This is an urgent question in light of the resurgence of right wing politics and enduring gender inequalities and relations of violence. Have solidarity relations changed since the ‘unhappy marriage’ imagined by Heidi Hartmann between feminists (the unhappy wives) and Marxists (the dominant husbands) back in 1979? And is Hartmann’s marriage metaphor still helpful to feminists when thinking about and pursuing solidarity on the Left?

The problem, as framed by Hartmann, was that feminist insights were marginalised in favour of class-based analysis and Marxist organisations failed to tackle cultures of sexism and misogyny. Yet feminists should not abandon the ‘marriage’, according to Hartmann: rather, the shared pursuit of a more egalitarian world demanded they work toward a more ‘progressive union’ with their comrades. The marriage metaphor is still widely used to conceptualise solidarity between feminists and others on the Left, in Marxism and beyond, and in both positive and negative terms. However, our research on feminist activists in Scotland during the upsurge in left mobilisation just before and during the independence referendum (2011-2014) found relations of collaboration and dissent to be more complex than most usages of the metaphor allows, stuck as they are within rather unreflexive, narrow and outdated understandings of marriage.

In our recently published article in Political Studies, we suggest that the marriage metaphor as a lens on political solidarity could be reframed and expanded in the light of feminist critiques of the institution of marriage and efforts to reform it in a more progressive direction. Doing so encourages us to investigate whether a political relationship is composed of unitary subjects, gendered male and female, or same-sex, border-crossing and multiple subjects; structured hierarchically or in more egalitarian ways; and driven by desire, exclusivity and jealousy, or friendship, openness and empathy. When applied to the analysis of feminist activist experience in the anarchistic Occupy Glasgow and Edinburgh camps, the socialist Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) and the social democratic Scottish National Party (SNP), our expanded metaphorical framework helps us to see both the ‘unhappy’ relations between feminist and other left forces and ‘happier’ moments involving genuine recognition and integration of feminist practice.

Perhaps the starkest findings in our research came from Occupy Glasgow. Feminists reported a group of men – referred to by one interviewee as ‘the hero guys’ – asserting dominance over internal and public-facing Occupy actions, and establishing an atmosphere in which dismissal of feminist concerns and harassment of feminist women was routine,  and the subsequent gang rape on site all-too predictable. For feminist participants, this overshadowed the horizontal and participatory decision-making structure formally adopted at the camp and associated with Occupy sites globally: this marriage was not only unhappy, but abusive.

In the cases of RIC and the SNP, commitments to gender equality have also often rung hollow and been actively resisted, whether because of the presence of abusive men or because of a broader persistence of hostility toward feminist ideas and actions. Yet RIC adopted a 50:50 gender mechanism for speakers at their national assembly and pushed through a safer spaces policy, despite opposition. In the SNP, the leadership of feminist Nicola Sturgeon has brought about a gender-balanced cabinet, and sustained attention to gender equality in policy and the introduction of internal mechanisms to enhance women’s participation and representation. In these cases, the marriage may have moments of unhappiness, when feminists chafe at problematic political and affective structures, but there are also some reasons for optimism.

Expanding the marriage metaphor also lets us see that the ‘partners’ in these Scottish coalitions are not the male and female subjects of the traditional marriage imaginary, the latter equated with feminism in Hartmann’s analysis. In Occupy Glasgow, the two main groups that emerged were loosely constituted but both numerically male-dominated, with the feminist presence fractured inside and outside the site. RIC, we suggest, is closer to a polyamorous union of multiple autonomous groups, including feminists, socialists, Greens, trade unions and other civil society organisations. Finally, the SNP ‘marriage’ cannot be conceived as composed of social democratic men dominating feminist women; rather feminism is claimed to be integral to the social democratic outlook of the party, a fusion largely driven by the current female-dominated, feminist leadership.  

In all, our expansion of the marriage metaphor helps to reveal a more accurate, nuanced and holistic picture of contemporary solidarity relations on the Scottish Left. However, it only takes us so far. We remain concerned that any use of marriage as a metaphor for  solidarity effectively locks left theory and activism into a conservative frame of reference and a single-axis model of identity/difference. It might be comforting to think of the Left as a ‘relationship’ or a ‘family’, if that conjures up a sense of closeness and security with inevitable conflicts yet to be overcome, but our findings suggest feminists should be more wary of kinship models of assumed similarity and romanticised notions of connection, and instead heed recent calls for more radical reimaginings of political solidarity when striving to forge coalitions with allies on the Left.

Catherine Eschle is a senior lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She has published widely on the theory and practice of the contemporary feminist movement, as well as on the gender politics of the global justice, anti-austerity and anti-nuclear movements.

Jenny Morrison completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow. She is an activist and researcher focusing on the relationship between feminism and the radical left.

Kirsty Alexander is a lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Stirling.