We Make No Pretence - An Anarcha-Feminist Critique

Published: June 07, 2009 22:00 by Rizla

The intervention today reminded me of the antics of the League of Empire Loyalists when they turned up at Tory conferences blacked up and denounced everyone present as traitors. Today nopretence turned up at the anarchist conference masked up, claiming that 'covering up makes it easier to communicate'. There seemed to be little desire to communicate, as after the theatre the nopretence activists made themselves scarce. Not only that, but given the honest, face to face discussion which characterised the conference, masking up seemed to put up a barrier, not remove one. At a time when more women than ever wear religious veils, voluntarily covering your face is, to say the least, a retrograde step.

I've mentioned honesty. There was a lack of it in the film. One of the best speakers at the anarchist rally following the Put People First march on 28 March was a woman. Footage was shown of other speakers - all men. She has been edited out of history to prove a point. Anyone could have spoken at the anarchist rally: there was a deliberate and announced 'open mike' policy. To suggest that the rally was only addressed by men is peculiarly dishonest. Contrasting with the rally was footage from Parliament, again showing only men speaking. Where were the powerful women from Parliament? Where were Harriet Harman, Jacqui Smith, Teresa May, Hazel Blears or Patricia Hewitt? This was, at best, underhanded.

The Class War poster highlighted in the film was one of a series, others of which featured two men kissing and another Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Class War received, and responded to, a number of emails about the posters, including printing a letter and reply in the next issue of CW. The posters, incidentally designed by an anarcha-feminist, promoted an extremely successful event attended by over 100 people, many of whom were new to anarchist ideals. The number offended was considerably less.

The leaflet for the conference also comes in for some criticism. It depicts a faceless female figure, which I took to be a sort of anarchist everywoman. This is a standard practice for people producing leaflets - but doubtless if it had been a faceless man it would still have come in for criticism. The organisers of the conference were placed in a no-win situation!

We're told that there's a choice forced on us between fighting the state and fighting sexism. Utter bollocks. Where the rest of the leaflet recognises that there are a range of structures within society, this part ignores it. As most anarchists recognise, we need to fight on a number of fronts, against (for example) bosses as well as cops. Our anarchism is expressed in our everyday lives or it's nothing. And in our everyday lives we clearly spend much of our time dealing with relationships with other people: we don't take on the state seven days a week. So it's not an either-or, either state or sexism, but an and - state and sexism.

Perhaps the largest non-state institution which perpetuates sexism within society is religion. Yet there's no mention of that within the leaflet. Given the unfortunate rise in religosity in recent years, I would have thought that as well as opposing capitalism and racism, anarcha-feminists would advocate the 'no gods' as well as 'no masters' aspect of anarchism. It's disappointing to see it ignored.

Final word

You can pretend to do something about sexism in the movement through a stunt. It's a lot easier than actually engaging with people and fighting against it.

Published: June 07, 2009 22:25 by i was the conference too

I was at the conference too. I was one of four women in a group of fifteen. At the plenary only 3 women spoke. I would say less than a third of the people at the conference were women. For whatever reason that is,the above poster would like to blame women, but personally i blame patriarchy, its a problem and we need to deal with it.
I am so glad that those women did what they did today, it made my day and actually gave me hope that we may actually now be closer to being a viable anarchist movement. Its about time that there was a discussion about sexism in the "movement" and in society as a whole. It is to be expected that people will start ripping the whole thing to pieces, its called a backlash and feminists have been dealing with it for years!

Published: June 07, 2009 22:49 by Rizla

I'm not 'blaming women' for anything. It's a cheap shot, and the sort of thing which devils debate about feminism and the participation of women within anarchist circles. While there are issues with sexism and the participation of women within the anarchist movement, it will not be solved by stunts and avoiding engagement through debate. It will not be solved by editing women's speeches out of films, or by slurs against other anarchists like Class War. It will be solved by entering into discussion and by people examining their own behaviour.

One member of my group made the point that anarchism is something that involves casting off much of the socialisation we receive in this society, which clearly isn't going to happen overnight. If you read anarchist literature like the Tintin adventure 'Fighting Back', you'll see that it's something which many people need to have challenged before addressing. So it's no surprise that sexism exists within the movement, but as people spend time within the movement I expect, and hope, that these attitudes are challenged where they arise and the offenders examine themselves and change their behaviour for the better.

