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Title: Feminism As Anarchism
Author: Lynne Farrow
Date: 1974
Language: en
Topics: feminist, introductory
Source: Retrieved on April 28th, 2009 from http://www.anarcha.org/sallydarity/LynneFarrow.htm
Notes: Originally published as an article in Aurora, a New York feminist magazine.

Lynne Farrow

Feminism As Anarchism

Feminism practices what Anarchism preaches. One might go as far as to

claim feminists are the only existing protest groups that can honestly

be called practising Anarchists; first because women apply themselves to

specific projects like abortion clinics and day-care centres; second,

because as essentially apolitical women for the most part refuse to

engage in the political combat terms of the right or the left, reformism

or revolution, respectively.

But women’s concern for specific projects and their a-political

activities constitute too great a threat to both the right and the left,

and feminist history demonstrates how women have been lured away from

their interests, co-opted on a legislative level by the established

parties and co-opted on a theoretical level by the Left, This co-option

has often kept us from asking exactly what is the Feminist situation?

What’s the best strategy for change?

The first impulse toward female liberation came in the 1840’s when

liberals were in the midst of a stormy abolition campaign. A number of

eloquent Quaker women actively made speeches to liberate the

slaveholding system of the South and soon realised that the basic rights

they argued for Blacks were also denied women. Lucy Stone and Lucretia

Mott, two of the braver women abolitionists, would occasionally tack

some feminism ideas on the end of the abolition speeches, annoying to an

unusual degree their fellow liberals. But the women were no threat so

long as they knew their place and remembered which cause was the more

serious.

Then in 1842 the World anti-slave convention was held in London and some

American women crossed the Atlantic along with other Abolition delegates

to find that not only were women denied a part in the proceedings, but

worse, they were forced to sit behind a curtain. Lucretia Mott and

Elizabeth Cade Stanton, enraged at the hypocrisy of the liberal’s

anti-slavery gathering denying women participation, then and there

determined to return to America and organise on behalf of liberating

women.

The first Women’s Rights Convention was held at Seneca Fails, New York,

in 1848, attracting with only three days’ notice in a local newspaper a

huge number of women filling the church in which they met. At the end of

the very moving convention the gathering drew up a Declaration of Rights

and Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence only directed at

men rather than England’s King George. After this convention which is

identified as the formal beginning of the Women’s Rights Movement in

America, feminism picked up quickly aiming at women’s property laws and

other grievances.

As American Feminism gathered a small measure of support, liberals

became nervous that these women were spending energy on the woman issue

rather than the real issue of the time: abolition. After all, they

insisted, this is “the negroes’ hour” and women shouldn’t be so petty as

to think of themselves at a time like this. When the Civil War became

imminent this rhetoric grew from subtlety to righteous indignation. How

could women be so unpatriotic as to devote themselves to feminism during

a national crisis. Virtually every feminist in America suspended her

feminist consciousness and gave support to the liberal interests at this

point, assured that when the war was over and Blacks were given equal

rights under the Constitution women would be included.

Susan B. Anthony, an ardent Abolitionist, was the only known feminist at

the time that refused to buy the liberal’s proposal. She continued

appealing for the rights of women despite the gradual disintegration of

her following who had been co-opted by the Abolitionists into joining

their ranks. She insisted that both struggles could be run

simultaneously and if they didn’t women would be forgotten after the

war. She was right. When the 14^(th) Amendment was introduced in

Congress after the war, not only were women omitted, they were

specifically excluded. For the first time the word “male” was written

into the Constitution making it clear that when it referred to a person

that was the equivalent to male person.

This substantial blow to organised feminism hindered further legal

advance for women. Then around 1913 when British women launched their

militant tactics bombing buildings and starting fires, Alice Paul, an

enthusiastic young American woman of Quaker stock, travelled to England

to study and ended up working with the notorious Pankhursts. She

returned to the States determined to rejuvenate the cause of suffrage

and soon had persuaded the practically non-functioning National Woman’s

Suffrage Association to re-open the federal campaign for suffrage in

Washington.

