Academic Selda Tuncer, author of “Women and Public Space in Turkey Gender, Modernity and the Urban Experience,” has written on sisterhood, one of the fundamental ideas of the feminist movement.
Selda Tuncer* / Amargi Magazine
For a feminist today, sisterhood is perhaps one of the most challenging concepts to write about. On the one hand, it is an indispensable concept for all of us since it constitutes the source of women’s solidarity, which is one of the most fundamental ideas on which the feminist movement is grounded. Still, on the other hand, sisterhood is an issue that we cannot fully embrace and even escape from because we do not know what to do or how to deal with the difficulties of putting this idea into practice.
It’s like a ball of fire in our hands; we move it hand to hand, from one to the other. But it is not clear who burns more, the one who touches or stays outside?
Elif Şafak referred to the concept of sisterhood as a circle in a column she wrote for the 8th of March. When you think about it like that, it doesn’t seem like a bad metaphor at all. Of course, she first used it positively and thought of this circle as bringing women closer together and connecting them. In other words, she saw women possessing a circle of love and trust (?) that surrounds them. However, I think that if sisterhood had been a circle, at the most, it could only be drawn for what it includes, leaves out, and takes as much as it gives.
So, exactly what is it that we call this sisterhood? How is it woven with such intense and complex meanings and emotions? Is it something that binds women, holds them together? But then, how did it accumulate so much distrust and disappointment? What kind of historical experience and memory is it based on that even when we talk about the possibility of such a strong notion that provides liberation and solidarity among and for women, its impossibility immediately comes to mind?
When we look at it today, we can easily say that the idea of sisterhood is not very popular. Especially many young women see it as a beautiful but very naive and old-fashioned idiom. It seems like it belonged to those good times, once the golden age of the feminist movement, and has now lost its validity. In fact, it appears that there is a lack of enthusiasm to use it because it reminds us of the mistakes and shortcomings of the early period. But still, we can’t give up on the idea of sisterhood or what it means…
No matter how much we run away, even if we don’t want to mention its name, the spirit of the word overtakes us and falls into our hearts as a beautiful possibility. Like a dream circling around us, the ghost of sisterhood opens the door to women’s solidarity and gives a soul to feminism…
I would like to start with a few words about my own story in tracing this ghost that haunts us. To tell the truth, an issue on sisterhood had been on my mind. After reading and listening to the history of the women’s movement and with my own experiences, I was thinking of questioning and discussing this issue with my feminist friends in the context of the possibility of women’s solidarity while pursuing feminist politics. Frankly, we can say that this article is the result of heated kitchen conversations between several feminists.
In the conversations that progressed on theoretical, political and sometimes emotional grounds, we realized that we do not think much apart from each other on this issue. Maybe this is related to a partnership and a common area that comes from being women of the same generation. Somehow we all agreed that it is essential to reconsider and discuss the issue of sisterhood. Maybe we didn’t like this concept, or instead, we didn’t feel very close, but unfortunately, we didn’t have a solid idea to replace it. And despite everything, we believed in the spirit it carried, and the ghost of the sisterhood was with us there in that kitchen, among the women.
However, I think the main story – at least for me – started when I went to the desk to write after all these conversations and when I stayed by myself. As in every writing process, while I was in pain about how to tell rather than what, I was going through the discussions we had. And suddenly, I realized with surprise that the word sisterhood has never entered my life properly because it has not made a place for me as an experience. That is to say; I do not remember calling any of my close female friends my sister, or seeing my feminist comrades with whom I entered the feminist struggle as sisters or approaching them with such a feeling. In other words, when I look at it in general, I have somehow never established a relationship with women based on sisterhood. At least, it is possible to say that this word did not manifest in my mind in response to the feeling I had. When I realized this, I inevitably asked the following question: Then why am I thinking so much about sisterhood? Why am I trying to write about it? Don’t you think it’s weird that something you believe in and get excited about is so outside of you?
Although it seems very simple, I think this question sums up the whole issue I have been trying to explain since the beginning of the article very well. You know, there comes a moment for you to notice and express what you know and feel in some way, not a great enlightenment, but a moment when the picture seems more apparent to you, the moments of manifestation… It happened, especially when I was tracing the specter of the sisterhood.
It is not possible to give an obvious answer to why my relationship with the concept of sisterhood is like this. But I believe that somehow this is not a particular case for me; it has to do with the issue of being women of the same generation that I mentioned at the beginning of the article. Considering young feminists in many organizations and events are between the ages of 18-25, I guess I can only be considered a middle generation feminist, somewhere in between.
The middle generation is still under the influence of the previous one, which somehow carries and wants to maintain the enthusiasm and belief of the feminists of that period, but at the same time seeks to develop a different policy with the knowledge and practices of the new period.
I think it is essential and somewhat necessary for us feminists to read this situation positively regarding the possibility of women’s solidarity while making feminist policy. As any woman involved in feminist politics will more or less know, putting this into practice is not easy at all. Especially when women of different ages and experiences come together and make politics, it is very troublesome and brings many difficulties. But precisely for this reason, since it is so difficult to realize, it is necessary to evaluate every possibility as an opportunity and read it positively.
This issue is very closely related to the sisterhood debate. Because sisterhood goes beyond belonging to a particular place and time, especially today and now, it expresses a comprehensive meaning that includes different knowledge and experiences spanning long processes. If we can still talk about a sisterhood spirit that is still so strong and influential, we owe it to all this accumulation.
In order for this to be a meaningful whole and to have an empowering function for women’s solidarity, a reciprocal relationship has to be established, and there has to be a continuity between these different experiences and examples. In this sense, intergenerational transmission and communication offer a significant opportunity to ensure this togetherness. Because only in this way can we establish a meaningful connection with the past and what is left behind, and thus we can feel a sense of belonging to the whole which we are a part of and gain strength from it.
*Selda Tuncer is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Van Yuzuncu Yil University, Turkey
This article was published in Amargi Magazine in 2012 and shortened by the editor for the English version. See the full article here.