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Title: Anarcha-Feminism Author: Ruby Flick Language: en Topics: feminist Source: Retrieved on 4 March 2011 from http://www.anarcha.org/sallydarity/AnarchaFeminismbyFlickRuby.htm
For too long anarchist feminists have been labeled as the ladies
auxiliary of male bomb throwers. The misconception and manipulation of
both feminists and anarchist principles and practice have resulted in
the use of sensationalist and ridiculing tactics by the state and its
spokespeople. This has not only polarized the general populace from
potentially liberation concepts but has also polarized anarchist from
feminists. In the past and more so recently there has been a uniting of
these beliefs and Peggy Korneggers article; ‘Anarchism; the Feminist
Connection’ goes so far as to say that the two genres of thought are
inextricable tied although the connection has not been consciously
articulated by feminists very often. Kornegger argues that feminism
“emphasis on the small group as a basic organizational unit, on the
personal and political, on anti- authoritarianism and on spontaneous
direct action was essentially anarchism. I believe that this puts women
in a unique position of being the bearers of a subsurface anarchist
consciousness which if articulated and concretized can take us further
than any previous group toward the achievement of total revolution.
While anarchism has provided a framework for the transformation
required, for far too long even this revolutionary ideology has been
largely male identified; male articulated, male targeted and male
exclusive in both its language and participation. It has therefore been
unfortunately lacking in vital analysis especially with regard to the
psychological and physical realities of oppression experienced by the
majority of the human population: women. As Emma Goldman said of the
Spanish Revolution of 1936 “Despite the impressive rhetoric, most
frequently male anarchists retreated to cultural orthodoxy in the
personal relationships with women ...The vast majority of Spanish
comrades continued to expect their own “companions” to provide the
emotionally supportive and submissive relationships “necessary” for the
activism of the males”. Anarchism has often duplicated the very concepts
of power it sought to obliterate . One of the basic tenants of anarchist
feminism is that we are not prisoners of the past —
“The past leads us if we force it to Otherwise it contains us, In its
asylum with not gate We make history or it makes us”
As anarchist feminist we are not asking men to atone for the sins of the
forefathers, we are asking them to take responsibility for the
masculinity of the future, we are not asking women to be perpetually
aware of their oppression but to emerge from it. Mostly we are not
locating conflict with certain people rather than the kind of behavior
that takes place between them.
Anarchist feminism addresses these notions of power, attempts to
criticize, envision and plan. Everything is involved in the question.
However it is from a conscious understanding of the lessons of the past
that presses us into the future, however angry or embarrassed. While it
is not my intention to analyze in depth the traditions of anarchism and
feminism, discussion of their union in the past and the barriers to this
union may help to inform both genres as I see them as both phenomenas of
urgent relevance.
Definitions of both anarchism and feminism are totally anathema as
“freedom is not something to be decreed and protected by laws or states.
It is something you shape for yourself and share however both have
insisted “on spontaneity, on theoretical flexibility, on simplicity of
living, on love and anger as complementary and necessary components of
society as well as individual action.” Anarchist feminist see the state
as an institution of patriarchy, and seek to find a way out of the
alienation of the contemporary world and the impersonal nature of the
state and its rituals of economic, physical and psychological violence.
The word anarchist comes from “archon” meaning “a ruler” and the
addition of the prefix “an” meaning “without” creates the terms for
conceiving not of chaos not disorganization, but of a situation in which
there is emancipation from authority. Ironically what constitutes
anarchism is not goal orientated post revolutionary bliss but is a set
or organizational principles which may redress the current obstacles to
freedom. As Carlo Pisacane, an Italian anarchist wrote “The propaganda
of the idea is a chimera. Ideas result from deeds, not the later from
the former, and the people will not be free when they are educated, but
educated when they are free.”
