jim writes:

"ANARCHA-FEMINISM * by Flick Ruby

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
polarised the general populace from potentially liberation concepts but
has also polarised 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
consiously articulated by feminists very often. Kornegger agrues that
feminism
"emphasis on the small group as a basic organisational unit, on the
personal and political, on anti- authoritarianism and on spontanious
direct action was
essentially anarchism. I believe that this puts women in a unique
position of being the bearers of a subsurface anarchist consiousness
which if articulated
and concretised can take us further than any previous group toward the
achievement of total revolution.

While anarchism has provided a frameword 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 concpts of power it
sought to
obliterate . One of the basic tenants of anarchist feminsm 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 attone 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
opression but to emerge from it. Mostly we are not locating conflict
with certain people
rather than the kind of behaviour that takes place between them.

Anarchist feminism addresses these notions of power, attempts to
criticise, envision and plan. Everything is involved in the question.
However it is from a
consious understanding of the lessons of the past that presses us into
the future, however angry or embarrased. While it is not my intention to
analyse 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 anathma 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 spontenaiety, on theoretical flexibility, on simplicity of living,
on love and
anger as complementary and necessary compoents of society as well as
individual action." Anarchist feminist see the state as an insitution of
patriarchy,
and seek to find a way out of the alienation of the contemporary world
and the impersonal narture 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 concieving not
of
chaos not disorganisation, but of a situtaion in which there is
emancipation from authority. Ironically what consititutes anarchism is
not goal orientated
post revolutionary bliss but is a set or organisational 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 organisation possible", but has paid little attention to the
manifestations of the state in our intimate relationships nor with the
invidivual
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 embarrased 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 fervour 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
illustrously espoused by these people have not extended their definition
of freedom to ther 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 auidence addressed by a ritual language, with reason.
Consider the
folloving 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 existance.

"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 organisation does not mean that they deny
organisation as such.
The anarchist is not an individualist in the extreme sense of the word.
He believes passionately in individual freedom, but he also recognises
that such
freedom can only be safeguarded by a willingness to co-operate by the
reality of community"

"An integral part of the collective existance, man feels his dignity at
the same time in himself and in others, and thus carries in his heart
the principle of
morality superiour to himslef. This principle does not come to him from
outside, it is secreted within him, it is immanent. It consititues 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
develpment
of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first
and indispensable conditions which the posasibility of such a
development
presupposes."

And as if bearing witness to the sucesses of the socialisaion 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
ressurection 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 tommorrow! 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 asnd 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 fourms are seeminsly 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 ther claim and focus subsurvient to "the
wider
struggle". From the women Abolitionists jeered at when they gave a
feminist understaning of the problems of male drunkeness and its
devestating 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 socialised
male response; defensiveness. But there must be some way in which to
address the political nature of our polarisiaion 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 Krogger that feminism could be the connection that links
anarchism to the future, both add to eachothers struggle not to seize
but to abolish
power, but both go further than the socialists and assert that people
are not free becuse they are surviving, or even economically
comfortable. They are only
free when they have power over their own lives. Anaerchist 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 insitutions
appropriate to a free society might evolve."

Socialist organisations 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 bludgenoning from
the poduim organisations 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
situaion, without ever really coming to grips with ones perception of
it. With capitalism and
patriarchy so safely reduced to an explination, 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 afinity
groups so that people are not blugeoned into opinions and can build up
the personal
relationshiop of trust that facilitates the grieving, the sharing and
the exorcisms of the psyhological 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 realise that
the personal is
political.

"Those of us who have learnt to survive by dominating others, as well as
those of us who have learned to survive by accepting domination need to
socialise
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 consiousness and practise it
or it is doomed to just as much internal contradiction and failure as
anarchists
traditionally foresaw for hierarchical Marxism."