Women's Liberation Movement

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The women's liberation movement , abbreviated FBB , was an organization in Switzerland in the late 1960s and arose out of the Swiss women's movement on the one hand and the student revolts on the other. The FBB first appeared in public at a demonstration in Zurich in 1969, and similar groups soon emerged in other parts of the country ( Mouvement pour la Liberation de la femme , MLF and Movimento Femminista Ticinese , MFT ). Today a famous founding member and fellow campaigner was the trade unionist Christiane Brunner . The FBB was the beginning of organized feminism in Switzerland.

Worldview

The women of the FBB did not see the oppression of women as a secondary contradiction , like their Marxist comrades, but as a fundamental social contradiction that would not be resolved by itself with the abolition of capitalist society. In terms of content, the women of the FBB distanced themselves from the new left and began to see feminism as the fulcrum of social change.

The social analysis of the autonomous women's groups involved in the FBB was based in particular on the French and US feminists such as Simone de Beauvoir . Sometimes there were violent disputes between the supporters of the various theoretical approaches, with these mainly taking place between the two currents of egalitarianism ( equality feminism ) and dualism ( difference feminism ).

organization

The FBB and its various groupings are part of the autonomous movement . Although there were differences between the various groups, they all had in common the rejection of hierarchical structures.

requirements

The members wanted to free themselves from the “constraints of the nuclear family”, demanded full political rights for women in Switzerland (see women's suffrage ), criticized the position of women in Switzerland and the prevailing sexual morality. They called for outside childcare, free access to contraceptives, and advocated the impunity of abortion . In order to emphasize their demands, they staged media-effective protests across the country.

The concrete list of demands from 1969 included:

  • better professional reintegration for housewives
  • equal educational opportunities for girls
  • Equal opportunities for women at work
  • Equal pay for equal work
  • "Housewife wage" (for raising mothers)
  • more, cheaper and more child-friendly day nurseries
  • child-friendly housing policy, spatial planning and regional planning
  • more kindergartens
  • Revision of marriage and divorce law
  • better social benefits for part-time workers

history

The members made their first public appearance at the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the Zurich Women's Suffrage Association. The young spokeswoman, Andrée Valentin , accused the women of the association of just waiting instead of finally acting and explained to them that there was no reason to celebrate. On February 1, 1969, when the Zurich Women's Suffrage Association celebrated “Women's Suffrage Day” with a torchlight procession (in memory of the lost vote in 1959), the FBB disrupted the peaceful rally by performing an improvisational street theater disguised as sexual objects and housewives. They wanted to protest against the bourgeois role assignment.

In the course of 1969, autonomous women's groups also formed in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Locarno and Bellinzona.

In 1971 the FBB was involved in collecting signatures for the Federal People's Initiative “for impunity for the termination of pregnancy” and contributed a large part of the signatures.

In 1975, the FBB organized a counter-event parallel to the fourth Swiss Women's Congress , at which, in addition to the punishable termination of pregnancy , female homosexuality , housewives' wages , women in prison and the specific issue of migrant women were discussed. The FBB women disrupted the official convention and made their demand for free and free abortion. The Congress finally approved a resolution to support the deadline solution initiative against the massive protests of the Catholics . With the launch of the equal rights initiative by the traditional women's associations, FBB and the latter temporarily came closer.

In October 1975, the activists of the FBB caused a national scandal when they threw wet diapers at the councilors in the National Council chamber in protest against the National Council's failure to vote on the issue of deadlines.

The FBB disbanded on the day of its 20th anniversary in 1989.

literature

  • Judith Bucher, Barbara Schmucki: FBB. Photo history of the women's liberation movement in Zurich. Zurich 1995.
  • Marielle Budry, Edmée Ollagnier: Mais qu'est-ce qu'elles voulaient? Histoire du MLF à Genève. Lausanne 1999.

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