Women’s Center

Activists’ Background (1972)

The Winds of Freedom What was the socio-economic-political background to the sudden reawakening of the women’s movement in Germany? Frigga Haug already poses this question in her 1988 essay “Lessons from the Women’s Movement in Western Europe,” in whic...

Starting the Berlin Women’s Center (1972)

Instead of a position paper we learn together We initiated the HAW lesbian group in the winter of 1971–72 and by the summer we found ourselves stuck between cozy sociability and theoretical ambitions. As a result, I and some other lesbians felt t...

Consciousness-raising groups (1973)

The privat is political We called the encounter groups that we formed at the women’s center “CR groups,” after the method we had adopted from the US women’s movement. At each session, a group member had the opportunity to talk about her situation, and the...

Abortion / Gynecology (1973-75)

Trips to Holland/ Vacuum Aspiration Method/ Modernizing Gynecology /Civil Disobedience / Self-examination/ Feminist Health Center In a 1971 action in which women publicly admitted to having had an abortion, Alice Schwarzer had already mobilized...

Prison Group (1973)

Hunger Strikes at the Women’s Center and the Women’s Prison The prison group was one of the first working groups at the Berlin women’s center. The group’s existence belies the image of the new women’s movement painted by authors who reduce it to abo...