In a very short time and due to nothing but her sheer genius for

organising and strategy Alice Paul created a multifactional movement to

be reckoned with. Her most effective tactic was picketing the White

House with embarrassing placards denouncing President Wilson’s

authoritarian stand on Woman Suffrage while he preached democracy

abroad. World War I approached steadily and the stage was again set for

the feminists’ co-option.

The pacifists appealed to the women to suspend their cause temporarily

and join the peace effort while at the same time the majority, the war

hawks, were scandalised that the women abandoned their country at a time

like this. Again the women were co-opted as thousands left the feminist

cause to go to the aid of their parties, but nevertheless a small

efficient group, the National Woman’s Party, stayed intact to fight

suffrage through.

It is difficult to ascertain which side, the right or the left, has been

more responsible for co-opting the feminist efforts at change. History

assures us their methods have been identical and their unquestioning

confidence in the priority of “the larger struggle” inevitably leads to

a dismissal of feminist issues as tangential. The analysis of the

current Black Movement and the Marxist dominated left squeezes women

into their plans symptomatically, i.e. when the essential struggle is

fought and won women then will come into their own. Women must wait.

Women must help the larger cause.

The poetry of Black women identifies intensely with building the egos of

the Black male in the conventional way egos are built, by

self-depreciation. The theme heard over and over again tells of the

Black woman’s proud suffering at the hands of the Black man who has been

emasculated by his white boss and so needs his woman to at least feel

superior to. She does her part. Her suffering is a direct contribution

to the Black (Male) struggle which she considers a noble sacrifice. (As

Germaine Greer has suggested, since women have no power to threaten,

they cannot be castrated and therefore no one sees their powerlessness

as anything but natural and no one’s going to lie down for women to

kick.) Whereas the Black male’s powerlessness is only temporary, since

he is male and has the potential power of the white male. All he needs

is a woman to dominate the way the white man has dominated him and his

stature will be restored. Blacks have challenged white supremacy by

realising Black is beautiful. They have yet to challenge the white

family model, the patriarchal family as something to be desired and

therefore still uphold male supremacy.

Juliet Mitchell is a Marxist feminist whose ideas, as in Woman’s

Estate[1], typifies the conceptual style of interpreting a group’s very

concrete grievances, like those of the feminists, as basically

irrelevant to or symptomatic of the larger struggle where all groups

participate in abstractions called ideologies. Predictably, if

contradictions are found in the theory, Mitchell calls for an

“overview”, an abstraction that will enlarge itself to accommodate them.

When interest groups such as students, women, Blacks or homosexuals

formulate their priorities stemming directly from their situation,

Mitchell accuses them of being helplessly short-sighted in refusing to

see their needs as a symptom. What they need to understand, she

continues, is the “totalism”, the analysis to end all analyses.

The fully developed political consciousness of an exploited class or an

oppressed group cannot come from within itself, but only from a

knowledge of the interrelationships (and domination structures) of all

the classes in society ... This does not mean an immediate comprehension

of the ways in which other groups and classes were exploited or

oppressed, but it does mean what one could call a “totalist” attack on

capitalism which can come to realise the need for solidarity with all

other oppressed groups.

Mitchell might easily be accused of conceptual imperialism considering

the “totalist” terms she uses serve to gobble up lesser terms reducing

them to subsidiary categories under the authority of her original

Marxist idea. According to Mitchell individual groups responding in

their own way to their own interests must learn to see the way and

sacrifice. Her idea that they must renounce their individual concern for

the good of the total is an abstraction that has ceased to represent any

interests at all, since it has come to be so large it cannot relate to

diverse interests in any way.

The totalist position is a precondition for this realisation, but it

must diversify its awareness or get stuck in the mud of Black

chauvinism, which is the racial and cultural equivalent of working class

economism, seeing no further than one’s own badly out of joint nose.

Mitchell’s ideas invalidate all forms of individualism in the same way

the organised left and organised right have historically co-opted women

from working in their own interests. Women are asked to be “totalist’ in

the same way citizens are asked to be “patriotic”. We are being asked to

switch one kind of paternalism for another. We are asked to comply with

an hierarchical meta-analysis which we cannot assume with the even most

remote faith has any connection with our immediate grievance. What is

good for all is supposed to he good for one.

