Podcast: Nordic perspectives on the Women’s International Democratic Federation
Listen to a podcast about the Women’s International Democratic Federation during the Cold War period, and why and how women from the Nordic region were involved.
The Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) was a controversial, global, membership-based organisation which worked for women’s rights. It was founded in 1945 and, in this podcast, we look at its most active period during the Cold War with Yulia Gradskova, Associate Professor at Södertörn University. During this time, the WIDF relied on the participation of many women from the Nordic region and this offered them the chance to meet women from the global south.
The Women’s International Democratic Federation was often simply seen as being pro-Soviet, and it is still in fact going today, although on a much smaller scale (See Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres). Shining a spotlight on it not only helps us to understand the development of the international women’s movement during this vital period of history, but it also sheds light on important contradictions in the work of international organisations during the Cold War, and the power dynamics between East and West.
Podcast:
Further reading:
- Yulia Gradskova, 'Women’s international Democratic Federation, the ‘Third World’ and the Global Cold War from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s', Women's History Review 29, 2 (2020), pp. 279-288.
- Yulia Gradskova, 'The WIDF's Work for Women's Rights in the (Post)colonial Countries and the “Soviet Agenda”', International Review of Social History, Volume 67 , Special Issue S30: Women's Rights and Global Socialism (2022) , pp. 155 - 178.
Links (items mentioned in the podcast):
- CEDAW convention
- Elisabeth Elgán, Stockholm University
