Universitaires Européennes, 2019) that is reviewed here. Among the contributions of Eugénie Cotton of particular interest to the Chirality readership is the biography she wrote of her husband, Aimé Cotton, l'optique et magneto-optique (Éditions Seghers, 1967), the most complete source of information on the founder of the science of circular dichroism. This biography is also discussed here, thereby building two reviews of books, one new and one old, one about Eugénie Cotton and one by her, into a single essay.

‘The most important event in IWY’: Freda Brown and the World Congress for International Women’s Year

In a book for young adults on women who made Australian history, Australian political activist Freda Brown’s entry includes the passing note that ‘in 1975 Brown played a key role in Australia’s celebration of the United Nations International Women’s Year’. Until recently, there has been little acknowledgement of Brown’s work in the making and marking of 1975 as International Women’s Year, through her leadership of national and international women’s organisations. The decision taken by the United Nations to mark 1975 as International Women’s Year originated from the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), a 200-million-member organisation that Brown was to lead for many years. This article examines the 1975 Berlin Congress of Women, the event that Brown and WIDF organised to mark International Women’s Year, from an Australian perspective.

Peace and the Barrel of the Gun in the Internationalist Women’s Movement, 1945–49

Abstract In 1949, at a conference instigated by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) held in Beijing, China, the Asian Women’s Conference solidified an anticolonial, antifascist, and antiracist theory for organizing women transnationally. This transnational feminist praxis drew its movement demands and strategies from the masses of women in anticolonial movements, both rural and urban poor women. It also framed a two-fold theory of women’s organizing: it delineated one platform for women fighting imperialism within colonized countries, and another platform for women fighting imperialism within aggressor nations. This transnational feminism supported an explicitly pro-socialist vision for the future.

Women’s international Democratic Federation, the ‘Third World’ and the Global Cold War from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s

ABSTRACTThis article examines the work of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) with women from Africa, Asia and Latin America. It analyzes their role in the WIDF’s decision-making process and activities during a period marked by decolonization and the intensification of women’s rights activism outside Europe. This analysis contributes to a better understanding of the extent to which the WIDF’s official position on support for the rights of women in the Global South was translated into the practical work of organization. The article is based on materials from Moscow archives that have hitherto not been explored in research on the WIDF. It shows that, in spite of the WIDF’s formal anti-colonial stance, women from the Global South were not always given a voice or able to insert their demands into WIDF policy.

“So that life may triumph”: Communist Feminism and Realpolitik in Civil-War Greece

The prominence of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the arena of postwar international peace and gender politics is now established. This article focuses on the shifting trajectory of the WIDF’s Greek chapter, the Panhellenic Democratic Women’s Union (PDEG), as Greece slid from a precarious peace after liberation to a full scale civil war (1946–1949). The PDEG witnessed a dramatic transition from its role as umbrella organization for the mass women’s movement spawned by wartime antifascist resistance in Greece, to a vital support apparatus of the communist war effort, especially concerned with the plight of its ever-swelling female ranks. This article argues that the Greek chapter was far less of a “front” organization than a guardian of an increasingly endangered democratization agenda mobilized during the earlier resistance phase, which linked national political regeneration with women’s active participation in the nation.

Transnational militancy in Cold-War Europe: gender, human rights, and the WIDF during the Greek Civil War

This paper examines the involvement of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the politics of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). The article’s specific focus is on the organisation’s international campaigns for the end of state-sanctioned persecution of leftists, especially women, and the re-instatement of democracy in Greece, utilising the expanding human-rights system at the United Nations. It draws on selected WIDF and United Nations (UN) documents, in addition to primary and secondary materials relating to the cold war and the Greek Civil War.

From Communist Internationalism to Human Rights: Gender, Violence and International Law in the Women's International Democratic Federation Mission to North Korea, 1951

AbstractIn May 1951 the Women's International Democratic Federation – a communist-sponsored non-governmental organisation – sent an all-female international commission to investigate the war crimes and atrocities allegedly committed by United Nations forces against civilians during the military occupation of North Korea in late 1950. Communist internationalism has been relatively marginalised in the recent wave of scholarship on internationalism and international organisations. This article uses the Women's International Democratic Federation mission to Korea to analyse how the shifting relationship between communist internationalism, human rights and feminism played out in the ‘Third World’ during the early Cold War.

Opposing Colonialism: the Women's International Democratic Federation and decolonisation struggles in Vietnam and Algeria 1945–1965

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) was a major force in promoting anti-colonialism after 1945. The article traces how and why the WIDF came to support anti-colonialism from the mid-1940s to 1965. Part of the answer lies in the cosmopolitan vision and background of the membership of the WIDF that included increasing participation from nationalist and communist women from Asia and Africa. By sharing their views on colonial oppression the WIDF as a whole came to recognise the links between colonial oppression and women's oppression. Focusing on Vietnam and Algeria, this article analyses the strategies the WIDF used in its anti-colonial activism. One strategy was to document the effects of colonialism on the women of Asia and Africa and to publicise their experiences of ongoing colonial wars. A second WIDF strategy was to provide a platform for women from colonised countries to promote anti-colonialism through its congresses and appeals and by lobbying the United Nations (UN), especially in relation to the violation of UN conventions and principles. The article presents a new history of transnational anti-colonial activism.

From Hiroshima to Lausanne: the World Congress of Mothers and the Hahaoya Taikai in the 1950s

ABSTRACTThe World Congress of Mothers in Lausanne in 1955 brought together over 1000 women from more than sixty countries. The Congress was held under the auspices of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). In this article, the relationship between the World Congress of Mothers and the Japan Mothers' Congress (Nihon Hahaoya Taikai), which has met annually since 1955, is considered. This provides a suitable locus for exploring the dynamic interrelationships of local, national, international and global politics, especially from 1953, when women from Japan started to interact with the WIDF, until the late 1950s, by which time the Hahaoya Taikai meetings were well established there. Three stages are explored—preparations for the World Congress of Mothers in Lausanne by the WIDF and by delegates from Japan; the participation of the Japanese delegates in the World Congress in 1955, and the legacy of the Japanese delegates' participation in the Lausanne Congress. By focusing on these three stages in one country's interactions with an international organisation, we can gain a more complex understanding of the dynamics of transnational politics and the embeddedness of global politics in local contexts. Although common issues were often discussed in different places, discussions in each place were inflected by their local contexts. The positioning of a particular nation in the global geopolitics of the Cold War also affected the possibilities of participation by individuals in such international congresses.