Sisterhood in Movement: Feminist Solidarity in France and the United States

A poignant letter was published several years ago in off our backs: a young woman, Amy Johnson, tells of her quest to break the isolation of living in what she referred to as her ultraconservative, sexist hometown. She goes to college and makes it to a Women’s Studies department, only to be taught that the bonds of sisterhood she sought were illusory because “women” don’t exist, and the notion of sisterhood is retrograde. How can we, as feminists, respond to her sense of isolation and demobilization? How can we build and maintain a social movement without our sense of connection to, and belief in, one another?