Wednesday,
February 04 2004 @ 08:48 AM PST Contributed by: Admin Views:
893
Submitted by Reverend
Chuck0:
Anarcha-Feminism - Thinking about
Anarchism
Workers Solidarity #79
An
important principle of anarchism and one that more than
any other differentiates it from other types of
socialism is its emphasis on freedom and
non-hierarchical social relations.
Central
to anarchism is the rejection of any power hierarchy
between men and women. Anarchists believe that the
liberty of one is based on the liberty of all and so
there can be no true anarchist society without an end
to all existing structures of domination and
exploitation, including naturally the oppression of
women. As anarchists we believe that the means
determines the end. This means that we do not wait
for some future revolution to tackle the problems of
sexism but instead see that it is important to
struggle against it in the here and now. As
anarchists we strive to ensure that both our own
organisations and also those campaigns we
are involved in are free from sexism and
power-hierarchies and that all members have equal
decision-making power.
We recognise that the full
participation of women within the anarchist movement
and social struggles of today is very important. In
order to shape the future society women must be involved
in its creation and, of course, without the
participation of half of the population there will be
no social revolution. Just as we believe
the emancipation of the working class is the task of
the working class themselves, we also see that,
essentially, women's development, freedom and
independence must come from themselves.
Becoming involved in political struggle is in itself
an act of empowerment. Many women in today's society
do not believe that they could have a role in
fundamentally changing things. However by
getting involved, by assuming our place - agitating,
educating and organising- we begin to take control of
our own lives in the process of actively fighting to
change the unjust society in which we live.
Only
in an anarchist society will the basis for the
oppression of women cease to exist. This is because
women, due to their reproductive role, will always be
more vulnerable than men in capitalist society which
is based on the need to maximise profit. Abortion
rights, paid maternity leave, crèche and
childcare facilities etc., in short everything that
would be necessary to ensure the economic equality of
women under capitalism, will always be especially
relevant to women. Because of this, women are
generally viewed as being less economical than men to
employ and are more susceptible to attacks on gains
such as crèche facilities etc.
Also, women cannot
be free until they have full control over their own
bodies. Yet under capitalism, abortion rights are
never guaranteed. Even if gains are made in this area
they can be attacked, as happens with abortion rights
in the USA. The oppression of women under capitalism
has thus an econom-ic and sexual basis. From these
root causes of women's oppression, stem other forms
of oppression like, for example, the
ideological oppression of women, violence against
women etc. That is not to say that sexist ideas will
just disappear with the end of capitalism, but rather
only with the end of capitalism can we rid society of
an institutional bias that contin-ues to propagate
and encourage sexism.
As an anarchist society
will not be driven by profit, there, for example,
will be no eco-nomic penalty for having children
or wanting to spend more time with them. Childcare,
housework etc., can be seen as the respon-sibility of
the whole of society and thus give women and men more
options in general.
Anarchism/Anarcha-feminism*
joins the fight against class exploitation and that
against women's oppression together. True freedom,
both for women and men, can only come about in
a classless society, where workplaces are
self-managed, private property is abolished and the
people who make decisions are those affected by
them.
Clearly the struggle for women's freedom
requires a class struggle by the workers. And in
turn, the class struggle can only be successful if it
is at the same time a struggle against
women's oppression.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 04 2004 @ 04:19
PM PST
Unobjectionable, overall. I would
only take issue with the one comment near the end about
"self-managed workplaces"; why should an anarchist society have
"workplaces" of any kind?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 04 2004 @ 05:48
PM PST
Well, maybe the community you live
in decides to designate a place for the production of plates for
people to eat off. Members of the community voluteer to operate this
place, and hell, why not call it a factory, and why not call the
activity you do there work. It makes sense to me.
Maybe I
don't understand your intellectualization of the word 'work'?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 04 2004 @ 08:50
PM PST
Too bad you're so stuck in a
capitalist mode of thought, Sun, that you can't even imagine a
society not based on alienating activities like work and commodity
production. If a person is doing something that they desire to do,
it isn't "work"; and if people's lives are whole, they simply create
the things they need, without engaging in a separate sphere of
activity called "production".
