THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE CONCEPTS OF WOMEN´S SOLIDARITY AND WOMEN´S RELATIONSHIPS Solidarity among Women The goal of this project is the strengthening of political solidarity while, at the same time, acknowledging differences among women. A FEMINIST VIDEO PROJECT VIDEO 1 Eva Eckert, Sabine Marte, Gabriele Marth, Dagmar Fink, Tina Leisch, Helene Graf, Karin Hirschmüller, Gaby Seel, Olga Stefaniok, Ines Doujak, Gabriele Bargehr VIDEO 2 Franziska Schultz, Madeleine Bernstorff recommended by Hedwig Saxenhuber, INTAKT / Linda Christanell, Eva Eckert, Michaela Muhr, Gabriele Marth, Sharon Horodi recommended by Adi Rosenblum, Feministische Mädchenschule Virginia Woolf, Jane Heiß, Birgit Köster / Dorothee Plaß recommended by Ingrid Strobl, Tina Leisch / Gerda Klingenböck / Frauen der Lagergemeinschaft Ravensbrück recommended by Franziska Schultz, Fiona Rukschcio / Meike Schmidt-Gleim / Wally Salner, Judith Fischer / Amelie Cserer / Désirée Palmen, Hedwig Saxenhuber, Ricarda Denzer, Mikki Muhr, Tahereh Seren-Salem, Anastasia Posadskaya - Vanderbeck / Barbara Engel VIDEO 3 Klub Zwei (Simone Bader, Jo Schmeiser) Dee Dee Halleck VIDEO 4 Antke Engel, Ewjenia Tsanana, Ruth Noack VIDEO 5 Elisabeth Löffler, Bernadette Dewald, Saniye Akkilic, Klaudia Gruber DOCUMENTATION 1 Jane Heiß DOCUMENTATION 2 Helga Hofbauer DOCUMENTATION 3 Eva Eckert THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE CONCEPTS OF WOMEN´S SOLIDARITY AND WOMEN´S RELATIONSHIPS Dedication D.H. "Experience may also be re-constructed, re-membered, re-articulated." The identity-creating concept of women´s solidarity of the first years of the autonomous women´s movement was developed in analogy to the workers solidarity and, at the same time, as a concept to fight it. The autonomous women´s movement was united in the conviction, that the discrimination of the gender of it´s members was more than just a partial aspect of class struggle. It put sexism in the center of it´s reflections. Thus, women from all walks of of life were able to consider themselves to be on equal footing which, in turn, made joint actions possible. At the same time, the concept of women´s solidarity was strongly criticized from the very beginning, and the attempt to focus the interests of women from various strata of society and - of different life styles was regarded with scepticism. The lesbian women advanced the discussion with the question whether women, who privately stuck to their relationships with men, were capable at all to join in acts of women´s solidarity. In the early eighties, the feministic "We" in the United States was attacked by coloured women who maintained that this "We" had always been white (heterosexual and middle-class). It was criticized that the differences between women and the various forms of oppression different women are subjected to in various ways were not given due consideration. Many women began to doubt the function of "identity categories" as a basis for a political feminist movement since "identity categories" never have a merely descriptive, but invariably also a normative and thus exclusive character. This has also led to the question whether it is meaningful if theories of difference fragment and seperate us in practice and whether we are only "equal" in the sense that we are incapable of imaging radical social changes.* In an existing order in which women are fixated on relationships with men - on heterosexuality in a broad sense - and therefore are isolated from each other, relationships between women, which can be characterized as having priority, beeing gratifying, liberating and valuable, represent a massive, because fundamental, threat to the patriachal symbolic order, nor are they evaluated or dealt with, and if at all, than depreciatively. I therefore consider it to be important to make them the subject of theoretical considerations and to uncover their order-busting (revolutionary) function. Women´s solidarity is a value which is almost entirely presented by women only; furthermore it is an ability (strenght) which must be permanently enhanced. In contrast to other concepts as for instance "freedom" political solidarity among women must always deal with the question of practical experience. As if this notion were not primarily the idea of common goals or desires which can be immediately destroyed in principle by experience of lacking solidarity. How could it happen that this central dimension of orientation of feminist dialogues were discredited in such a way? As middle-class, not realisable feminist dream of power (even moralistic) with no potential of change? Is there something like the "We", the "We" that means to be necessary to accomplish political agency? Teresa de Lauretis considers that the attempt of feminism to represent itself comprises two simultaneous stimuli: an erotic one, maintaining a. o. rebellion, difference, subversion, agency negating representations of powerlessness, victimisation, passivity, femininity and another one, being ethical, dealing with sisterhood, coalition, common responsibility and common activity. Could we define such a "We" which without negating differences understands them as "source of power" (Audre Lorde)? A "We" that via understanding differences can achieve common strategies, ideas and goals? Women need not eliminate their being different in order to feel solidarity.