With the spectre of totalism looming intimidating over us we are called

upon to justify and rationalise the authenticity of our interests, i.e.,

stop pursuing our cause and be drawn into the diversionary web of

defending it. We are so accustomed to thinking in terms of one group’s

interests being more significant, more basic, than another’s that we are

baited into self-rationalisation rather than question the value of

pitting one group against another in the first place.

Not only does the “totalistic” approach make for much scrambling as to

which cause is prior, it suggests that when the nature of the problem is

totalistic so then the solution must be, which brings us to the place

women have always been shafted. Groups may function under the illusion

they are “all in it together” for just so long, usually as long as they

are theorising, e.g., like the promises made to the feminists before the

Civil War. When it comes to doing something specific about this

abstractly designed situation, one cannot so easily search and destroy

the totalistic enemy. Solutions, in short, necessarily imply specific

choices to be made about what will be done first and for whom. Thus the

cause most efficient at coercing the others will be given priority and

the others will wait. Either that or the totalistic solution will be so

diffuse as to mobilise energies that will help. no one. Women lose

either way when they see their struggle against sexism in the context of

any larger struggle.

If the feminist struggle is not tangential or subsidiary to other

political movements then how can it be characterised?

Because most women live or work with men for at least part of their

lives they have a radically different approach from others to the

problems they face with what would ordinarily be called “the oppressor.”

Since a woman generally has an interest in maintaining a relationship

with men for personal or professional reasons the problem cannot only be

reduced to or located with men. First, that would imply removal of them

from the situation as a solution which is of course against her

interests. Second, focusing on the source of the problem is not

necessarily the problem. It is a mistake to locate a conflict with

certain people rather than the kind of behaviour that takes place

between them.

It seems to follow then that women because of their interest in

preserving a relationship with men must relate to their own condition in

an entirely different, necessarily situationist basis. It follows that

the energies of feminism will be problem-centred rather than people (or

struggle) centred. The emphasis will not be directed at competing

us-against-them style with mythological oppressor for certain privileges

but rather an avoidance of any pitting of sides against each other.

E.g., if a competitive situation already exists between the sexes,

learning Karate will only reinforce the stockpiling of arms, on both

sides; the terms of the struggle don’t change the balance of power on

both sides.

Feminism as situationism means that elaborate social analysis and first

causes a la Marx would be superfluous because changes will be rooted in

situations from which the problems stem; instead change will be

idiosyncratic to the people, the time and the place. This approach has

generally been seen as unpopular because we do not respect person to

person problem-solving or are embarrassed by it or both. We characterise

these concerns as petty if they cannot immediately seem to identify with

any large scale interests or if those concerns cannot he universalised

to a “symptom of some larger condition.” Discussing “male chauvinism” is

as fruitless as discussing “capitalism” in that, safely reduced to an

explanation, we have efficiently distanced ourselves from a problem and

the necessity to immediately interact with it or respond to other

people. Such theoretical over-articulation gives one the illusion of

responding to a critical situation without ever really coming to grips

with one’s own participation in it.

Originally the feminists were accused of not having one comprehensive

theory but a lot of little gripes. This made for much amusement in the

media because there was no broad-based theoretical connection made

between things like married women taking their husband’s names,

inadequate day care facilities, the persistent use of ‘girl’ for woman

and women wanting to work on equal basis with men. Rather than this

diversity being seen as a strength it was seen as a weakness.

Predictably a few Marxist feminists rose to the occasion, becoming

apologists for the cause and made feminism theoretically respectable,

centring women’s problems around the ‘ideology of reproduction’ and

other such vague notions.

Feminism has traditionally tried to find ad hoc solutions appropriate to

needs at the time, i.e., centred around the family or community of

friends. However, certain unscrupulous, legal, well-publicised (as well

as theoretical) attempts have been made to bring women’s liberation into

the big time.

