ABSTRACT
Divisions between women constitute both the theoretical and the political contradictions of feminism. If we are to avoid becoming trapped into contradictory strategies by our contradictory interests, then feminist politics has somehow to take these contradictions into account, and to offer some hope of resolution. This task is so daunting that it tends to be dealt with piecemeal and pragmatically. Around the world, and in many different ways, groups of women get on with what they see as the most immediate job at hand. This may be helping to set up a women's refuge, deciding to leave a violent husband, confronting a rapacious landlord alongside male peasants, defying apartheid, initiating a network, learning to read, setting up women's health groups, campaigning for more women politicians and engineers, fighting for a clean water supply, challenging sexism in a trade union, starting a women's co-operative, claiming land rights, picketing sex shops, or many, many other struggles. These diverse practical strategies have achieved many improvements in the quality of women's lives, and indeed have saved many women's lives, but they are improvements which can leave the divisions between women largely untouched.
