Collective reading group departing from “The Social Basis of the Woman Question” by Alexandra Kollontai.
In 1909 Alexandra Kollontai proclaimed in “The Social Basis of the Woman Question” that a single united women’s movement is not possible in a society that is based on class contradictions. In this book, she analyses how the “liberation of women” is understood differently depending on the class position: while bourgeois feminists see men as the main enemy who has unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, working-class women think of men as their comrades in the struggle against capitalist exploitation.‍
Kollontai distances herself from the feminist movement which in her words has not contributed to the improvement of material conditions of the proletarian women – positive changes in their living standards have been achieved by the workers’ movement rather than the feminists. Thus, she argues, when feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle based on gender solidarity, women of the working class are distrustful because the basis of patriarchy is capitalism.‍
We invite you to engage with excerpts from “The Social Basis of the Woman Question” in a collective reading group and to explore Kollontai's relevance for intersectional feminist imaginaries from today’s perspective. How do Kollontai’s words resonate with us 112 years later? Was Alexandra Kollontai a feminist? Who are the feminist subjects today? How do we position ourselves within feminist and antipatriarchal struggles around the world? How does class inform our current understandings of feminist politics?‍
Fragments in English from the book “The Social Basis of the Woman Question” can be read here: https://www.marxists.org/.../kollonta/1909/social-basis.html
You are welcome to read this text before joining the reading group, but it is not a precondition for participation. We will read selected fragments from the text together.

The webinar is part of an online event series “Learning from Alexandra Kollontai”, organized by Airi Triisberg, Giovanna Esposito Yussif and Egija Inzule. The event series seeks to strengthen networks between intersectional feminist art practitioners in the Baltic and Nordic regions.

Next webinar “Alexandra Kollontai, Kreenholm factory and feminist art”, a conversation with Piret Karro, Maria Kapajeva, Marge Monko and Eléonore de Montesquiou, will take place on June 10.

The webinars are co-hosted by regional art and feminist organizations: Feministeerium (Tallinn), Museum of Impossible Forms (Helsinki), Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (Nida), Emma Social Center (Kaunas), cultural and political hub Luna6 (Vilnius), Дом Культуры Розы / Rosa’s House of Culture (St. Petersburg) and mobile Festival Y?!

The network activities are supported by Nordic Culture Point.