So I'm not blaming women for anything, but criticising an action which I feel was misguided.

Published: June 08, 2009 09:41 by paisan

first of all hurray to the peeps who came up with the idea and went through with it. for everyone who wasn't there and only gets the online reactions to it: at the meeting they got huge applause for the intervention, and i personally only heard positive remarks about it and even some genuine discussions. (well except for that jerk who, after it became clear that it was all wimmin yelled something like "are you going to dance for us? sexy!")

secondly, a lot of the comments written by males here and on the uk site read like: yeah, you know, sexism is really a problem, but how dare you just address it on your own terms and not on terms that i was asked about and agreed to beforehand. and yeah, that's rough paraphrasing, but if i wanted to be mean i'd paraphrase some reactions as: hey, how dare they just take the space? and have fun while doing it? and not even invite me to voice my opinion on what they're doing?

the invention provided lots of food for thought and discussion, so go think and discuss with friends, in groups and in the pub. but mind you, discuss the issues they address and not the form they chose to address things. the focus on the form of the action rather than the issues it addressed remind of the reaction of mainstream media yelling that what activists did was illegal and hardly mentioning the issues that the protest revolved around. there's some double standards here.

someone called the action, specifically the masking up threatening, but since when are masks a threat rather than self protection?

even though i appreciate the generally fairly civil tone that objections are raised (or the moderation of this site, maybe i just got lucky and someone hid the less civil comments just now), some of them look like a biting reflex.

it was quite nice to see that most groups had discussed sexism in one way or another, so even though it didn't show up in the questions, participants obviously saw the need to address the issue.

Published: June 08, 2009 11:43 by Rizla

The space wasn't "taken" - I'm told all this had been arranged with the conference organizers. Which really makes a mockery of the intervention, not acting in the tradition of the radical feminists nopretence cite but acting after effectively receiving permission.

As for the message, it would have been stronger if nopretence hadn't felt the need to edit women out of history. Added to which, if nopretence felt they wanted a debate they would not have taken down my initial comment (above) from their website. It's a poor comment on the state of the movement that although comments I've posted on Labour party sites or even on fascist sites have remained up, nopretence felt the need to remove an alternative opinion instead of entering into debate.

Published: June 08, 2009 12:15 by i know

whoever told you that it was all arranged with the conference organisers is having you on. That is without doubt completely untrue!

Published: June 08, 2009 12:18 by enigma

One of the facilitators said something like "yeah this was all planned" into the mic when they left, obviously that was meant to be a joke.

Published: June 08, 2009 13:22 by an anarcha-feminist

most of the comments appearing on here show me exactly why the women involved in the action probably felt the need to mask up.

i have been involved in the anarchist 'movement' for a long time. i -and other anarcha-feminists- have tried to raise issues of sexism and male dominance, and challenge particularly crap attitudes/propaganda, for many years.

despite the difficulties of trying to work in groups which are often dominated by (straight) white men, most of us continue to do so, and continue to hope that more of those men will come to realise why fighting patriarchy is important for all of us. (and that its existence oppresses all of us).

i think it's interesting - and sad - to see how some of you have chosen to respond to the intervention and the video.

i watch the video and to me it's obviously just a montage of footage from lots of different places (not just london and definitely not just one event at speakers corner); it's been designed to illustrate the kinds of problems we're talking about. it doesn't look to me as if it was aiming to accurately document the event at speakers corner, 'edit anyone out of history', but rather make the necessary point that women often don't get on the mic as often as men.
<which>.

would anyone else like to react defensively to this point, and tell us yet again that there obviously isn't a problem cos at least one or two women did step up and speak that day (compared to 10 men? wow, i can feel patriarchy starting to crumble from here) and maybe for good measure criticise those pesky women again for their 'dishonesty', bad editting, inappropriate dress code, bad timing, exit arrangements, or anything else?

