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- Research on Anarchism List <ra@alor.univ-montp3.fr> Fri, 28 May 1999 16:54:31 Anarcho-feminism and anarchist liberalism: Some elements of analysis by Leo Vidal (LeoVidal@aol.com) This article was written in a precise context. As a member of the anarchist bookshop La Gryffe in Lyon (France), I co-organised three days of discussion in May 1998 called "Three days for the great evening". During this conference, many debates took place some of which were on the question of sexism. At the time of the last debate about thirty feminists protested against the course of the previous debates denouncing the sexism of the anarchist movement and the impossibility of really discussing male domination - in general and in the anarchist movement. Following the publication by these feminists of a text exposing the motivations of this anarcho-feminist action , four men of La Gryffe wrote a reply called "Anarchy and the women's movement" . The article below is based on this article and analyses a phenomenon of a general nature: men, believing that they are the center of the world, act, think and write without taking into account their status of dominance, therefore without taking account of the fact that they are part of a socially constructed group which is the sex class of men. Thus, they consider themselves universal while they are dominant and they deny de facto the feminist criticism of the social relations of the sexes. This seems to me incompatible with any claim of a radical left and anarchist nature, i.e. the opposition to any form of domination and exploitation be it racism, or lesbophobia and homophobia, or sexism, or capitalism.... Regarding feminist claims, the anarchist movement uses various strategies of defence of the male status quo. If the prevalent reaction towards feminists is still formed by denial, ridicule and violence, another strategy passes by a liberal discourse celebrating the diversity from the points of view. The recognition of the founded good of feminism is then limited to a right of quite specific existence. It seems significant to me to analyse which place anarchist men leave, grant, give to feminism and to show the reactionary functions of the liberal discourse - discourse which is not limited to the anarchist movement but which is even more unacceptable there considering the anarchist will to fight against any form of domination. A first formal element expresses very well the negation of the male position of dominance. Indeed, the four male signatories develop throughout their text a position of neutrality, of exteriority, even of objectivity via "it was up to us", "the difficulty of getting us together", "we". The text does not practically anywhere express the located position of the authors: no reference is made to their statute of dominance. This quite particular position of dominance is thus made invisible even as it is the prerequisite for men to develop a discourse celebrating diversity. Indeed what the dominant ones can perceive as diversity of perspectives is lived by dominated like the absence of freedom and real diversity. It is thus not a mistake that the neutral and plural French "we" (on and nous respectively) criss-cross this text: they express the blindness of these men towards their

particularity, the specificity of domination and, logically, towards the domination to which women are subjected. If these men do not recognise themselves in their position of dominance, they are nonetheless - in the same way as myself. We benefit from the male domination which structures the entire society and often actively perpetuate it through our way of speaking, glance, behaviour.... Our life is more pleasant due to the exploitation of women (e.g. their domestic, relational, communicative services) and we have more choices due to the restriction of the choices of women (e.g. the fact that women do the domestic and breeding of children work is the condition of our success on the educational, professional and activist level). However these men take a different path from the profeminists by choosing to make invisible their status of dominance and to deny the deeply socio-political nature of male domination by developing this discourse: "The anarchist days were open, without exclusive, like the project of Gryffe wants it, with all the components and points of view of the anarchist movement. However, some of them regard the women's struggle as secondary or do not perceive the importance of their stakes. Others, more marked still, denounce feminism, consider, from their point of view, than feminism is locked up in a sectarian and particularist dead end that opposes a questioning of the social order and, finally, that is detrimental to Women's Liberation. It is like that. All these points of view equally contribute to the composition of the anarchist movement..." This discourse is a liberal discourse and non-anarchist in my eyes because it attributes an equivalent value to thoughts which are opposed to the domination and the exploitation of women as to thoughts which deny or make invisible this domination. It does not seem necessary to me to show that the anarchist movement has known and possesses tendencies that are anti-Semitic, misogynist, revisionist and that it is necessary to fight against these tendencies in the same way which it is necessary to fight against the anti-Semitism, the misogyny or the revisionism of our Western society. However it is the opposite which these men defend with regard to feminism. Feminism is, according to them, the expression of a point of view, of a current of thought like are for example anti-organisational anarchism, anarchist individualism, anarcho-syndicalism and it would deserve the same consideration as the anti-feminism of certain anarchists. I have some difficulties with understanding what founds this categorisation: what makes it possible to put feminism among the various anarchist tendencies and not among these political minimal requirements which are anti-racism or anti-capitalism? In my opinion, no reasoning can justify this and only the not-recognition of one's dominant position allows depoliticizing to this point the anarchist feminist analyses, delegitimizing anarchist feminist actions and to thus rationalise the defence of one's male interests. Because, in my opinion, it is all about this: the celebration of a certain diversity as long as it does not call into question the authors as men benefiting of an exploitative system. Moreover, this celebration of diversity is quite relative because it is limited to discourse and does not relate at all to the implementation of this discourse. Because the concrete application would touch the concrete interests of the dominant ones - as the feminist intervention during the anarchist days of May testifies. In the same way, the powers in place in our Western society allow a relative diversity of discourses - even the expression of major criticisms of this system - as long as these discourses remain discourses and are not applied in order to transform the concrete organisation of the society, as long as the rules of the game are not

