“What is Sorority? – Learn about the meaning of the political tool and its social unfolding”, by Yasmin Morais (@vulva_negra), extracted from her personal page on the platform “Medium”.
Photograph by: Mimi Mutesa
This article is protected by Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND, which only allows it to be utilized as long as credit is given to the author, but without it being altered in any ways or used for commercial purposes.
This term has been placed in the pedestal of curiosity, beginning in the year 2017. Recently fomented in Brazil, the phrase “What is Sorority?” had been one of the most asked questions made by Brazilians in Google’s tool, according to the ranking of the digital search engine itself. Becoming extremely popular, the notions of “Sorority”. populated magazines, videos published on youtube, tv shows and became the standard in the discourses of any digital influencer.
After translating into wide adhesion, the term was quickly coined by the Liberal tendency, which had highlighted the metaphysical characteristics of the supposed feeling which would edify an alliance among women. Tending to a particularly simplistic analysis, the term which had that did the accomplishment of projecting itself beyond the activism bubble, suffered a constant emptying of its revolutionary meaning. In this sense, Sorority had become the target of immense criticism in feminist academic productions and intersectional perspectives.
“Sorority for whom? What I have seen a lot in the feminist movement is sorority only towards one’s own kind - white women practicing it with white women, for example, and with black women there is no idea of complicity. Often, the idea of sorority is used to silence one, especially when a person that does not have priority to speak on a given subject uses sorority in a debate to silence another person [...] ”.
- Scarlett Rodrigues da Cunha, Master's Student in Public Policy at Universidade Federal do ABC
Potential restlessness proliferated, turning the term into an unknown polysemic. After all, is Sorority unilateral? Was it a feeling? Political action? It will be my crucial objective to bring such questions to light.
Sorority: An Alliance among Women?
Sorority is the Lusophone variation of the term derived from the Latin sóror = sister. Coined as a political nomenclature, its significance would be an opposition to the term fraternity, which would designate the union between male human beings
Sorority would be described as a political, social and cultural alliance between women, who, because they understand empirically the implications of belonging to the female sex in a patriarchal society, would share specific experiences with each other. In this way, sorority emerges such a feeling theoretically common to all women, which, at its core, has the potential to build bridges between the most varied female classes. However, it should be noted that, from a radical feminist perspective, sorority as a “common feeling” among women, would not be something sufficiently capable of promoting the revolution that is being proposed.
When the second-wave feminist movement emerged between the 1970s and 1980s, the term sorority was not even used to designate the alliance established between different niches of American women who cried out for the weakening of sexism, the end of gender stereotypes, the acquisition of rights, the end of wage inequality and other oppressions related to the female class. Initially, the proposal for solidarity among women had emerged beyond subjective borders and had become a political, social and cultural desire.
Greek ceramics (unknown) portraying an Amazon, a human female that integrate an old, matrilineal and warrior nation according to Greek mitology.
Feminism, in its libertarian essence, called for the notions of archetypal union among women, which recalled the power of the female class when united in pursuit of a common goal. Historically, the conception of females, who held power and lived under the emblem of a matrilineal community, had been edified on countless civilizations. The Amazons, Valkyries and the Daomé Warriors, together project archetypes related to the strength arising from the female union in different cultures and historical periods.
However, sorority posed intrepid challenges to those who did not have a real desire to establish solidarity among all female classes. For, sex as a constituent category of the class, is intertwined with the categorizations of race and social class, which produce and sustain different levels of oppression among women. In this way, black women remain historically vulnerable and politically inferiorized to Caucasian women. A supposedly equitable alliance among women, could never be established, if racism and female classism were not strongly faced. However, at that time, several Caucasian feminist groups maintained perspectives entirely directed towards sex, excluding demands related to racialized women.
Significantly, sisterhood (sorority) could never have been possible in all the limits of race and class, if individual women were not willing to alienate their power of dominating and exploiting subordinate groups of women. While women are using the power of class or race to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood (sorority) cannot be fully realized.
- bell hooks, “Feminism is for everyone”
In this way, the utopian and discriminatory potential in which sorority was initially interpreted and applied by activists is displayed. For, through structural racism, such Caucasian women allocated themselves as a unique and representative expression of the female class, neglecting social movements which removed from them the ethnic-racial and economic power to oppress. The dematerialization of the political alliance is an imminent danger. After all, when political experiences are reduced to feelings, which belong to an intangible nature, the materiality of political action is compromised.
