Anarcha-Feminism as an ideology?

[RedBlackStar]

I'd like to say firstly, please forgive any ignorance I have on this subject.

I have always had my issues with feminism due to its ideas but, as an Anarchist, will respect and stand alongside any ideology which contributes towards gaining equality which is a fundamental prerequisite of the Anarchist revolution, or at least how I see it.

I do not, however, quite understand 'Anarcha-Feminism'. Anarchism is commonly understood as being 'anti-state' and, predominantly (let's not talk about those pesky 'right wing Anarchists) 'anti-capitalist'. Of course this opposition to the state and capitalism is not a belief on its own, but rather a result of the belief in total equality and freedom for all.

Feminism, on the other hand, as I understand it at least, is a loose collection of beliefs which, while obviously probably in favour of equality for every group (eg race), are focused on gaining equality in terms of gender.

Firstly, I see a contradiction. Anarchism seeks to transcend gender, Feminism has a habit of, through such a heavy focus, reinforcing it. Although this contradiction can, I imagine, is probably an oversight on my part.

More importantly though, I don't understand the importance of the adjective. Would Anarcha-Feminism push forward total equality for all, but particularly focussing on pushing gender equality? If this is the case I believe Anarcha-Feminists misunderstand Anarchism, which sees all inequalities as being inter-connected.

So my question is: what is Anarcha-Feminism? How is it different to other types of Anarchism?

[Quail]

You could look at anarcha-feminism as feminism which comes specifically from an anarchist perspective. Or from another point of view, although any form of anarchism should advocate and fight for the liberation of people oppressed on the basis of gender, that's not always the case in practice. The anarchist movement often replicates the same hierarchies we see in wider society, so it's often necessary for women and trans people to fight for equality within the anarchist movement as well as in the rest of the world.

I tend to call myself an anarcha-feminist either when I'm involved with general feminist organising, or when I want to draw attention to the work that needs to be done to overcome the sexism within the movement.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Firstly, I see a contradiction. Anarchism seeks to transcend gender, Feminism has a habit of, through such a heavy focus, reinforcing it.

Focusing on issues related to gender does not reinforce gender. Ignoring problems specific to gender, in particular as they relate to the reproduction of capitalist relations, thereby allowing them to continue, does. If anarchists seek to "transcend gender," perhaps they could start by acknowledging that we as revolutionaries have thus far failed to do so. Acting like we are already living in a post gender society and suggesting there is no need for further struggle will not get us there.

[RedBlackStar]

although any form of anarchism should advocate and fight for the liberation of people oppressed on the basis of gender, that's not always the case in practice. The anarchist movement often replicates the same hierarchies we see in wider society, so it's often necessary for women and trans people to fight for equality within the anarchist movement as well as in the rest of the world.

So the title doesn't, in this sense, have a particular meaning outside of Anarchism in itself. Rather, it acts as an emphasis to remind good Anarchists exactly that they must take care not to perpetuate the same inequality that we fight against?

That's good logic.


I tend to call myself an anarcha-feminist either when I'm involved with general feminist organising, or when I want to draw attention to the work that needs to be done to overcome the sexism within the movement.

Also a good reason. I find amongst the majority of people I know who align themselves as feminist that they don't possess any revolutionary character, which is highly limiting.

Please correct me if I misunderstood.

[not a real person]

i'm really not sure i understand your defintion of feminism. feminism is about wanting people to be treated equally. well that is an over simplification, but still. it really seems as if you have a bad understanding of feminism (or perhaps a very outdated understanding).

anarchism is by definition feminist. as anarchists want to rid the world of inequity, hierarchy, and such. feminism generally wishes to rid the world of some inequity, and hierarchy based on gender. anarchism is just taking it a bit further.

i think the best person to read would be emma goldman, who wrote loads of great stuff about free love, against marriage, the state, religion, capitalism etc. i.e she was an anarchist, and she was a feminist.
wikipedia quotes her:

In 1897, she wrote: "I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood."check out some of her writing at ]the anarchist archive: dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/GoldmanCW.htm

also have a good read of an anarchist faq's section on anarcho-feminism: infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionA3#seca35

[Illegalitarian]

What they call "manarchists", or anarchists who still hold very sexist views, was at one point (still is to an extent) a problem within the movement, which needed a strong emphasis on intersectionality, that unless we advocate the destruction of patriarchy as a social construct, we cannot truly claim to be against all illegitimate authority

[Elliot]

to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases

Since this is so problematic, wouldn't there have to be an overwhelming amount of consent between females to love only one male?

