Considering Goettingen's Radical Left Groups As a Laboratory for Gender Equality : The Creation of Feminist “Safe” Spaces

In reaction to the development of public policies for gender equality in the EU several counter-movements arose to defend traditional gender roles (i.e. campaigns against “THE gender theory” in France or Germany). This could suggest that gender politics depend mainly on the balance between “progressives” and “conservatives” forces. I take a different stand, arguing that this opposition does not allow us to understand completely what is at stake in gender politics : even among conservatives some women can find possibilities of empowerment (Blee, 2012) and sexist behaviours are observed in progressive organizations (Fillieule&Roux, 2009). I will focus on this contradiction between theory and practice in German radical left groups.

Based on field research (interviews, participant observation and archives), I focuses on “safe” spaces (cafés, parties) that feminists try to create in the relatively closed community of the radical left of Goettingen. Given that all the activists declare themselves as antisexist, I consider Goettingen as a laboratory in which feminists have the best conditions to renegotiate gender relations and to create “safe” spaces for women and transgender people. I will show that if they did not exit gender relations, they negotiate with the gender constraints to create possibilities of empowerment – what Butler (1990) calls “agency”. I argue that the latter concept might be the best to analyse gender relations insofar as it takes into account both oppressions and possibilities of empowerment. Thus it can help to understand the dynamics of the readjustment of gender relations for the implementation of public policies.