whatever happened to female solidarity?

[foreverastudent]

I may stand to be corrected but I get the impression that feminism/feminists in the 1970s were more cohesive than today.

People within the women's liberation movement (and women in general)appeared to be largely in agreement over the big issues of the day eg equal pay, equal education, ending of domestic vilence etc.

Looking at feminism/feminists/women now we, as a group, seem to be much more disparate. Did patriarchy 'divide and conquer'?

Sometimes I get when I have a conversation with an intelligent, but not self-defining as 'feminist', woman when they say things that I must be naive to assume most women agree on eg 'it's not a woman's fault she is low paid' or 'the state should help women who've been raped/abused'.

So, is a hope that we can return to (or originate) a spirit of female solidarity a pipe dream or something we should be actively working towards?

Now you're torn it Alice - mentioning Feminism 101.

Thanks - it is the Equality Illusion. :)

I think the thing is, if we're not physically getting together (although a few will at the conference), and we're not part of a big online movement (but are far more scattered) it's not surprising if there's not much dissent. Because firstly what else have we got to unite us except our beliefs? And secondly if we do disagree with each other there's always ready to seize upon it with an "aha, see this feminist disagrees SO YOU ARE WRONG" or "what happened to the sisterhood?".

there's always somebody* ready

god I am really really shit at typing tonight. I'm sure you can untangle my nonsense somehow.

Believe me I am ducking

I don't mean on here, I mean in the movement in general. This place I actually find more diverse and engaging than many. What I ean is that most of the recent books tend to cover similar ground from a similar perspective, and most discussion (in general, outside of MN too) tends to focus on similar things. But I totally see why - the movement is reasserting itself after a slower period. I'm sure it will change.

Interestingly (and off-topically), this one did make me think more

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/16/one-dimensional-woman-natalie-hanman

(And rather neatly that's just what the reviewer sums up with)

One Dimensional Woman

There most certainly is female solidarity.....as long as you stick to your tribe. Liberal fems with liberal fems rads with rads, socialists with socialists and po-mo fems with ....ah; never mind

Thus has it always been. There was no golden era.