[Quail]

Since this is so problematic, wouldn't there have to be an overwhelming amount of consent between females to love only one male?

I've read this several times and I still have no idea what you're on about.

[Elliot]

I've read this several times and I still have no idea what you're on about.

Since slutshaming is still so pandemic, isn`t there a significant amount of consent, tacit or otherwise, amongst women, that it is in our communal best interest to strive for the monogamous ideal.

[Elliot]

Come to think of it, don't feminists owe everyone an explanation as to what the perfect man is? You never hear feminists propping up an example, and yet they're getting their satisfaction regularly..

[Quail]

(I'm still drunk from last night, sorry)


Since slutshaming is still so pandemic, isn`t there a significant amount of consent, tacit or otherwise, amongst women, that it is in our communal best interest to strive for the monogamous ideal.

No? We should be sluts and own it.


Come to think of it, don't feminists owe everyone an explanation as to what the perfect man is? You never hear feminists propping up an example, and yet they're getting their satisfaction regularly..

I honestly have no idea what you're on about. Feminists want to scrap gender roles, and with them any idea of the "perfect" male or female.

Also, many women "get their satisfaction" from other women, so the "perfect man" is kind of irrelevant ;)

[Elliot]

No? We should be sluts and own it.



Wouldn't you have to have sex with a lot of guys who shame you to help them transition into this kind of world? So far that attitude and demeanor has only perpetuated rape culture. How do you ease their concerns and validate that energy? Perhaps a group of feminists and a group of slutshamers could organize timed sexual sessions amongst all members? Could it be that the slutshamers merely need that sense of organization?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Lol, it makes even less sense the more he goes on. 2/10. Troll harder, sonny.

We're not going to have sex with 'slutshamers' to try to convert them, they already have sex with women they would describe as sluts and it doesn't do anything. Why should we try and 'ease their concerns' anyway? Really you make no sense even compared to the drunk poster you were talking to

[Elliot]

A wise man once said nothing; redistribute the reputation.

[BIXX]

Wouldn't you have to have sex with a lot of guys who shame you to help them transition into this kind of world? So far that attitude and demeanor has only perpetuated rape culture. How do you ease their concerns and validate that energy? Perhaps a group of feminists and a group of slutshamers could organize timed sexual sessions amongst all members? Could it be that the slutshamers merely need that sense of organization?
Wat

[TC]

The words "anarchism" and "feminism" both in actual usage each refer to a multitude of different philosophical and political positions that are hardly unified ideologies but have some shared core commitment or theme. Without knowing what variation of each is being discussed it isn't really meaningful to elaborate on what an "anarcha-feminist ideology" would mean.


Firstly, I see a contradiction. Anarchism seeks to transcend gender, Feminism has a habit of, through such a heavy focus, reinforcing it. Although this contradiction can, I imagine, is probably an oversight on my part.

There is no received official anarchist position on gender. Some anarchists like Proudhon were radically misogynistic and pro-patriarchy, others like Goldman had a pre-feminist opposition to patriarchy. Since gender is at the center of feminist analysis there are many feminist views of gender.

Feminists distinguish *sex* from *gender* with *sex* defined as the physical, biological dimension and *gender* defined as the social, cultural and performative elements that are imposed on sex in a patriarchal society.

Radical feminists (like Catherine MacKinnon) recognize the social reality of gender just like anti-racists recognize the social reality of race, but this does not mean they seek to reinforce it but to criticize it, deconstruct it, and undermine it. To a radical feminist, gender isn't a matter of difference, its a matter of hierarchy. Gender norms are to radical feminists the ideological framework imposed by patriarchal institutions onto society to justify and normalize the sex hierarchy and to cultivate superficially willing participation in it.

