The Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) is an international women's rights organization. Established in 1945, it was most active during the Cold War when, according to historian Francisca de Haan, it was "the largest and probably most influential international women's organization of the post-1945 era". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, its headquarters were moved from Berlin to Paris. In 2002, with the election of Márcia Campos as president, the office relocated to Brasília. Subsequently, in 2007 the WIDF secretariat was located in São Paulo. Since 2016, the president has been Lorena Peña of El Salvador and the world headquarters has been located in San Salvador. The WIDF's magazine, Women of the Whole World, was published in six languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish.
WIDF was founded in Paris in 1945 as an anti-fascist organization with the intent of engaging women in efforts to prevent war and to combat the racist and sexist ideology of fascist regimes. At its organizing conference, Eugénie Cotton was elected as president and the organization's goals were defined as promoting active participation in the fight against fascism and in favor of world peace, in protecting public health with particular focus on child welfare, in improving the status of women's rights, and in building internationalist friendships among women.
During the Cold War era, WIDF was described in recovered FBI files as Communist-leaning and pro-Soviet. The international day for protection of children, observed since 1950 in many countries as Children's Day on 1 June, was established on the initiative of a WIDF campaign held in 1949. In 1951, the organization was banned by French authorities and relocated to East Berlin. Other international women's organizations became concerned that WIDF would use appeals to rally participation in women's rights and motherhood as propaganda to increase anti-American sentiment and promote communism. At various points in its history, the WIDF enjoyed consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations. It was as a result of proposals from WIDF representatives on the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women's Year.
History Background
From the beginnings of World War II left-leaning women who were communist, liberal, or socialist were active in the fight against fascism and the spread of the racist and sexist ideology of Nazism. During the war, many of the activists, who were primarily aristocrats and intellectuals, took part in anti-fascist conferences throughout Europe, and began to develop a transnational framework for social and political policies that would prevent future conflicts. Eugénie Cotton attended a meeting of the (Union of French Women) in 1944, which sparked the idea for forming the Women International Democratic Federation. Subsequently, she attended a celebration of International Women's Day in London in 1945 where she met with a group of women from Belgium, China, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia. Although the war had ended only six months earlier in Europe and was still continuing in Asia, consensus was reached to form an International Initiative Committee and host an international congress to bring left-leaning women together. Sponsors of the event were the and the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee. WIDF's internal sources about its origin are vague in regard to the political affiliations of the founders, focusing instead on their involvement in resistance and anti-fascist movements during and immediately following the war, and their intent to establish an organization which was open to all progressive women.
Founding of the WIDF The congress was held between 26 and 30 November 1945 at the Palais de la Mutualité in Paris. As a result, 850 delegates from 40 countries, representing 181 women's organizations, attended the founding meeting of the Women's International Democratic Federation. Cotton was elected president of WIDF and served in that capacity until her death in 1967. The organizational goals were defined as promoting active participation in the fight against fascism and in favor of world peace, in protecting public health with particular focus on child welfare, in improving the status of women's rights, and in building internationalist friendships among women. The delegates adopted an International Charter of Women, which aimed at creating global standards protecting women's rights and opportunities as citizens, mothers, and workers. They also had numerous debates about the voting system to be used; the naming of the organization, replacing the original wording using "anti-fascist" with "democratic"; and whether WIDF would have any authority to control member organizations.
The delegates ultimately decided to host triennial congresses with votes on issues based on the size of the population that each national delegation represented. The executive council, made up of a delegate from each member country, was to meet every year. The secretariat was composed of a secretary general and four staff members, who would carry out the management of the federation's business, with the exception of bookkeeping, which was assigned to a three-member commission. Among the founding members were Elizabeth Acland Allen (UK), Cécile Brunschvicg (France), Tsola Dragoycheva (Bulgaria), Dolores Ibárruri (Spain), Ana Pauker (Romania), Kata Pejnović (Yugoslavia), Nina Popova (Russia), Rada Todorova (Bulgaria); Jessie Street (Australia), and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier (France), Among the women sending congratulations and support for the founding of WDIF were Clementine Churchill, wife of the British Prime Minister; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, and Isie Smuts, wife of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa. Gabrielle Duchêne, a vice president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and Margery Corbett Ashby, president of the International Alliance of Women, attended the congress. Ashby later wrote to her husband that failure to organize women in the Near East would result in the communist women's dominance there.
Rivalry with other international organizations After the founding of the WIDF, an intense rivalry developed between the three major international women's groups – the International Alliance of Women, the International Council of Women, and the WIDF. Both the International Alliance of Women and the International Council of Women claimed to be apolitical, but according to historian Francisca de Haan, the leading scholar on the WIDF, they "used imperialist notions of western superiority to support their claims for women's rights". Both organizations condoned colonial and imperial systems and stressed the importance of democracy in achieving fundamental human rights such as freedom of conscience, press, and speech. Their members were typically conservative, upper-class, Christian women from Europe, or places such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, where large numbers of Europeans had settled. After World War I, the International Council of Women and International Alliance of Women actively recruited affiliates in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, but the leadership tended to be from Europe and the United States, the congresses were held primarily in Europe, and the official languages of the groups were English, French, and German.
To resolve women's issues, the International Alliance of Women and the International Council of Women fostered interaction with ruling elites. For example, the International Council of Women and the WILPF, created in 1915 by members of the International Alliance of Women and other elite women's groups, approached peace activism by urging heads of nations towards pacifism and avoidance of war through diplomatic channels and improved understanding of cultural differences. Fears of red-baiting prevented Western organizations like the WILPF from criticizing colonial systems and exploitation until the 1960s. Publications such as International Alliance of Women member Adele Schreiber-Krieger's Journey towards Freedom (1955) emphasized the role of western women in assisting women from the "third world" in eliminating prevalent customs like child marriage, foot binding, seclusion, veiling, and widow sacrifice, without evaluating how western systems impacted colonized women or crediting women of the Global South or the Eastern world for their own efforts in asserting their agency.
WIDF regarded peace as a prerequisite for fighting against fascism and obtaining rights for women and children. Unlike the pacifist western feminist groups, WIDF members did not see peace as the avoidance or absence of war; rather, they viewed it as the achievement of social justice and the cessation of oppression and exploitation. The organization strongly supported decolonization and national independence movements, and was active in the anti-war movement pushing for peace in Africa and Asia. WIDF organized its activities directly with its women members, bypassing government officials. It was typical for the organization to send letters to members urging action and protest over government policies. For example, the organization rallied Frenchwomen to have their sons refuse to participate in colonial wars, and urged American women to protest the use of germ warfare in Korea. Between its congresses, WIDF also organized large conferences to address peace, motherhood, and women's issues.
WIDF's membership and leadership included women from throughout the world. Although primarily held in Europe, its conferences were also held in Asia, and Latin America. It was an explicitly anti-racist organization, whose members were working-class. For example, at its founding, the WIDF board established a vice presidency post for a Chinese delegate, which was filled by Cai Chang in 1948. The executive council that year consisted of members from Algeria, Argentina, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, China, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Korea, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, USSR, and Yugoslavia. Egyptian feminist Saiza Nabarawi, who was a vice president of the International Alliance of Women, attended WIDF's 1952 Vienna Congress and was asked by the board of the IAW to choose which organization she preferred. She resigned from the International Alliance of Women's board and became a vice president of WIDF in 1953. WIDF's monthly magazine, which became a quarterly publication in 1966, Women of the Whole World, was produced in six languages – Arabic, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish from 1946 to 1990.
Early activism (1945–1950)