For example, some friends and I were recently involved in setting up a

feminist conference on divorce. We found some speakers who would

describe how to go about getting a divorce and some attorneys who would

give free legal advice to women who wanted it. Various workshops were

organised around topics that interested those involved or concerned with

divorce. A huge number of women from the community came, attracted

because of the problem-centred topic, women who would probably not have

identified themselves with the mystifying concept of feminism. Everyone

participated enthusiastically exchanging advice, phone numbers, lawyers

names. Some women cried in the workshops, overwhelmed at the

supportiveness of women in similar predicaments.

The conference was running smoothly when a speaker from the National

Organisation for Women made a presentation of the official national

position on divorce and the organisation’s plans for the future.

Included was a proposal that couples should be able to pass a test

before they married so only qualified people could participate in this

kind of legal arrangement. Presumably those who could not pass the test

created by the law makers would be discouraged, thus preventing any

future divorces.

Aside from the obvious fallacy of believing more laws will change what

existing laws have created and thereby save people from themselves, the

N.O.W. proposal exemplifies the attempt to solve the problem of women’s

liberation by high-handed monolithic means very similar to the Marxist

Branka Magas’ ambition of ‘seizing the culture.’ The impulse to coerce

people by national laws is similar to the impulse to create a revolution

to change the balance of power. Each kind of grand scale change will

find reasons to service its own magnanimous authoritarianism. Moreover

each side claims what’s good for all is good for one and therefore any

means can be used to advance the ambitions of the revolution, in model

of the corporation.

These occasional large scale proposals lead people to believe such a

thing a non-situationist Women’s Liberation Movement exists, a veritable

army clamouring in unison for national reforms. The media perpetuated

it. But there is no feminist movement per se. Feminists have been too

busy working at their community based projects within families,

communes, working places, to focus on building an image or identity for

themselves. Further, a single movement image or principle would be

counterproductive and have women constantly comparing their lives with

the image, monitoring life styles and their work to see if it was in

compliance with the MOVEMENT.’

The ‘movement’ at the same time has been criticised for not being

cohesive and for not having a program. Exactly. That’s the point. The

diversity in which feminists implement and practice change is its

strength. Feminism has no leaders in the lieutenant sense for the same

reason. There is nothing to lead. We plan no revolution. Women are doing

what they can where they can. We arc not unified because women do not

see themselves as one class struggling against another. We do not

envision a women’s liberation army mobilised against male tyranny.

Solidarity for its own sake is the stuff governments are made of and

adapting these methods only reinforces the perspective of us against

them sex-class antagonism. Identifying with other strugglers in such

paranoid fashion encourages brutal competition and keeps the contest

going. What’s more, stressing solidarity can only lead to a

self-consciousness about what we are doing as personalities, thereby

accentuating our individual differences and causing conflicts before we

even begin to apply ourselves to the practical problems of sexism.

The National Organisation for Women notwithstanding, feminism begins at

home and it generally doesn’t go a whole lot further than the community.

Midwives and witches practising their herbals and healing arts figure

prominently in our individualist tradition. Women in families passed on

information on how to diagnose pregnancy, prevent conception, cure

infections, stop bleeding, prevent cramping and alleviate pain. Quietly,

sometimes mysteriously, women have ministered to children and friends

without elaborating on the policy of it. Their effectiveness inspired

awe and fear and risked ridicule but they did not stop to explain or

mystify what they were doing, they merely did it. What mysterious

description remains of midwife methods, a female lore passed along from

mother to daughter, has been deprecated as ‘old wives tales.’

The current feminist wave maintains this individualist tradition in that

women’s health problems have surfaced as the principle concern. Small

projects have sprung up all over the country for the purpose of meeting

local needs for adequate abortions, birth control, pregnancy-testing and

general medical care. Previously women had limited facilities or had to

rely on the paternalism of doctors. New women’s groups discovered their

are many routine examinations and services that can be performed safely

at little or no cost by women themselves.

Just such a group has organised around these interests at our local

women’s centre, providing various services, i.e., abortion referrals and

information to the community on a daily basis, as the demands arise.