Difference feminists however (like Carol Gilligan) believe that gender differences have an authentic reality rooted in sex differences and those differences are not all part of an oppressive system, but should in some cases be cultivated to provide alternative feminine morality. Difference feminists critique the devaluation of female gender roles rather than the roles themselves as such, and as such reinforce some gender norms while rejecting others.

Post-structural feminists (like Judith Butler) reject any unified analysis of the categories of male/men or female/women. Gender isn't essentially any specific thing - it is constructed in speech acts to post-structural/post-modern feminists and sex is likewise a socially constructed category rather than something fixed and real in a material sense.

And of course there is a contemporary wave of internet-based feminist or supposedly "intersectional" feminist discourse that seems most focused on cultivating essentialist interpretations and focus on intersectional identity groups, privilege theory, trashing radical feminism (and, implicitly, the other branches of 2nd wave and 3rd wave academic feminism) and supposedly non-intersectional feminism mostly on grounds of activist purity and focus rather than philosophically worked out criticism.

[Decolonize The Left]

So the title doesn't, in this sense, have a particular meaning outside of Anarchism in itself. Rather, it acts as an emphasis to remind good Anarchists exactly that they must take care not to perpetuate the same inequality that we fight against?

It qualifies the anarchism at hand. Anarchism is anarchism (and it isn't, depending upon who you talk to). Feminist-anarchism is anarchism from a particular (feminist) perspective. I.e. feminist-anarchists want to highlight the fight against patriarchy as well as that against the state and capitalism.

It is not a reminder. It is a very real struggle which women fight everyday and men ought to fight as well. Feminists don't own men shit; especially not a "reminder" regarding inequality.


Also a good reason. I find amongst the majority of people I know who align themselves as feminist that they don't possess any revolutionary character, which is highly limiting.

Please correct me if I misunderstood.

Most people aren't revolutionaries so it's not surprising that one group displays the same general characteristics as the whole. The point isn't to have everyone think and act the same way- as revolutionaries- the point is to have struggles be waged where and when they are necessary and strategically important and by the people directly affected. Feminism deserves its place as a valid and necessary struggle regardless of whether or not it is (economically) revolutionary in character.

[Kingfish]

I always saw them as feminists who applied the anarchist's skepticism of power to family and social relationships. Where I think they are at their most interesting and revolutionary is the fact they do not seek a state enforced solutions to these problems.

[communist fox]

I find OP's initial skepticism of feminist possibilities almost as unsettling as this liberal rhetoric about equality. We can't pretend that there aren't massive problems facing specifically women within capitalism and even within our own leftist circles. Any sort of feminism worth a damn is going to be radical. And we certainly can't seek integration into the present system or strengthen that system with our solutions as liberals do. the movement name 'radical feminism' has been poisoned, sadly, by people who view gender in incredibly close minded terms and tend to exclude our transgender comrades from their work. So I think that anarcha-feminism, or as I've heard amongst some marxists proletarian feminism, offers a way of expressing that we seek to get to the root of the systems behind sexism and abolish them rather than seeking liberal solutions that will only advance the interests of white bourgeois 'feminists' for whom utopia means an equal place at the table of the exploiter.

[robot]

as far as i am aware anarcho-feminism is essentially a unity of the two ideologies, stipulating that true liberation for women can only come through an anarchist system, and that true liberation for everyone can only come through a feminist system.

the common error is that anarcho-feminism proposes an anarchist society based entirely and only on feminism, this is not the case.

[communist fox]

i think that what robot said is important, about the unity of the ideas! one really can't do feminism without advocating the destruction of capital

[Bea Arthur]

True anarchism and true feminism are synonymous! If they don't correspond, you're looking at a fraud!!

[Tim Redd]

True anarchism and true feminism are synonymous! If they don't correspond, you're looking at a fraud!!Not establishing a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (dotp) after the initial seizure of power by the revolutionary masses that enforces the interests of the proletariat, including measures to bolster the position of women against those of the just conquered bourgeois elements doesn't correspond to true feminism either.