Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

If we take a look at the sigles of women’s organizations we will see which is the dominating image: young girls with their hair blown by the wind, flowers, pigeons with a woman’s sign in the beaks, hearts inside of which a mother holds her baby, women in a circle. The image is archaic, traditional, maternalist – profoundly nonfeminist (rather "feminine-archaic") in any variant of practiced femininsm – be it liberal, radical or cultural. The names of women’s NGO’s are also a proof of "gender/feminism neutrality". They are in general impersonal – leagues, federations, societies (which does not serve a budding feminist ideology, which needs a personal touch, an alternative language) or are of a traditional/mythological nature – Ciocarlia, Ariadna, Ana, Maria. There are some exceptions – "SEF" (Equal Opportunities for Women – Iasi) and "Partners for change", both names with sexist language connotations ("partners" excludes somehow the feminine, and SEF is a term with no feminist resonance – by its allusions to vertical hierarchies) or the organization "Amazoanele Carpatilor" – name with a nationalist radical connotation. There is only one organization which names itself feminist – The Society for Feminist Analyses AnA. Another one, labeled elitist is "The Center of Studies for Gender Identities".

Laura Grunberg
NGO-ization of feminism in Romania, the failure of a success