or perhaps you could helpfully remind us again that the class war flyers were designed by a woman? well, that's all right then...
most anarcha-feminists i know are not as simplistic as all that - why should we unreservedly support/agree with something just because it's been done by a woman? or by someone who may or may not choose to call themselves a feminist of any kind?
we're surrounded by crap images and attitudes, a lot of which are reproduced/created by the mainstream media and advertisers. following your 'logic',we obviously shouldn't criticise or question any of that either, cos chances are much of it was produced by women too....

or perhaps you could have another go at nopretence for not hanging around after the film (cos it would have been more convenient for you to start nitpicking about it there and then?) to discuss these issues with everyone.

i think the point that they were trying to make is that as a 'movement', and within our local groups, we really should be making the time and effort (and having the initiative) to discuss these issues more often.

please do not feel that as a man, you have to sit around and wait for someone else (a woman?) to organise it. why not get together with a group of friends and actually put some of your time and energy into figuring out what we mean by 'patriarchy', various ways of resisting it, and ways in which we can start to make our groups and spaces less hierarchical/ male-dominated/ white-dominated/ ableist?
there are lots of people out there who have been talking about this shit for years, and working on it, and producing resources/sharing ideas. a few of these are actually up on the nopretence site, alternatively, you can find plenty on the internet if you bother looking...

i think they may also have been trying to make the point that it's crazy to put together an anarchist conference which aims to discuss class, but not include gender or race (or other forms of oppression and domination) as similarly-important themes for debate. i know plenty of women who have been saying this for months. and plenty of black people and queer people and women who didn't come anywhere near the event because it patently wasn't for them, and they're sick of these issues being sidelined.

it's not the sole reponsibility of women to make sure those discussions take place, and it's not the sole responsiblity of women to attack sexism. we are all responsible.

similarly, it's not black people's responsibility to educate white people about racism, or to make sure race gets discussed, or to sort out the problems of racism in our 'movement'. etc etc

it is not the responsibility of a group like nopretence to hang around and chat to you about this stuff. i think it's perfectly clear from the video that they're challenging all of us to do it ourselves. i'm disappointed that the conference organisers didn't respond particularly well at the time.

the attempted 'joke'(?) about how it was pre-planned, felt to me like a way of belittling the action, and trying to take some of its power/significance away.
<i>s voices, and very real concerns, were ignored.

Published: June 08, 2009 14:29 by superfoo

There actually only seems to be one guy complaining about the intervention here so far, and to be honest he hasn't had anything substantial to say about the issues it raised, he's just been making some pretty minor nitpicks about the format of the intervention.

I thought the intervention was great. I'm a man, and not from the UK, and I'm continually amazed by the amount of crap that women in the UK put up with, both inside and outside of the anarchist movement. Hopefully this action can start a discussion within our movement and lead to a change in both attitudes and action. In other countries, there is still sexism, but the kinds of comments and general attitudes that women deal with in the anarchist movement here would be considered unacceptable in most other places. Actually, behaviour like that of the guy in the back row who said out loud "Ah, are they going to do a sexy dance for us?" when it became apparent that a group of women had taken the stage during the plenary would certainly result in expulsion and ostracism.

A couple of times during the conference I found myself getting pissed off when, during the long meetings, some of the guys would drone on for twenty minutes as if they were geniuses enlightening the world, while the women would take for ten seconds and get interrupted, then be quiet for another hour. I didn't say anything at the time - next time I will.

Published: June 09, 2009 00:11 by nrk

I think the issues raised by the intervention are very important, but i do agree that by just showing a video and addressing a crowd it isnt opening it up for discussion and solution. I feel by participating in the whole conference they may have achieved more. It kind of felt like they just walked in and said we were all bastardly chauvanists and then walked out again, and at the time i felt it was kind of offensive, i don't like getting told of for something by someone who doesnt even know if i'm doing it.
Please don't take this as an attack on feminism, or the group that did it, that is not what this is. I simply feel that it was not the most effective method of raising the issue, i was left confused, annoyed and with a lot of questions that did not get answered, again explicitly not annoyed at feminism/no pretences just at the action.

Published: June 09, 2009 07:49 by no dick

I would like to mention that when I realised what was going on, it totally made the day for me. I was really happy about the intervention, the style and content of it. And as far as I can tell all the women I spoke to later were also really inspired, some shiny eyes, big grins and marvelling at the greatness of the action.

