Feminist Solidarity: Practices, Politics and Possibilities

Feminist solidarity is a way of being that is embedded in cultural traditions and movements that resist women's socio-economic inequalities and patriarchal power. It unites women in, inter alia, a refusal to accept the ongoing prevalence of sexism and misogyny; the exploitation of women's labor, emotions, and bodies; physical and financial violence toward women; inequalities of work opportunities and entrenched gender pay disparities. Feminist solidarity is thus a form of organizing, which envisages a shared responsibility for the lives of others, working with care and intimacy, and toward social transformations that are made possible through “democratic engagement” (Segal, 2017, p. 228). It builds resistance across intersectional borders and often manifests when traditional avenues for resistance have become blocked. It emerges from the capacity to affect and be affected, through care, compassion, and empathy with and for others and as a means to engender allyship. Historically, the role of solidarity in feminist activism and practice has been contested yet never waning, with scholars and activists noting the numerous cases where solidarity and resistance have brought women together despite their differences across race, sexuality, as well as political and socio-economic positions (Segal, 2013). It has, however, also been suggested that feminist activism has been disciplined, institutionalized, and intellectualized such that it no longer offers the necessary radical response to ongoing issues of injustice (Messer-Davidow, 2002; Walby, 2011). Therefore, in this Gender, Work and Organization special issue, we ask: How can we organize for and with feminist solidarity?