changed. "Think what you want, express it, comply with the rules that we fix and all is for best in Brave New World". How can one articulate on the one hand the development by the dominant ones of a precise and strict regulation of social relations and on the other hand the fact that they develop a liberal discourse celebrating diversity? Would this discourse be a decoration behind which a precise machinery functions crushing some for the benefit of the others? It thus seems to me that the fundamental stake behind all these words is the defence of a male status quo. The refusal of a personal and collective questioning. The refusal of a criticism of oneself as dominant. The refusal of a concrete change of relations within the anarchist movement - for the benefit of women and not of men. It is for that reason that the authors write: "Because they are due to the totality of social relations, to the totality of the social order wherein we live and to the roots of this order, dominance included in male/female relations, like all other relations of dominance, cannot be solved locally, inside a collective whatever it is (even non-mixed paradoxically). To set this as the top priority inside this collective is an absurd and impossible task which, instead of freeing, and exactly because of its impossibility, multiplies on the contrary, as do religious groupings, the instruments and the relations of oppression." [emphasis added] This reminds me of the liberal discourse concerning the criticisms of heterosexism and lesbo/homophobia: "Me, I am not homophobic. Queers have right to live their life... but they shouldn't touch me or my children! Because me, I am not a faggot!" A social domination is recognised and at same time one does not want to know oneself implied, touched, directly concerned even co-responsible. A more anarchist answer - in my opinion would be to recognise ourselves as sexist, heterosexist and to try to understand in what way we are it and how we can act on it - by listening the principal ones concerned, the feminists, the lesbians. As writes Fabienne in her text in number 12 of the revue La Griffe, there is a job be done, and it starts with the public recognition of the problem. the the

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It is necessary for us to work at an autonomous temporary zone of less domination, instead of defending in an egoistic way a permanent zone of not fighting against the domination. Isn't this paradoxical for anarchists to deny at this point any possibility of liberating experiences within a collective or movement? These experiments do take place concerning informal power via the rotation of tasks, the turns of speaking, the refusal of permanent mandates. Why couldn't one try today to transform the social relations between the sexes within our movement? It is not a question, as the authors affirm in a quite reducing way, to make it "the primary objective" but to make it a significant objective among others. And it is exactly that which fear these men in my opinion: of having to put concrete questions about their behaviour and attitude to change them according to the freedom of the others; to have to pass over a male selfishness to go towards women and their multiple claims of justice. Rather than to denounce with arrogance the so-called "fetishism, communautarism, separatism" of the anarcho-feminists, we should start perceiving the male fetishism centred around the penis and the bollocks fetishism which can be observed easily through the multiple phantasms of castration which are not long in being expressed when the woman-men relations are questioned. Of deconstructing male communautarism and its male solidarity beyond ideological differences. It's this male solidarity that makes men nearly always form a front against women and feminism. And a concrete example confirms in my opinion that this solidarity is a significant stake. I often heard anarchist men express their rejection of

the "politically correct" and to assert the right to a sexist joke, a misogynist or lesbophobic insult - in the name of the freedom of expression. However, the stake is not as much freedom of expression but male solidarity: "humour (sexist, racist, homo/lesbophobic...), in the adhesion which it requests, translates the power relations between social groups, and by the same one between individuals." The liberal response to feminism succeeds this inversion which consists in particularising a claim of justice and in making invisible a relation of domination by posing like neutral an unjust state of things. The goal of this article is thus twofold. On the one hand, to show at which point the liberal discourse serves anarchist men in their refusal of feminism in it's global and transversal dimension. It is used to lock up the feminist analysis in the field of tastes and colours. It amounts, concretely, to putting on an equal footing on the one hand analyses who allot the responsibility for domestic male violence against women to these same women (provocation, masochism...) and on the other hand analyses who perceive this violence as an element of political repression against women on behalf of the class of men. In an ultimate way, it is an apology for the law of the strongest for which reason does not have any reason to exist. On the other hand, the aim of this article is to actively contribute to a state wherein feminism is not regarded any more as a perspective but as a political minimal requirement. Our education of dominance is omnipresent and structures us but it does not oblige men at all to perpetuate our individual predominance at the relational or collective level. We have the possibility of acting differently, of opening up towards the analyses and feelings of feminists and of taking part in their fight against sexism - when they wish it. We can fight alongside women - even in a non-mixed way - against interiorized or institutional sexism. It is enough to be ready to break with the egoistic defence of our interests of dominants and to break with these men around us who refuse to call themselves into question. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Moderator/Moderador/Moderateur : Ronald Creagh e-mail : rcreagh@alor.univ-montp3.fr Co-Moderator : John P. Clark

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