This year 2021, the Frankfurt based Frauen*streik Bündnis¹ (Women*’s Strike Alliance) renamed themselves into Feministisches Streikkollektiv (Feminist Strike Collective). I translate their reasons below. The original text can be found here.
After a long discussion and internal, as well as external, suggestions, we, the Feminist Strike Collective Frankfurt am Main — formerly the Women*’s Strike Alliance Frankfurt (F*Streik) — have decided to change our name. We have dealt with the question of whether we see ourselves as an alliance or as a group. Many activists never got to know the F*Streik as a classic alliance and from the beginning perceived it as a group in which we — as individuals, some of whom are still active in other contexts — come together. In addition, our way of working became increasingly binding and permanent. Also as a group we continue to locate ourselves as part of the national and global feminist strike movement on 8 March and beyond. Our Feminism is anti-capitalist, ecologist, anti-racist and opposes all anti-Semitism. A core task for us is to continue to network diversely, to bring together struggles with (queer) feminist / women*’s groups, organisations and institutions also outside the scene and to bring our perspective into alliances. We want to use this exchange to recognise the interconnectedness of the struggles, to tackle them together and to critically question our self-understanding again and again.
We have dealt with the terms “woman*”, “FLINT*”² and “feminist”. We understand the term “woman*” as a political category that illustrates the existing binary logic of patriarchy, but that also runs the risk of reproducing it. The misunderstanding in its use has encouraged us to give ourselves a more open and less ambivalent name. Although we continue to use the asterisk when we talk about women*: not to indicate that this term is suddenly capable of including all people who do not identify themselves as cis-masculine; but to cause irritation every time the term is read instead of being used as a matter of course, and to indicate that women* and femininities*[Weiblichkeiten*] are also diverse. In the future, we want to discuss again and again in our Praxis³ and decide situationally, which term at which point is as inclusive and at the same time as precise as possible. As a feminist strike collective, it is central for us that we do not uphold an identitarian category of “woman”, and that our struggle against patriarchy should include all who are affected by its violence and aim at a feminist and solidarity-based Praxis.
The term “collective” makes our understanding of the group clear. For us, collectivity means being together and in solidarity with each other: The feminist strike collective is an open space for differences and respectful discussion, in the knowledge that thinking and planning can only be realised in joint organising. We want to be a participatory and grassroots collective [partizipatives und basisdemokratisches Kollektiv] that encourages feminist and political strikes, and that promotes activist feminist politics in Frankfurt cooperating and networking on March 8th and beyond. We see ourselves as part of the international, feminist strike movement that questions patriarchal, capitalist and racist relations and fights them every day.
- The * is widely used in German LGBT and (queer-)feminist circles and intents to vehiculate the meaning of the variety of gender/sexual experiences of a given group.
- FLINT*, in German, stands for Frauen*Lesben*Inter*Nicht-Binär*Trans* ie. Women*Lesbians*Intersexed*Non-Binary*Trans*
- While “Praxis” could be translated simply as “practice” (as opposed to theory), I took the decision to keep the word to give it a broader political/philosophical meaning as it seems to be intended by the original text.
