To the suffragettes, in the middle of the 19th century, they insulted them. Questioning the rights granted to women represented also questioning the socioeconomic order, as well as the moral and cultural premises installed at the time. The patriarchal discourse tried to silence them with threats and disqualifications: vague women, women who hated men, extremists, destroyers of morality (old brujas). His pretensions were radical, unthinkable. What do you sweat us for?. We could add more modern terms: resentful, Hembrist or feminazi. Fortunately, we can also add Sororidad.
Is it Feminism or S-Feminism? Are there as many feminisms as realities?
Collectivities bring to this debate a diversity of interests, multiple exclusions, and intersecting inequalities. Black and female, indigenous and female, fat and female, white and female, poor and female, Latina and female, lesbian and female, transsexual and female. And many more.
Quite a mismatch that can only explain the heteropatriarchy of which we have all had the occasional sip. This is why feminism is not a journey with a destination to reach. It is going through daily learning, and the curiosity to understand what is happening around us. More than militancy is attitude.
Interest in feminism has been revolutionary in recent years. New concepts and appreciations arise that we continually listen to and incorporate into our language and behavior. Among the most useful: sorority.
Why do we need a pact of good conduct between women?
The Sororidad term was accepted by the RAE in December 2018 as a result of the debate on gender equality.
«It refers to the sisterhood among women with respect to the social questions of gender. Sororidad is a term derived from the Latin soror which means sister. It is a neologism used to mention the solidarity that exists among women, especially in patriarchal societies».
The arguments to reject the sorority also form part of the analysis on feminisms and gender equality. The sororities are also confusing.
What is not sorority?
Twitter, was the scene of a discussion about the origin of the term and its impact. Carolina Sanín Colombian writer and columnist referred to the patriarchal logic that supports the term sorority. “Too often it serves so that some women, constituting themselves patriarchally in the majority according to convenience, urge others to control themselves and not oppose other women,” writes Sanín. “We women could try to be free to admire each other and also free to consciously criticize each other.”
The debate that this argument provoked at the beginning of the year 2021 on twitter, exposed multiple observations about sorority; and it is just a sample of the controversy it brings. It could be about sisterhood, as well as about feminism. While for some it is giving up the freedom to oppose other women, for others it is not exactly like that. Sorority does not exclude contradictions, nor does it limit the opinions between them. It does not mutilate, nor does it take away opportunities. What it does do is question the articulation of a patriarchal morality that leaves us at a disadvantage compared to men.
«IT COULD BE ABOUT SORORITIES AS WELL AS FEMINISM»
In the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, women have naturalized the judgment of others, physical pain and the sacrifice of their own time for that of the family. Unsupportive expressions in everyday life arise in familiar and close environments.
Are you already married?
Do you have children, why don’t you have them? you miss the rice
You’re fat/ you’re skinny
This job is not for you. Who does the housework?
You like women?. we can’t be friends
Look how you dress. It seems…
The children belong to the women
Did you get pregnant? Don’t you use protection?
What do you say about abortion?
The men are from the street, the women from the house
Nothing worse than a female boss, than a female gynecologist, than a mother-in-law.
Is sorority the subject of campaigns? Does it exclude everyday life?
An interesting feature of this concept is that it values the collectivity of gender.
The conflict of one is that of all, it escapes individualities. #MeToo #miracomonosponemos, #heforshe, #nomorematildas are examples of campaigns driven in some way by a feeling of sisterhood. Strategies at last to make visible the contexts of inequality.
Catalina Ruiz-Navarro, journalist and writer also known as @catalinapordios explains that “it is important not to confuse sisterhood with blind support among women.” “Sorority does not suggest that we have to be best friends or that we all like each other.” “It is understanding that we are part of a system that in some way has screwed each of us and that we are going to join forces to face it.”
In masculinized sectors such as science and technology, sisterhood is a success factor. It is about naturalizing the public recognition of the results, the training and the accompaniment of young researchers. The support network, the tribe that supports when necessary.
But before regularizing the term, including it in the dictionary and assuming it as part of the feminist discourse, sorority actions were already being put into practice. @malasmadres, @lasviejasverdes, @verozco, @mujeresenlaculturacanarias, @psicowoman, @lapistoladeMoník; something like cyber sorority now that we live digitally. All these experiences have arisen from personal concerns expressed to the community through social networks. As a consequence, communities, tribes, support networks and voices with the same concerns have multiplied.
“WHAT IS NOT SISTERHOOD?”
Claudio Pelaez, a Cuban audiovisual producer, referred to the video clip Pecados de Picasso, a song by the Cuban artist CuCu Diamantes. The work directed by him «represents an exaltation of sorority». Pelaez told IPS Cuba that “most of the work team were women, that marks the video from the moment of pre-production. CuCu was very clear about what she wanted to do and I did nothing but collaborate so that this idea was well portrayed, from the staging to the photography».
“This is a video that audiences will be able to attribute many meanings to each image and sequence. We do not bet on a literal representation of sorority: rather we capture images that travel of an empowered woman with her brush or pen, acts that at some point were heresy, even the tenderness of a mother… And then all these together become a story that has no end.”
Zaida Capote-Cruz, PhD in Philological Sciences from the University of Havana, and specialist in Women’s Studies from El Colegio de México; refers to feminist activism, and its personal and social connotation. He mentions in a recent publication, Academic activism in Cuba: tradition, practice and testimony*, the definition given by the RAE as militancy in a social movement, trade union organization or political party.
“However, we should also recognize the proven existence of an activism, let’s say, by the free: that of those who assume a cause as a reason for life and even in solitude defend it with constancy and without fainting.”
«Feminist activism has, then, some points of contact with the preceding definitions, but it moves in a much broader spectrum, which, in my opinion, goes from the intimate to the social, uses strategies to penetrate public opinion more or less vigorous, but insistent, yes, and it is often carried out through channels as unexpected and seemingly insignificant as interpersonal relationships.
And it is precisely in interpersonal relationships that sorority rests. In that daily space where we interact and can exercise solidarity with the other. Sorority is a wonderful opportunity to learn to respect another woman’s decision as much as I want them to respect mine. It is diverse and plural, it is not just one, there are many Sororities.
“You don’t change the world by taking off a corset or stopping painting your nails, or giving up motherhood, or having an abortion, or renouncing compulsory heterosexuality; but something changes. In short, I wanted to point out how feminist activism seems to be built with everything that works, be it a little or a lot, and can even be invisible to the majority.
Photography: Free images. Pixabay.com / YouTube
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