Those involved see their function as community action problem solving,

assessing the needs of women and coming up with the most efficient way

of fleeting that problem with the resources available. Of course, there

are things we’ve learned are within our ability to do and things we must

refer. Pregnancy tests are done quite simply and for free by volunteers

at the centre. Abortion cases are referred to a competent carefully

checked out physician who charges a minimum fee. A list of the cheapest

and best venereal disease clinics has been completed and distributed by

flyers. The scope and ambition of our project is dictated entirely by

the interests of the people nearby. We enthusiastically co-operate with

other groups on the mutual exchange of information but have no intention

of expanding. We have too much to do to create an analysis or policy,

and we haven’t the time to stop and observe what’s going on.

Where Do We Move From Here?

Where do we move from here? Feminists have always possessed an exuberant

disregard for the ‘why?’ questions, the theoretical mainstay of our

menfolk. Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics for one was severely attacked by

reviewers for spending all those pages not formulating a theory on why

sexism existed. Our disinterest in theoretical speculation has been

construed as a peculiar deficiency. Of course. Similarly our distrust

for logic and that which has been unscrupulously passed off as the Known

in the situation. We can’t ‘argue rationally’ we are told and it

probably is true that we avoid this kind of verbal jigging. But the fact

is we haven’t any real stake in the game. KNOWLEDGE and ARGUMENT as it

relates to women is so conspicuously alien to our interests that female

irreverence for the intellectual arts is rarely concealed. In fact,

women seem to regard male faith in these processes as a form of

superstition because there appears no apparent connection between these

arts and the maintenance of life, the principle female concern.

Women’s occupation centres basically around survival processes, the

gathering of resources, the feeding, clothing and sheltering of children

and meeting the necessities of life on a day to day basis. Our energies

must necessarily be applied to ‘how to’ questions rooted in our

practical responsibilities. Observing and evaluating life routines must

be the occupation of the comparatively idle, those with less

responsibilities, i.e., men. Similarly, an old joke points at the

delusionary importance men invest their work with: the head of the

family reports to his friends, “I make the big decisions in the family

like whether Red China should he admitted to the UN and my wife makes

the small ones like if we need a new car and what school the kids should

go to.”

Because women have no vested interest in theoretical assumptions and

their implications and hence no practice in the arts of verbal

domination they will not easily be drawn into its intricate mechanics.

Instead, even young girl children, appraising their lot, acquire an

almost automatic distrust (like Lucy of Peanuts fame) for the

theoretical in the situation and rely on their wits and instincts of the

moment to solve pressing practical problems. Women are suspicious of

logic and its rituals the same way the poor are suspicious of our legal

labyrinths. Veiled in mystification both institutions function against

their interests.

The province of our interests, the ministering of practical needs as

women, has been so seriously and consistently devalued that there is

scarcely anything we do that is regarded as significant. Where our

conversation is about people and problems it is perjoratively referred

to as gossip; our work, because it is necessarily repetitive and

home-centred, is not considered work, but when we ask for help with it

is called nagging. When we won’t argue logically it is the source of

great amusement and it never occurs to anyone to ask us if we wanted to

pursue such competitive fancy in the first place.

We must learn to see our so-called defects as advantages, as a

problem-to-problem, person-to-person approach to Living rooted in the

individual situation. We must learn to value other than the traditional

ways of ‘knowing’ and instead smarten our senses and quicken our

responses to the situations in which we find ourselves.

Feminism means finding new terms to deal with traditional situations,

not traditional terms to deal with what has been called a new movement.

It is a mistake for us to argue the validity of our cause; that would

imply we wanted in. It would suggest there was a contest going on that

we consented to enter, and there would be a dominating winner and a

dominated loser.

Arguing a case for feminism is a form of appeal, like a powerless class

asking for power or a PR enterprise attempting to sell something to a

potential buyer. Feminism means rejecting all the terms we are offered

to gain legitimacy as a respectable social movement and redefining our

real interests as we meet them. So when our disinterest in aggression is

called ‘passivity’ and our avoidance of systematic organisation called

‘naive’, we must heartily agree. How else can you get anything done?

[1] Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate, Pantheon books, 1971, p. 23.