A collection of essays on feminism and sexism in the anarchist movement

This booklet is published in the hope that these texts will spark much needed debate and sorely-needed change within us as individuals and within the anarchist movement. Isn’t anarchism essentially feminist, with its central aim of abolishing hierarchy and creating equality? While theoretically it should be, in reality anarchist organisations and people claiming to be anarchists consistently ignore (or worse, out right deny the existence of) gender oppression. The problem of gender is rarely an integral part of anti-capitalist and anti-racist discourse and struggle. A look at history shows us that the anarchist movement has not considered feminism one of its major concerns. Although Bakunin, for example, advocated complete equality between women and men and denounced the contradiction in many male militants who fought for socio-economic equality and freedom while being
tyrants at home, Proudhon, on the other hand, pillar of the libertarian movement, was a notorious misogynist. This author of sentences like ” the woman is a pretty animal but an animal nonetheless. She is as eager for kisses as a goat is for salt,” is still the master thinker for many. There have always been homophobic anarchists, as well; who argue that homosexuality represents a “bourgeois perversion.” Emma Goldman described the obstacles against her when she raised this issue: “Censorship came from some of my own comrades because I was treating such ‘unnatural’ themes as homosexuality,” she related in 1912. The shell of the idea of sexual liberation has often been resuscitated but without its anti-patriarchy value. For most militants, in 1936 as in 1970, it has meant above all the sexual availability of women militants and feminists for meeting male desires. The film and statement below by anarcha-feminist group “No Pretence” explains why a feminist analysis is as relevant to the anarchist movement today as it hasever been. The collection of texts that make up this pamphlet were found on the website of the No Pretence anarcha-feminist group found at nopretence.wordpress.com. We hope that these texts will spark much needed debate and change within the movement and ourselves, change that is sorely needed.