Clara Prellwitz
What is sisterhoods? And can we think of sisterhood from a spatial perspective? What is the ‘hood’ in sisterhoods? How do everyday places such as courtyards, paths, or communal gardens change our opportunities to support one another? Sisterhoods in spatial feminist planning examines how solidarity networks emerge in neighbourhoods, reveal structures of oppression, and strengthen collective agency. Often shaped by female-socialised individuals, they transform neighbourhoods into spaces of feminist solidarity across genders and everyday political practice.
Launch event of the “Wikipedia article” in Shtromka
(Photo by the author, 2025)
(Photo by the author, 2025)
The problem?
When I first came to Shtromka, I noticed a lot of female-perceived people. Ones with Strollers near the beach, or elderly ones in groups or alone. A lot of them. At some point, it triggered me and made me think about the female presence in neighbourhoods. Not the fact about their sole presence – I was aware that because of the daytime in which I made these observations, they relate first and foremost to a still ongoing asymmetrical responsibility and workload for reproduction work between female-socialised and male-socialised people and gender roles (12). But, much more than that, there were also questions coming up for me about the neighbourhood organisation. I assumed that, in terms of my own experiences and what I saw and learned in the neighbourhood I grew up in myself, which is completely different from the built structure, here – but… There are probably primarily female-socialised people who build neighbourhood communities and care about them.
This is also discussed in theory, for instance by the sociologist and co-founders of the mother-centres movement in Germany, Monika Jaeckel and the Dutch feminist urban planner Marieke van Geldermalsen, who worked together in the field of gender-sensitive city planning. They said that female-socialised people are
“[female-socialised
people are]
key producers of residential environments
in their role as community leaders
and initiators of neighbourhood networks.”
key producers of residential environments
in their role as community leaders
and initiators of neighbourhood networks.”
(10)
I asked myself why neighbourhoods and the networks are dominantly organised by female-socialised people? Is it just because of gender-based socialisation and gender roles? Or is it because of the carework-situation that orders them back home in the private sphere, in and around the house, the home? (12).
That kind of triggered me and brought feelings of unfair treatment and anger up. However, it is of course a mixture of complex reasons why this is the current situation. And there is the frustration when facing and becoming aware of patriarchal impacts.
How can we react to this in spatial terms?
But at one point, the term sisterhood crossed my path, and it was also a point where I started to turn my perspective about that and the feeling of being powerless or acceptance. The term sisterhood is quite interesting in this regard, through both the literal and political meaning, and kinda matches connected something. It has a long historical use and was used during the late 18th to mid-19th century as a description between “sororal friendship models”(8), relating to sisterly friendship. But it is also appropriate in different movements. It is appropriate in different movements. For e.g. the feminist movement, but also the black freedom/liberation movements. The term itself is composed of two words. Sister and Hood. Which already has a spatial dimension in the literal sense. The suffix hoods, which is also a North American slang word for neighbourhood. But at the same time, it can describe a group of people. It also fits the literal meaning of Sister which describes a gender-based relation. (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)
We understand sisterhood in a literal way on the one side, according to the spatial dimension and seeing connections between female socialised people in the Hoods. And connecting sisterhood in a feminist way with the meaning of solidarity, support, cooperation and connection against oppressions. Adding this means for us seeing neighbourhood networks as important ones, in a patriarchal-stamped and individualistic system, and as a feminist act by making the private public and building a coalition against oppression, independently of gender. (6)(7)(11)
From that angle and with that background, we brought these things together and developed a concept which is called “Sisterhoods (spatial feminist planning)” to differentiate between neighbourhood and community and to bring in the political and feminist dimension. To focus on neighbourly relations from a feminist urban planning perspective. To make the gender socialised specific work visible on the one hand, but also try to honour the important meaning of networks, especially for female-perceived individuals, who were excluded from the public sphere, that were built in the private sphere previously and nowadays. To see it as a feminist act by fighting against isolation, dependence and overload through making the private public. (11)
What about Shtromka?
A residential environment, a garden, or the private sphere. Especially in soviet urban planning, they already designed - under the name of socialist planning - what we could today understand as sisterhood-friendly neighbourhoods that helped to arrange networks. It included, next to providing community areas in the direct environment of the home, also the composition of the buildings. This allows viewpoints between the individual private spaces and framed garden situations. The provision of Careinfrastructure in public or semi-public spaces like clothing lines could also be supported by networking and shift the border between public and private. That’s why soviet gardens were often a base for networking, and we come to revalue certain aspects of this planning through today's more extended feminist discussion in the concept of sisterhoods. (13)
This page was last edited on 11 December 2025, at 17:21 (UTC+2).