As for the lack of discussion, there was plenty of it. Just you didn't know if you were talking to someone who was involved in the action or not. But discussion did happen, and if you missed it I don't know where you went. It would have been easy to open the floor at the meeting for discussion, that it didn't happen is down to the facilitators and everyone who participated in the meeting, not to those who took action.

That's partly why the masking up really worked, as one woman I was talking to later said: it could be any one of us. Maybe it was not the intended effect, but we agreed that we felt more included in the action through the fact that we didn't know any faces.

Someone said that there where more negative than positive comments, while this may be true for the UK Indymedia site, it's definitely not true here. It makes sense to point out, that everyone here is writing good stuff except for 'Rizla', he obviously feels the need to make his voice heard by posting lots of comments. While this might warp the impression one gets from this thread, it's like one dude saying a lot at a meeting, not like lots of people speaking. (There is a good article linked on the No Pretence website about this kinda stuff, it's called "Shut the Fuck Up!" http://www.danspalding.com/articles/stfu.html)

Published: June 09, 2009 12:41 by nrk

At no point has either myself or 'rizla' made it clear that we are male... I know patriarchy exists throughout society but until the assumption that all men perpetuate this form of oppresion and that all wimmin are innocent parties it will never be resisted. Men and wimmin both are socially constructed and forced into roles they may not wish upon themselves and to say only wimmin suffer from this is, IMO, a total fallacy. Men are forced and coerced into alienation from thier comrades, competition with thier comrades and into responsibilities over thier comrades that often they are unprepared for, this is not because they are patriarchs, this is because the patriarchal society they live in forces them into this personality. I think there is a lot more to the problem of patriarchy than just 'liberating wimmin', it is the liberation of ALL people from ALL forms of oppression. As much as i agree with addressing the lack of wimmin within the 'movement', i can't help but see these blanket assumptions that all men and only men are perpetuating patriarchy as counter-productive.

Published: June 09, 2009 13:10 by more exclamationmarks than you

I might have missed something, but after reading the above comments, I don't think anyone said that men don't have problems with patriarchy or anything like it. Also no-one said that all wimmin are "innocent parties". But yeah, men generally perpetuate this form of oppression more often than not. And saying that men suffer just as much from it is pretty ridiculous. Some fun facts around the issue:
* 1 in 10 women in the UK experiences sexualised violence every year
* Between 40 and 45% of murdered women are killed by thir male partners
* Between 1 and 2 women are murdered by their male partners every week
* more than 25% of all violent crime reported to the police is domestic violence of men against women, making it the second most common violent crime
* women earn on average only 75% of what a man would get for the same job
...

I've long been saying that men need to get off their asses and start their own liberation movement to break out of gender roles. But sorry, I'm not doing it for them.

The problem here is that some folks staged a cool intervention and they're action is being nitpicked apart rather than supported.

The real irony is that whenever wimmin dare to address sexism, everyone is all over them for not doing it good enough. We're talking about a performance style intervention here, not about a sociological book dealing with gender or queer theory. Of course they didn't address all issues related to gender. But they're action was really successful. Why is it so hard to just say that?

Published: June 09, 2009 13:52 by nrk

i cant help but feel this is not an effective method of discussion, lets face it, its all too easy to bias a comment on the internet. A common theme at the conference was to bring an end to these petty arguements, as i say it's not feminism i disagree with. Having read a lot of stuff from the no pretences website i have realised i agree with them on a lot of issues, much more so than i disagree with.
Please dont think i'm trying to take up all the space on this thread with my opinions, i realise in a way that i am, however, This is just an issue i feel strongly about, in the movement, and indeed my life, i have experienced what i feel to be heterophobia and misandry, mostly from those who take up gender/sexuality inequality as their main cause, you may laugh as i know that there is hardly a long history of persecution of straight men and i know my 'plight' is hardly worthy of mention in comparison with that of the persecution of wimmin, but it is still an issue that effects me, and i am quite sure others.

Published: June 09, 2009 20:01 by E

The organizer's comment was that the intervention was obviously UN-planned... and he didn't sound ironic so much as tired! (He was an organizer, after all)

Published: June 10, 2009 03:52 by spider

nrk, what you're experiencing is probably a mild form of what affects non-whites, queers and women when they interact with society in general, not just within the scenarios you've felt it in.

