Nuova DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Quaderni di studi internazionali sulla donna
Roma, Coines Edizioni, then Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1976-1985

Solidarity, Friendship, Love , 1979, n. 10-11

Editorial, pp. 3-5

This issue focuses upon the concept of solidarity among women, highlighting the different conceptions related both to inherited ideas pre-existing the feminist practices of the 60's and 70's, and to the multiple interpretations of the feminist political project. The political and strategical value of solidarity is underlined, as well as its emotional importance (which then permits the development of a political project). The analysis also tries to investigate whether and how the present crisis of the feminist movement can be linked to a diminished relevance of this political principle.

D'AMELIA Marina, Some reflexions on the "solidarity", pp. 6-24

There are differences in solidarity connected with sex if we compare women solidarity with all other kinds of solidarity we know? Which are the purposes of this solidarity? Beginning with these questions and in the framework of the hypothesis of an oppression's theory, that article tries to find and define new ways of analysis of women solidarity. Among the cultural and social models of interaction which have been historically imposed to women, the authors find more significant in order to individuate the characters of solidarity, those models of solidarity based on role's acceptance and on a concordance of finalised and inscribed aims. The author's thesis aim to underline the central role of emotional ties, of socialisation's experiences and of mother-daughter relation in the process of the formation of solidarity. Both cases show evident limits: lack of stability and of parity. Nevertheless it is important to consider these aspects of the question if we want to presume an hypothesis of sex solidarity, and, in according with the author, the appeal to prior solidarity models cannot have effective results.

SCHROM DYE Nancy, Difficult solidarity: feminism and class struggle in the New York Women's Trade Union League (1903-1914), pp. 26-46

The Women's Trade Union League was founded in New York in 1903 by a group of working-class and bourgeois women with the double aim of awakening unionist conscience in American working women and to render them politically aware of the problems linked to woman's condition. The League's principal idea, however, was to build solidarity between women on the basis of common sexual oppression, overcoming differences of class and ideological orientation. To all events, even though WTUL activists within the association tried to organize themselves in a non hierarchical structure, they soon discovered that it was much easier to make verbal declarations of solidarity than to put this principle into practice. In fact WTUL women didn't always contrive to reconcile their trade unionism with an interclass feminist position; faith in female solidarity was often inconsistent with class solidarity. The conflict between these two political options deeply left its mark on the lives of many activists, no matter what their class origins: some managed to establish something more than an indeterminate solidarity, through a privileged relationship with another woman, and the creation of emotional ties by means of which the ideological and political contrasts which sometimes divided them were overcome.

BIADENE Giovanna, Friendship and solidarity: the "La Donna" group. (1870-1880), pp. 48-78

The author looks at ten years in the life of the most important Italian women's daily, "La Donna", founded by women, written by women. As she studies the theoretical articles, the correspondence columns of the paper, and especially the writings of its director G.A. Beccari, the author makes clear the thinking of Italian feminism on friendship and feminine solidarity. The contributors to the paper did not work within any structured organisation, perhaps they did not even know one another personally, but they recognised they were part of a common struggle, and that solidarity consisted rather in adherence to a common model of emancipation, to the idea of making a "new woman" than in any particular way of life. Differences between them were not related to general ideological positions, but rather to the degree of agreement on the problem of women's emancipation.

DI CORI Paola, Solidarity within catholic feminist organisation, from Giolitti to Fascism, pp. 80-124

The article traces, through the origins and formation of the Catholic feminist organisations, the building of a movement which opposed Italian feminism in the years after the first world war, a movement whose ideas on the nature and duties of women were dominant in Italy from fascist times up to the sixties. The article begins with a description of the formation, in the second half of the nineteenth century, of a network of historical memories of the oppression of women, and goes on to the debates on the sentiments of women, considered to be an important element in feminine solidarity. With the birth of the catholic organisations, in particular Gioventù Femminile (whose theories and initiatives are analysed) alongside the rise of fascism, the basis is laid for destroying women's control over the theoretical patrimony of their own history, and for promoting a feminine ideology opposed to any solidarity centred on emancipation. The Catholics chose woman's private sphere as the area for politicisation, and they succeeded in exercising strong social, psychological and moral pressures in the personal and private areas of everyday life. The result was the creation of forms of feminine solidarity which were anti-emancipation and self-defensive.