Most of the focus of anarchist discussion has been “around the
governmental source of most of societies troubles and the viable
alternative forms of voluntary organization possible”, but has paid
little attention to the manifestations of the state in our intimate
relationships nor with the individual psychological thought processes
which affect our every relationship while living under the tyranny of a
power-over ideology. The above quote came from George Woodcocks
anthology called The Anarchist Reader who should be forever embarrassed
for citing only one woman briefly (Emma Goldman in the role of critic of
the Russian Revolution). The quote continues “and by further definition,
the anarchist is the man who sets out to create a society without
government.”
Exactly.
How is it that revolutionary libertarian fervor can exist so
harmoniously with machismo? It is far too easy in this instance to say
that “It is hard to locate our tormentor. It’s so pervasive, so
familiar, We have known it all our lives. It is our culture.” because
although it is true the essences of liberty so illustriously espoused by
these people have not extended their definition of freedom to their
sisters. Why not?? It is often a problem of language used by idealists
in their use of the term man as generic, but what is also clear in so
much of the rhetoric is that the envisioned ‘proletariat’ is the male
worker, the revolutionary is a person entering into the struggle that is
the seeking of a “legitimating” expression of ‘masculinity’ in the
political forum staked out by the dominant male paradigm. Feminists are
suspicious of logic and its rituals and the audience addressed by a
ritual language, with reason. Consider the following examples and if you
are not a woman try to imagine the conflict created by such wonderful
ideas that deliberately and needlessly exclude you from relevance or
existence.
“Our animal needs, it is well known, consist in food, clothing and
shelter. If justice means anything, nothing can be more unjust than that
any man lack them. But justice doesn’t stop there.”
“the objection which anarchists have always sustained to fixed and
authoritarian forms of organization does not mean that they deny
organization as such. The anarchist is not an individualist in the
extreme sense of the word. He believes passionately in individual
freedom, but he also recognizes that such freedom can only be
safeguarded by a willingness to co-operate by the reality of community”
“An integral part of the collective existence, man feels his dignity at
the same time in himself and in others, and thus carries in his heart
the principle of morality superior to himself. This principle does not
come to him from outside, it is secreted within him, it is immanent. It
constituents his essence, the essence of society itself. It is the form
of the human spirit, a form which takes shape and grows towards
perfection only by the relationship that everyday gives birth to social
life. Justice in other works, exists in us like love, like notions of
beauty of utility of truth, like all our powers and faculties.”
“Chomsky argues that the basis of Humbolt’s social and political thought
is his vision ‘of the end of man’...the highest and most harmonious
development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is
the first and indispensable conditions which the possibility of such a
development presupposes.”
And as if bearing witness to the successes of the socialization process,
women too use this language as Voltairine de Cleyre said “And when
modern revolution has thus been carried to the heart of the whole world
if it ever shall be, as I hope it will — then may we hope to see a
resurrection of that proud spirit of our fathers which put the simple
dignity of Man above the gauds of wealth and class and held that to be
an American was greater than to be a king. In that day there shall be
neither kings nor Americans — only men, over the whole earth MEN.”
Well save me from tomorrow! Sometimes you have to edit your reading with
so many (sic) (sic) (sick’s) it renders the text unreadable. And so to
what extent than has revolutionary ideology created and spoken to women
when the language, the focus and the freedom offered is so often clearly
for men? The fact is that women have only so very recently acquired
access to education and also do not often have the opportunity for
political involvement, consider both the physical and psychological
barriers. There have always been a womans voice in political forums and
feminism builds upon these tradition, theories and courage to create a
body of thought that specifically addresses womens empowerment.
