ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, violence against women became a central topic in feminist circles. In West Germany, to create awareness for and mobilise against gender-based violence, feminist activists set up a range of local projects and national campaigns, including advice centres, women’s shelters, self-defence courses, petitions, and creative street protests. While feminists across the political spectrum condemned violence against women and girls, the question of how broadly violence had to be defi ned to tackle visible and invisible forms of abuse was the subject of vivid debate in the New Women’s Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The development of the German women’s movement was, as Ute Gerhard highlights, no “continuous process,” but “a history of repeated setbacks, stagnation and of many new beginnings under constantly changing social and political circumstances” ( 2008, 191 ). The term “New Women’s Movement” indicates that the feminist groups and networks
ABSTRACT The Red Zora was formed in the mid-1970s as a subgroup within the militant leftist network Revolutionary Cells. Like other militant leftist groups in West Germany, the Red Zora deemed the use of physical force against property, and in some cases people, to be a necessary part of national and international political interventions. But the group had a radical feminist philosophy. Between 1977 and 1995, the Red Zora carried out dozens of attacks with an explicitly feminist agenda. This paper gives a brief overview of the activities of the Red Zora and of feminist responses to the group. Against the background of Germany’s fascist past and political violence in the FRG, feminist activists in Germany were understandably reluctant to discuss ideas and activities that could associate the women’s movement with left-wing “terrorism.” This article shows that “Hollaback!,” #aufschrei and other recent campaigns by feminist activists in Germany have reinforced rather than challenged the feminist silence on the Red Zora. While German feminists have only begun to document the history of the group, activists in other countries show that one does not have to agree with the tactics of the Red Zora to productively engage with the activities of this group.