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:52 AM
PST
Are you saying then that all people
with individually create their own items of need? That community
production should be abolished? Are you for communism or not?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:44 AM
PST
What I'm suggesting, rs, is that
the very idea of "production" should be abolished, since it turns
the things people need and use into alienated commodities, rather
than simply part of their lives, and forces them to make an
artificial distinction between their "personal time" and "work",
between their personal space and the "workplace".
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 05:15 PM
PST
The issue is not what the place or
activity is called, but the nature of the things. To turn an item of
use into a commodity is alienating; to turn the personal act of
creating that which we use into a sphere of impersonal activity
separate from the rest of our lives - a sphere of "production", or
whatever one chooses to call it - is alienating; to organize the
production of these alienated commodities in terms of work and
workplaces is doubly alienating.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 06:39 PM
PST
Makhno your ridiculous
concentration on the use of the word 'workplace' is shocking. Your
obsession with semantics means that you sidetrack a discussion about
sexism and patriarchy into your pet plaything. As somebody has said,
you can call it a happy creativity place if you like. I do loads of
things that I enjoy in the anarcha-movement like making posters,
organising events and so on, and yes I call it work.
You are
the worst stereotype of the patriarchal anarchist that I can
imagine. A woman opens her mouth and starts talking about sexism and
immediately launch into your macho pet-rant about workerism and
drown her out. No wonder you seem to be an individualist: no
rigtheous anarcha would put up with your shit for long.
If
you have something to say about sexism, say it, otherwise shut up -
we've heard it already.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 09:59 PM
PST
Anybody who wants to use this
thread to discuss sexism or patriarchy is free to do so, but so far,
I've seen very few comments on those subjects. Now, as I said
before, it is the nature of the place or activity that is important,
not what you call it. To turn a useful thing into an alienated
object - let us call it a "commodity" for now, although any other
term will do just as well - is the essence of that activity which is
commonly known as "production", although, again, any other word may
be substituted. The essence of what is commonly known as "work" is
the turning of the personal and enjoyable activity of creating
useful things into an alienated activity. To designate a particular
location or area as a place of "work" (or whatever one's preferred
term is), and to organize time, space, and activity within that area
for the purpose of making work efficient and productive, is to
create an artificial and harmful distinction between personal time
and "work" time, between personal space and "work" space, between
the unrestrained pursuit of our desires and the discipline needed in
order to achieve the desired goals in the workplace.
I do
believe that it is essential to make a clear distinction between
those activities we engage in out of desire or uncoerced personal
choice, and those which we perform from economic or moral
compulsion, and find unpleasant and boring. The latter type is what
I usually refer to as "work".
If someone in a hypothetical
free society found personal fulfillment in the routine mass
production of some commodity in an organized setting of some kind,
then god bless 'em; personally, that sounds like hell to me.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 06 2004 @ 08:47 AM
PST
"Only in an anarchist society will
the basis for the oppression of women cease to exist."
I'd
like to make a distinction in regard to Hogan's assertion on this
point. I agree that only in an anarchist society could the
oppression of women cease to exist, but I also believe that
oppression of women could still exist in an anarchist society. We
are as fallible (if not more so sometimes) as everyone else in the
world. Eliminating capitalism and the state, and creating a place
for collective and individual freedom would be an anarchist society.
It doesn't mean that we would atomatically eliminate the cultural
baggage we bring with us and could easily pass it on to further
generations.
