Anatomy of a Failed Feminist Alliance

In the 1930s and 1940s, Syrian women’s rights activists attended conferences hosted by the International Council of Women, the National Women’s Party, and the International Assembly of Women in the United States in hopes of bringing attention to the struggle for national independence in Syria. Once Syria was free from French rule, Syrian activists were confident their efforts to improve the status of women would prevail. In their speeches at the conferences, which linked national independence and women’s rights, Syrian women attempted to use a shared identity as women, the shared goal of improving the status of women, and shared feelings of hope for a better future to cultivate activist connections with their “sisters” in the United States. Yet, Syrian women’s efforts to work within the structures of international women’s organizations based in the North Atlantic failed to achieve their activist goals. This paper uses Syrian women’s participation at international women’s conferences in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s as a case study for investigating the challenges of creating equitable international feminist solidarity networks. Examining a failed feminist alliance shines light on the unequal systems of power within interwar feminist organizations and provides lessons for coalition-building today.