Sorority: Brief History of Female Alliances
Throughout history, alliances made up of women in the face of patriarchal oppression have shown themselves to be diverse. At the heart of countless civilizations, human females jointly challenged the social dogmas which corroborated the maintenance of the male yoke. From the occurrences in the mythical imaginary, to the female resistance during the Early Middle Age and the groups of women who rose up against oppression in the Middle East, the female potential has always been stimulated by the desire for revolutions or social non-submissiveness.
“The Witches” by Hans Baldung (1510). In the painting, one perceives the misogynistic and stereotyped conception in which the imagery of the “medieval witch” was constituted. Elderly, naked females riding winged brooms and summoning devils. The demonization of women was a useful tool for the institutionalization of female genocide.
However, the operation inherent in the patriarchal organization, has constant discursive battles. Under hegemonically male dominance, History is told in distorted ways, which favor the female dispute and the slanderous archetypes which have historically been attributed to women. Since Christian domination in medieval Europe, the demonization of pre-Christian religious practices and the female class, had made the alliance among women a symbol of the satanic uprising which should be continually combated. United, women cared for each other, even though they were politically accused of organizing satanic sabbaths and secret demonic associations.
Undoubtedly, the alliance among human females evokes ancestral symbologies in cultures from all the known civilizations. Having been linked to the great acquisition of power, the movements which were self-organized by women, caused extreme fear in the existing patriarchal systems. The female who chose to abandon phallic worship and turn to her own kind was personified as a traitor; heretic which needed to be severely punished. Through the constitution of strict hierarchies among women, in which those who loved insubordination were completely demonized and those who were submissive to the male and Christian yoke were considered devout women, the bitterness towards female associations, had historically been sown in the psyche of women. which maintained the belief in patriarchal providence.
In the 21st century, minor adaptations took place. However, the core of such behavioral hierarchies, remains on its usual podium. The insubordinates are no longer witches, warriors or sorceresses, however, women who stand up vehemently in favor of female emancipation and do not commune with patriarchal subservience. However, under the face of a liberal revolution, devout women have subsisted, becoming those who do not yearn for trustworthy emancipation.
The Problematics of “Horizontal Hostility”
“It was to be learned that the oppressed can also be oppressive. Not only can the oppressed share, even if minimally, the status and privileges of the dominant at the expense of other oppressed ones.”
- Denise Thompson, "A discussion of the Horizontal Hostility problem".
It is necessary to conceive the lacerating premise, which they constantly obscure: “women have status passible to oppression, they can use certain privileges related to class and race to override others. Certain women corroborate and work for the current system”. The processes of female socialization in a primarily patriarchal system, are based on the gradual alienation of female associations and belonging to the class.
The human female, socialized as such, submits to the frequent annulment of Being as a powerful and emancipated instance in the world. In this way, from disciplinary mechanisms which train psychically and physically, women are instructed in an indisputably phallic-patriarchal hierarchy. In this one, the male and instances conceived as masculine, allocate themselves in the antagonistic apex as dominant, therefore, the female and instances conceived as feminine, relegate themselves to socially undesirable, rejected and vexatious positions.
Within the scope of this premise, the human female, whose unconscious is attentive to the socio-symbolic inferiority attributed to her sex, craves the acquisition of power in the social structure, through reproducing of socializing perspectives raised from the male perspective. In the homonymous article produced by the theoretician Denise Thompson, entitled “A discussion of the problem of horizontal hostility”, the oppressive dynamics which emerge in the socio-cultural circles experienced by women are explicit.
"Horizontal hostility is the best method of the heteropatriarchy to keep us in 'our proper places'; we do the work of men and their institutions for them… (…) it makes us direct our anger - which arises from our marginal and subordinate status in heteropatriarchy and which should be directed at our oppressors - at other women, because we know that it is safer … ”— Penelope, 1992 in “a discussion of the horizontal hostility problem”.
Thus, in addition to the stratification promoted by the Racial and Economic Hierarchy, fragments of female socialization culminate in behavioral action that is opulent in envy, sabotage, hatred, competition and subordination among women. After all, at the heart of a patriarchal society, the human female engages, consciously and unconsciously, in the struggle for male approval which, in the light of such a system, would provide her with divinized social redemption. However, it becomes explicit that only a select class of women will be able to ascend to patriarchal molds, thus generating the perfidious atmosphere in which females fight each other, while male hegemony feeds back and strengthens itself through its efforts.