As Robin Morgan points out in her book The Demon Lover, the left have
been dominated and led by a male system of violence which has created
with reactionary punctuality its “opposite” (duplicate) of action theory
and language. She argues that in the search for “legitimacy” that male
revolutionaries adopt the forums and language of violence and domination
that continue to oppress women but that because these forums are
seemingly the sole route for political transgression; that women are
enticed and engaged in the struggle that while purporting to be
revolutionary it is revolutionary on male terms and will use and betray
her. So often feminist have been abused by and asked by male
revolutionaries to make their claim and focus subservient to “the wider
struggle”. From the women Abolitionists jeered at when they gave a
feminist understanding of the problems of male drunkenness and its
devastating effects on women, to the suffragists accused of diverting
attention from the war effort, to Zetkin, Luxumbourg and Goldman all
suffering the eye roll and brutality of both the state that is and the
state that would be. We see Alexandra Kollontai the only women involved
in the Russian cabinet after the 1917 Revolution being exiled to Norway
after all her references to the necessity of a feminist component to
revolution were edited and diluted. We are asked to stop pursuing our
cause and start defending it but to argue for the validity of our cause
that would imply we wanted “in”. Even recently a once respected friend
said that “The womens meeting is on now, the real meeting will state in
half and hour.” When questioned he added “the full meeting”. The
fullness of the lack filling penile participation I supposed, lubricated
and made ready, as always in isolation. Ah but how can one quibble about
the sloppiness of language when it serves our purposes so well. Thankyou
Mirabeau for the following “Every party has its criminals and fools
because every party has its men.”
Entering into political circles with men is an exercise in the risk of
compromising and being obedient to this attitude or in confronting it.
Ridicule is the worst, tokenism is little better and so gloriously rare
and acute is our joy when the issues are taken seriously that we could
be mistaken for groaning clapping seals unless we are already cringingly
braced in anticipation of the backlash of men genuinely perplexed but
inarticulate except in the socialized male response; defensiveness. But
there must be some way in which to address the political nature of our
polarization as sexes in political forums which involve men. There must
be some way to point to the coercive power structures that display a
hidden elite, invariable of men but also of women. I believe like Peggy
Kornegger that feminism could be the connection that links anarchism to
the future, both add to each others struggle not to seize but to abolish
power, but both go further than the socialists and assert that people
are not free because they are surviving, or even economically
comfortable. They are only free when they have power over their own
lives. Anarchist feminist say that the goal is not to fabricate the new
and artificial social forms but to find ways or articulating people so
that out of their groupings, the institutions appropriate to a free
society might evolve.”
Socialist organizations are popular with a lot of people who are
flocking to these groups because it is felt that one must be involved
with a revolutionary group,. Indeed. But their gender blind hierarchical
bludgeoning from the podium organizations have a typical style of
interpreting feminist concerns and concrete grievances as irrelevant to
or symptomatic of the larger struggle. “They appeal to the women to
suspend their cause temporarily which inevitable leads to a dismissal of
women’s issues as tangential, reducing them to subsidiary categories.”
Anarcha-feminist have said that often the “definitive body of theory
which is so often the comforting cushion for male reclining, such
theoretical over articulation gives one the illusion of responding to a
critical situation, without ever really coming to grips with ones
perception of it. With capitalism and patriarchy so safely reduced to an
explanation, we distance ourselves from the problem and the necessity to
immediately interact with it or respond to other people.” So often
revolutionaries deal with concepts and not people.
But while as anarcha-feminists we object to much of the politics of
socialist (as a friend of mine says, “After your revolution we’ll still
be us, but you’ll be them), we also argue that liberation needs to
happen in small affinity groups so that people are not bludgeoned into
opinions and can build up the personal relationship of trust that
facilitates the grieving, the sharing and the exorcisms of the
psychological though processes and experiences that brought them to
their politics.. This is often a sanity compromising process or do we
actually become sane through that difficult time when we realize that
the personal is political.
“Those of us who have learned to survive by dominating others, as well
as those of us who have learned to survive by accepting domination need
to socialize ourselves into being strong without playing dominance
submission games, into controlling what happens to us without
controlling others.” “To this end anarchism must start with a solid
feminist consciousness and practice it or it is doomed to just as much
internal contradiction and failure as anarchists traditionally foresaw
for hierarchical Marxism.”