Instead of reacting against that and criticising those activists who have made these issues their main focus, try and see it as an insight into how it feels to be on the receiving end of oppression, use it as a tool to work on this stuff. That way you move forwards, the other way, you move backwards.

Published: June 11, 2009 11:56 by Andrew Cady

If men rather than women are found speaking in "anarchist movement," must we seek an explanation in "patriarchy," "power structures," and "oppression," or might other factors be at play?

One thing you will notice in the video that shows the clips of speakers -- the major demographic difference between "the state" and "the movement" -- age. "The movement" is one of young men, with a few young women. "The state" is filled with old men, with a few old women. Why?

I think the reason for greater male participation in "the movement" can be seen in the causal chain which brings people to it. Females lead different sorts of lives -- and, especially, different sorts of youths.

To address this in detail is not my aim here, nor am I capable; I am only trying to raise the question. But the screaming and shouting and techno music, although I suppose it makes for an emotional rise, really does not seem informed by an understanding of the relevant factors. The men in "the movement" would be quite happy to have a more equal gender ratio, for example, but they cannot make it not happen. I certainly realize the issue being raised is not gender ratio; but the issue of lack of female participation must start with this, and the recognition that it is not a choice made by the men. Getting young women involved, when there are much more fun things to do, when everyone wants them, when every social scene will do what it takes to get them to stay -- perhaps a "movement" just does not offer a good enough experience to sustain their involvement.

I'm not trying to say that men are, because of some inherent superiority, "more serious" than women. However, insofar as consumer capitalism infantalizes everyone, prolongs childhood and adolescence indefinitely, creates "youth culture," values us in our most dependent and passive role (as consumer), etc., it does so much more effectively, or at least somewhat longer and with fewer exceptions, for young women, who have access to so many more consumer experiences -- including those where, effectively, the young women are not the customer, but the product. (The "night club" and the bar being only the most conspicuous manifestation of these.) Put otherwise, young women are more likely to find a place in the consumer world than young men; and it is those who have the least place in the consumer world that will join radical political movements (or undertake other "serious" activities).

Regarding the sexual division of labor: Those women who do "women's work" are probably happy to have their contribution valued (everybody likes to be valued) and to escape the role of isolated spectator. Meanwhile, the "men's work" likely involves an intense competition for recognition. (This is what makes it "men's work.") Fewer women will choose to enter into these competitions (which involve risks, and offer them little incentive to do so); and there are fewer of them to do so. Speaking on stage is certainly an instance of this. Men's contribution to "women's work," on the other hand, would tend not to be valued in the same way; it might even be seen (or, anyway, experienced subjectively) as an especially conspicuous failure to compete. The man working in the kitchen is likely to see the women surrounding him accord greater respect to those speaking on the stage than to himself, which he will find greatly discouraging. Note that these issues stem from the particular nature of volunteer labor. Where labor is not seen as a choice, but rather a social obligation, you are much more likely to find men cheerfully doing women's work (so long as this is seen as the obligation of men and not only women). But it is not generally possible to impose social obligations on volunteers unless their volunteering takes some form of long-term commitment -- this means, especially, membership in a society.

The the long-term breakdown of society into the nuclear family and the sex-seeking individual, who "networks" in spaces of consumption, has left no ties between the young and the old. The old are excluded from anarchism, not primarily because of any "youth-archy" (though in fact the old may experience exclusion in many ways) but because young and old in our society do not know how to relate and do not encounter one another socially. We grew up in artificial institutions, strictly segregated by age; we cannot relate to elders except as authorities; no social roles are available to us or them that would unite us with them. But it is among the old (by which I mean only the not-youth) that serious women are to be found. Especially, I think, the divorced and the unmarried (and not only for lack of attachments).

So if the goal is including women in anarchism, not as a token which merely proves that women are not being excluded (and, I think, they already are not), but in order to actually involve the experience and voice of women, perhaps the first attempt should be made to include older people. Or, perhaps before that, a recognition of the fact that non-participation is not necessarily, or even probably, the result of participation being excluded by power.