Personally, I've seen plenty of gender
oppression coming from the anarchist community. Its something we
have to prioritize and not merely expect to whither away. My 2 cents
for what its worth.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 06 2004 @ 01:58 AM
PST
well i would like to thank Deirdre
Hogan for her amazing article on anarcha-feminism (or was it
linguistics? it seems like that two may be the same).
yes, i
do believe that in a free society, it will drastically change the
way women are viewed in that society than they are now. i mean i
think we can discuss the meaning of words when the space comes where
we can deal with trivial things. but i think women's rights was the
issue addressed in this article, which is something that women
struggle with everyday. especially with ads up everywhere showing
women as simply sex objects to sell an item. or a television show
that wants to reaffirm that women are as equal as men, which is
complete bullshit.
it's important that we struggle for the
freedom of ALL and address the issues of struggle, and i think that
we, as anarchists/anti-authoritarians/anti-capitalists(however u
identify), shouldn't b bickering or sidetracking the major issues
with trivial things like the meaning of the word "work" whether it
be for a mode of mass production or a mode of survival, in the end:
it is simply a english word that can be interpreted in many
different ways. but this article wasn't about the word 'work' that
she picked for whatever reason that she did in the article. it is
about the human struggle, the human experience. she was explaining
to us what it is like to die, what it is like to suffer, and what it
is like to truly live. she was sharing with us her vision of a
better future for all, for those who will inherit the earth after
us. i think that is something that everyone should listen too, and
stop fighting amongst each other over a word.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 06 2004 @ 04:23 AM
PST
In reply to steve-o's comments
about work, I can only point out yet again that it is the nature of
the activity that is important, not what you call it. The reference
in this article to "workplaces" clearly means exactly what it seems
to mean - i.e., a designated area organized for the purposes of some
type of routine productive activity. The fact that this article
comes from Workers Solidarity should make it obvious that they use
the word "work" in the currently accepted sense of the word; a
workerist group cannot conceive of a society not based on such
alienating activity.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 06 2004 @ 02:33 PM
PST
I prefer to wash dishes in the
kitchen sink, rather than the bathroom sink... as do all my
housemates. We try and take turns, but washing dishes can be boring.
Morally, I think all of us feels compelled to take turns... though
it's all very informal. Maybe someone made dinner tonight in the
kitchen and we all ate it, so someone else does the dishwashing.
We all call washing the dishes "work" not "play". However,
we haven't commodified washing the dishes. It's not alienating
(atleast, we don't think so).
Anyway... lots of folks have
talked about the alienation of labor and objection to
commodification (of everything), without making some semantical
distinction about "work".
Lots of folks who argue for
self-management, etc... are opposed to the alienation of labor, of
commodification, of markets and currency.
But you rarely
actually listen to our arguments, your so caught up in semantics.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 06 2004 @ 03:01 PM
PST
I see Flint has decided to
contribute another one of his ill-thought-out posts to this thread.
First of all, I have already made clear several times here that it
is the nature of the activity, not the name one attaches to it, that
is the issue; therefore, Flint's charge that I am "caught up in
semantics" makes no sense. Secondly, Flint apparently believes he
has disproved my thesis with his example of sharing dishwashing
duties with his housemates, but all he as actually accomplished is
to demonstrate that some types of work are not as onerous as others
- hardly a revelation. Even with this trivial example, he had to
admit that he found this activity boring, and that he performed it
only from a sense of moral obligation.
Of course, Flint fails
to acknowledge my main point about work and workplaces - namely,
that the organization of "work" (or whatever else one chooses to
call it) as a separate sphere of human activity, organized in a
technical manner, so as to achieve the desired productivity goals,
is inherently alienating, whether the workplace is "self-managed" or
not. This is one of the blind spots of all left anarchists - they
are unwilling or unable to critically examine the concepts of work,
industrialization and productivity as such, and frame their vision
of a free society in terms of these oppressive ideological
constructs.
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 09 2004 @ 05:08 AM
PST
What the hell?
How come my
rather mild mannered objection to fake Makhno trying to derail this
thread was deleted along with the link I gave to further writing
from anarchist women at http://struggle.ws/wsm/womenwriters.html
?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 11:44 AM
PDT
In an anarchist society wouldn't it
simply be survival of the fittest? It becomes a hunter gatherer
society, and only the strong survive and as evidence suggests in the
animal kingdom male dominance is still a factor when the male is the
physically stronger (for example lions or alligators). So how again
do you reason that anarchy would somehow create equallity among the
spiecies? I can see each performing their role as male and female
but the males would still act as the dominate partner.
Feminism is mispelled in the footnote. Just a typo.