A Treat for a Possible Sorority
It is imperative to abdicate to the liberal and reformist perspectives currently in force in the mainstream conception of sorority. After all, the inhospitable rescue of the mystical notions of alliances established by women, vetoes the political, organizational and materialistic potential held by such links. There is no feeling common to human females. Nor there are equitable and homogenized relationships between women. To raise the gynocentric ancestral perspective is the ground zero of the establishment of a possible sorority. For it is only through a confrontation with the androcentric conception that a real alliance between women can be conceived.
Socially, women are indoctrinated to live the human experience in the light of a male interpretation. The male as an archetype, shows himself as the great carrier of humanity, wisdom, justice and beauty in its highest degree. Only him can antagonize with other males, which establishes himself as a protector. In this way, women are socialized so that they prioritize the relationships they establish with men. Females are alienated from their revolutionary potential, which develops greatly when in assembly. We are led to the perception that other women are the perfidious antagonists who wish to take from us the miserable crumbs offered by the patriarchal regime.
A rupture with male hegemony runs through psychological, socio-cultural and economic instances. Women's groups, when not psychologically, are financially and politically sabotaged. However, the traps structured by the Patriarchy, through female socialization and the establishment of dark archetypes about the Female Being, haunt us and lead us to socio-political isolation or superficial relations with other women. We need to revisit the circles we have entered into and rescue the principles of the female community. It is notorious to establish an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-lesbophobic and gynocentric political alliance.
Admitting to having privileges related to race and class and, in fact, addressing the structuring of associations in which women and children become politically, socially and economically prioritized, will lead to a future in which, undoubtedly, a society in which the alliance between women rises in all its revolutionary drive can be structured. There will be no sorority as long as it is not possible for us to cry out against the oppression experienced by other women and dedicate ourselves to building a truly emancipatory and intersectional socio-political movement.
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE ACADEMICALLY: MORAIS, Yasmin. “O Que é o Sororidade?”. Medium, 2019. Available at: <URL>. Access in: day, month and year.
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International Women’s Day - as I was growing up this seemed to me like a token festivity made up to make women feel special for one day and happily forget about them for the rest of the year. It seemed to say: Hey, every other day of the year it’s Men’s Day, but you girls can have the 8th of March.In Italy men customarily give women mimosa flowers today, and that seemed to me the extent of the celebration.
In recent years though, since the Ni una menos protests started in Argentina in 2015, fueling similar grassroots movements in other countries (like our own #nonunadimeno movement in Italy), this day has started to mean something again.
For a long time it seemed that people had forgotten the struggles many women went through (and still go through) to achieve basic rights for all of us. Feminist had become a dirty word that stood for something obsolete and no longer useful, only bandied by angry women who hadn’t noticed that everything was fine.
Everything is most definitely NOT fine, not only for women, but for any person belonging to a minority due to their gender, sexuality or ethnicity. Especially now when prejudice and bigotry seem to have gained momentum again everywhere in the world, it’s important that we take a hard look at the situation and fight where we see injustice, be it by reading and spreading awareness, making our feminism more intersectional, taking up activism or simply calling out unjust behavior.
Our feminism isn’t perfect, Jameela Jamil calls herself a ‘feminist-in-progress’ and I think we all are: always trying to improve as our only chance is to be inclusive in our fights and recognise all fights everywhere.
Today is a day to remember and celebrate the women who literally gave their life so you and I could vote, own property and wear fucking trousers.
It’s also a day to look to the present and future battles we still need to fight.
People say “man hater” as if it is a terrible thing? Apparently pointing out men’s violent behavior and entitlement toward women is “hating” them, just merely fucking implying that men as a group belittle us at very best and are down right cruel to us at worst is me hating on them.
That’s what they get from that, they never stop and think about what you are saying, about the experiences not only you had but countless other women; they don’t listen when you talk about abuse and harassment, the things you have experienced in your own damn life.They just go straight to defending themselves, they doubt you, they try to downplay it, they say you are lying, we are all liers, witches! Honestly, they just don’t care, if they did they’d listen. It’s that simple.
My hate bruises their ego, their hate bruises women, their complicity kills women. Their entitled over women ever so present, we experience it every fucking day it can be small it can be massive it can be violent it can be abusive, painful, shameful, and for so many deathly. The leading cause of violent deaths for women are MEN.
But every time someone say this NO ONE says a word about men hating women (#NoAllMen) what they take is that I am hating on men.
And if that’s not the most ironic and bitter example of men getting away with both figuratively and literal murder I don’t know what it is.
So go on and call me man hater; right now it doesn’t feel like a bad thing to be.