DE GIORGIO Michela, The times and methods of "sentimental education" in the Italian Feminine Catholic Youth Movement, pp. 126-145

The article tells, in its analysis of the literature sent out to members, how the catholic Gioventù Femminile affected Italian society, at a time when the memory of feminism was still alive. The aim of this organisation, founded in Milan in 1918 as a branch of Catholic Action, was to reconstruct a social image of woman which would then become the national image. There was certainly comfortable co-existence with and acceptance of fascism to guarantee political space for this operation, but what was new and very important was the weight given in this new "sentimental education" to the ancient virtues of women. The formalising of women's sentiments, open hostility to any form of intellectual emancipation for women, education towards their "detachment" from politics, were all stages in the campaign of the Gioventù Femminile. While maintaining that it stood "outside" politics, the Gioventù Femminile in fact played its own quite special political role.

SMITH-ROSENBERG Carrol, A female world of ritual and love: relations between women in 19th century America, pp. 146-172

The article deals with an aspect which has been much neglected by historiography: the sentiment of love and friendship between women. The study of this phenomenon, particularly evident between the end of the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, opens up several problems of historiographical methodology; up to now studies in this field have indeed been carried out in the light of freudian theories of libido and homosexuality. The author, on the other side, tries to analyse love and friendship relations between women by studying family structure and the web of relations women built outside of it. According to the author, friendship between women can't be understood if its protagonists are isolated from the sociocultural context in which they lived, a context which also explains the social and cultural nature of their relations. The essay begins by analysing the correspondence of upper-class women belonging to more or less thirty-five American families, over a period going from 1760 to 1880. The examined letters and diaries uncover a world of intense, not necessarily physical, love relations between women, and of deep ties, of which prominent is the one between mother and daughter, central to the life of every author of the correspondence. The picture which is traced highlights a solid structure of affective solidarity between women, displaying different expressions and forms, and made possible, in terms such as those of the period here considered, by the strict separation of sexes prevailing at the time.

CALEFATO Patrizia, After "unhappiness": reconstructing a route, pp. 174-179

The author traces the different meaning of the term "solidarity" through the years, in the different phases and practices of feminism. The landing point, after having abandoned the duties of egalitarian solidarity, implies the appreciation of differences and nuances, beyond schematisms. She briefly analyses how feminist practice recognized and refused power, unveiling it as seduction; now "a precise criticism must be made of the forms power assumes, reconstructing them as they turn out in the space offered by knowledge, politics and the body".

STADERINI Michi, Understanding oneself, the other, history…, pp. 180-181

She underlines the probematic nature of such terms as "solidarity", "women", "history"; all of them need a process of refoundation.

OLMI Alessandra - GALLEGATI FABERI Daniela, (for women's coordination of the Movimento Federativo Democratico [Democratic Federative Movement]), From the lyrics of difference to the epics of diversity, pp. 182-186

The female identity conquered within the women's movement is revealed as an obstacle within the neo-capitalist system. Solidarity between women cannot exist if it claims to supersede class conflicts - there is a female side to the process of human liberation. Female solidarity today means resisting the system's tendencies to erase differences, to separate women; it means the ability to connect, to create a movement, to enter the scene together.

BUTTAFUOCO Annarita, Home based work and gender: fieldwork material, pp. 187-210

An account is given of a research undertaken at the Magistero Faculty in the University of Arezzo, as part of a seminar on "Woman's condition and capitalist society" in the academic years 1976/77 and 1977/78; different departments took part in it, some from "academically" distant disciplines. Topics focussed in the course of the research are problems of method, the female students' attitude, questioning the lecturer's role, and changes occurred during the research. Following are the (partial) texts of the interviews with home based workers. Materials were gathered by Nicla Boncompagni, Brunella Bertocci, Dea Innocenti, Teresa Tommasi, Daniela Gambini, Loretta Fabbri, Edi Pucci, Daniela Minici.

CAMBONI Marina, Women, poetry, culture: an interview with Adrienne Rich, pp. 211-220

Preceding the interview is a short biography of the American feminist poet, information on her education and on the work published up to now. The interview deals with the issues of the rise of a language apt to express female experience, of heterosexuality and lesbianism, of the work to be done in order to produce a permanent cultural change through women's contributions, of the overcoming of male as well as of feminist stereotypes, of the function of form in poetic communication, of the identification of a female tradition in poetry.

"Help!". An editorial of "Effe", pp. 221-223

Reproduction of an appeal of the feminist review "Effe", in serious trouble after six years, for both economic and political reasons which the appeal clarifies.