Old draft re: anarchafem and patriarchy
I did most of my feminist reading when I was much younger, so I don’t tend to reference very much. A lot of what I have to say you will find in some books. Though there will be some things that can only be understood through experience, and talking in personal terms about experience. So I tend to personalise my feminism - afterall, it is born out of my direct experiences with the world. I am what you’d call a radical feminist. I believe that any feminist analysis and action must go to the root cause of womens’ oppression, and I believe that root cause is a system of relationships which privilege men and maleness. I call this system patriarchy. However, patriarchy is just one of a number of systems of domination that we live with on a daily basis - the money system, the boss system and the extraction of value system are also instrumental in exploiting women.
Terms
I’m going to talk about 2 concepts "women as women" and "maleness". When I say "women as women", I mean women are affected by something because they are indellibly marked as women - not because of other incidental factors, such as them being poor, or a worker, or lesbian or asian etc. When I say "malesness", I’m talking about those features of maleness that tend to define the category "man". I’m talking about those features of humanity that have been claimed in the collective consciousness as male - aggression / assertiveness, sexual drive, emotional helplessness, intellectuality, physicality, being capable of action, being capable of "making hard choices" and enforcing power upon others. (Just think of Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis).
Feminism and Anarcha
Anarchist feminism is a linguistic redundancy. Anarchists are againsts *all* forms of domination, even those that dominate women. Anarchists should already be feminists, right? Wrong. The redundancy extends only as far as language and theory. In practice, anarchists need not be feminist, or anti-racist, or ecologically conscious. Anarcha-feminism puts the emphasis of anarchism on the experience of women within partiarchy.
Feminism and men
Anarcha-feminism is about organising to combat patriarchy (a relationship of domination). Anarchism is about organising to free ourselves from relationships of domination. The 2 should mesh well, but I think there is a suspicion of feminism as Patriarchy is a system of relationships that do privilege Maleness, meaning male attributes, attitudes, and men (both biological males and women acting in ‘male’ ways). I think that there is some confusion surrounding feminist analysis between men and Maleness. I need to make it explicit that when I talk about patriarchy benefiting ‘men’ or ‘maleness’, I am not talking about all men, nor all aspects of maleness. Nor am I trying to say that all men are to blame for the conscious creation and propagation of patriarchy, though some are clearly culpable. Also, I am not suggesting that patriarchy leads all men to a trouble-free existence. It does not. Many men live emotionally frustrated lives within patrarchy. But, they are more often offered the material rewards capital promises to those who play the domination game. We are living in a complex society.
In the Australia of the 1940s, you could confidently say that women were housewives and men went to work. Today, that can’t be said. Women line up to become board members, men take time off work to raise children. The gendered world is complicated by diversity upon diversity, and doesn’t fit neatly into a homogenous generalisations of the past. But diversity does not eliminate patriarchy. It merely complicates it.
The strength of patriarchy lies in creation of an *other*. To succeed, the other must fail. It is traditionally women who play the role of the other, but even when the sex roles are reversed, the game remains the same. The (male or female) patriarch gains power by dominating the others. Its easy to see how capitalist exploitation of workers gels nicely with patriarchal exploitation of a gendered other. Women and men still play the roles that sustain patriarchy. Women can rise to power, but to do so, they must inhabit familiar roles that enable them to succeed inside patriarchal structures. The Mother, the emasculating bitch, the Sexual Witch, and the Power Wife Behind The Throne are some examples of the roles women play to gain power in a patriarchal world.
They might also play male roles - the Benevolent Dictator, the Monster Father, the Hardnosed Agent, the Seducer, the Affable Salesman. It doesn’t matter what sex organ lies behind the veil, while these roles exist, patriarchy is at work.
About patriarchy
Divide and conquer. Patriarchy isn’t an intelligently designed system. It is an evolved set of behaviours, and it is still evolving. Patriarchy will cope with diversity - men acting as women, women acting as men. Patriarchy has already coped with and co-opted the supposed ‘threat’ of homosexuality. The ‘pink dollar’, the Petshop Boys, and the Mardi Gras show perfectly well that capitalism can swallow movements of difference and resistance. It doesn’t matter at all who it is that does the dishes WHILE THE ROLES EXIST AT ALL, WE ARE OPPRESSED BY THEM.
What do I want to say here? Can I talk about the failure of feminist organising
“WHILE THE ROLES EXIST AT ALL, WE ARE OPPRESSED BY THEM.”
Yay!
I just take such exception to the language used by the feminist movement to convey such needed realities. Feminism is a gendered term and I can’t help but feel it innately presupposes certain roles. …Which is weird because I don’t have as much a problem with the term Patriarchy. I guess it’s because Patriarchy deals with the current context and Feminism is supposed to deal with the idealism behind our fighting it. Anarchism is less context-dependent and so I feel more comfortable using it. I strongly identify as an Anarchist passionately fighting Patriarchy, and I think part of that is because it also allows me the freedom to fight Matriarchy.
I think that in our society both Men and Women learn roles and games built around gaining power over one another. A woman may secure LESS net power over a man then the man has over her, but both roles/relationships/psychoses are problems. My goal is not to have a net of equal domination over one another (albeit perhaps in different forms or avenues), but to abolish ALL elements of such.
…Also, though God knows the basic concept needs addressing, the term privilege also gets to me because of its authoritarian tone when used. Privileges are freedoms granted by some social or communal authority to a person, but the implication is the legitimacy of some other body to revoke such privileges. When we talk of the “privilege” of not having to suffer like someone under a particular form of domination we imply that that its an unnatural freedom earned at our expense. Although certainly their lack of awareness/etc is problematic and indicative of the power they receive from the system, I feel THAT should be addressed directly. In terms of “you are participating in oppression THIS WAY, it hurts you and me, knock it off.” Not, “how dare you walk the streets at night without fear, like getting ice cream after dinner, that’s not a right, that’s a privilege, and we reserve the right to take it away, you white-ass bourgeoisie male.”
Although, you know, such threats ARE fun. I don’t think the tone is particularly productive or constructive in activist circles.
Comment by w — March 8, 2007 @ 6:08 am