Today's Topics:
1. US, black rose fed: ANARCHA-FEMINISM: TO
DESTROY DOMINATION IN ALL FORMS (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
It is often said that history is a weapon but it also serves as a reflection of the past
through which we make better sense of the present. With this in mind we present Julia
Tenenbaum's narrative on anarchist feminism which emerged as a distinct current from the
larger radicalization of the 1960s and 70s period. You can purchase a copy of Perspectives
issue 29, which this article appeared in, from AK Press here! ---- By Julia Tanenbaum ----
To Destroy Domination in All Forms: Anarcha-Feminist Theory, Organization and Action
1970-1978 ---- As anarchists look for genealogies of principles and praxis in a variety of
social movements, from the anarcho-pacifists who spoke out against World War II to
anarchists who joined the Black Power movement, so too should they look for their feminist
foremothers, not only in the early 20th century anarchist movement but in the radical
women's movement of the 1970s. Many radical feminists shared anarchist goals such as
ending domination, hierarchy, capitalism, gender roles, and interpersonal violence, and
utilized and influenced the key anarchist organizational structure of the small leaderless
affinity group. They grappled with the questions of how to balance autonomy and
egalitarianism and create non-hierarchical organizations that also promoted personal
growth and leadership. In 1974 Lynne Farrow wrote, "Feminism practices what anarchism
preaches."1
Anarcha-feminism was at first created and defined by women who saw radical feminism itself
as anarchistic. In 1970, during the rapid growth of small leaderless consciousness raising
(CR) groups around the country, and a corresponding theory of radical feminism that
opposed domination, some feminists, usually after discovering anarchism through the
writings of Emma Goldman, observed the "intuitive anarchism" of the women's liberation
movement. Radical feminism emphasized the personal as political, what we would now call
prefigurative politics, and a dedication to ending hierarchy and domination, both in
theory and practice.2 CR groups functioned as the central organizational form of the
radical feminist movement, and by extension the early anarcha-feminist movement.3 Members
shared their feelings and experiences and realized that their problems were political. The
theories of patriarchy they developed explained what women initially saw as personal
failures. Consciousness raising was not therapy, as liberal feminists and politicos
frequently claimed; its purpose was social transformation not self-transformation.4
Radical feminist and anarchist theory and practice share remarkable similarities. In a
1972 article critiquing Rita Mae Brown's calls for a lesbian party, anarchist
working-class lesbian feminist Su Katz described how her anarchism came "directly out of"
her feminism, and meant decentralization, teaching women to take care of one another, and
smashing power relations, all of which were feminist values.5 Radical feminism attributed
domination to the nuclear family structure, which they claimed treats children and women
as property and teaches them to obey authority in all aspects of life, and to patriarchal
hierarchical thought patterns that encouraged relationships of dominance and submission.6
To radical feminists and anarcha-feminists, the alternative to domination was sisterhood,
which would replace hierarchy and the nuclear family with relationships based on autonomy
and equality. A chant that appeared in a 1970 issue of a feminist newspaper read "We learn
the joys of equality/Of relationships without dominance/Among sisters/We destroy
domination in all its forms."7 These relationships, structured around sisterhood, trust,
and friendship, were of particular importance to the radical feminist vision of abolishing
hierarchy. As radical feminist theologian Mary Daly wrote in 1973, "The development of
sisterhood is a unique threat, for it is directed against the basic social and psychic
model of hierarchy and domination."8 Radical feminists opposed the "male domineering
attitude" and "male hierarchical thought patterns," and attempted to act as equals in
relationships deeper than male friendships.9
To feminists familiar with anarchism, the connections between both radical feminist and
anarchist theory and practice were obvious. Anarchist feminism was essentially a step in
self-conscious theoretical development, and anarcha-feminists believed that an explicit
anarchist analysis, and knowledge of the history of anarchists who faced similar
structural and theoretical obstacles, would help women overcome the coercion of elites and
create groups structured to be accountable to their members but not hierarchical.10 They
built an independent women's movement and a feminist critique of anarchism, along with an
anarchist critique of feminism. To anarcha-feminists, the women's movement represented a
new potential for anarchist revolution, for a movement to confront forms of domination and
hierarchy, personal and political. Unlike Goldman, Voltaraine De Cleyre, the members of
Mujeres Libres, and countless other female anarchists concerned with the status of women
in the 19th and early 20th century, they became feminists before they became anarchists.
Anarcha-feminists eventually merged into the anti-nuclear movement by the end of 1978, but
not before contributing to crucial movement debates among both anarchists and feminists,
building egalitarian, leaderless, and empowering alternative institutions, and altering US
anarchism in theory and practice.
Image from exhibit "Mujeres Libres (1936-1939), precursoras de un mundo nuevo"[‘Free
Women, precurers to a new world']by Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, Spain.
Becoming Anarcha-Feminists
The term "anarchist-feminist," later used interchangeably with anarcho-feminism and
anarcha-feminism, first appeared in an August 1970 issue of the Berkeley-based movement
newspaper, It Ain't Me Babe. The newspaper published an editorial calling for "feminist
anarchist revolution" next to an article about Emma Goldman. The collective did not
synthesize a theory of anarcha-feminism, but rather explained how their anarchist beliefs
related to the organizational structure of the paper, which they designed as an affinity
group to encourage autonomy and discourage "power relationships or leader follower
patterns."11 It Ain't Me Babe exemplified the "intuitive anarchism" of the early women's
liberation movement. It's masthead read "end all hierarchies" and the paper contained
articles like Ellen Leo's "Power Trips," which exemplified the radical feminist tendency
to oppose all forms of domination. Leo wrote in 1970, "The oppression of women is not an
isolated phenomenon. It is but one of the many forms of domination in this society. It is
a basic belief that one person or group of people has the right to subjugate, rule and
boss others."12 Like anarchists, these feminists connected the oppression of women to a
larger phenomenon of domination. Beginning in 1968 and growing in strength until 1972,
radical feminism was anything but monolithic and many participants differed greatly in
regards to their views on sexuality, the family, the state, organizational structure, and
the inclusion of transgender women in the movement.
Most anarcha-feminists were initially radicalized by the political and cultural milieu of
the anti-war movement, but it was their experiences in the women's liberation movement
combined with the influence of Emma Goldman that led them to develop anarcha-feminism as a
strategy. As feminists struggled to reclaim women's history, Goldman became a feminist
icon due to her advocacy of birth control, free love, and personal freedom. In 1971
radical feminist novelist and historian Alix Kates Shulman wrote, "Emma Goldman's name has
re-emerged from obscurity to become a veritable password of radical feminism. Her works
rose from the limbo of being out of print to...being available in paperback. Her face
began appearing on T-shirts, her name on posters, her words on banners."13 Goldman
criticized the bourgeois feminist movement and its goal of suffrage, which led many women
to criticize her as a "man's woman." However, Shulman and many others argued that Goldman
was a radical feminist worthy of recognition because she stressed the oppression of women
as women by the institutions of the patriarchal family and puritan morality, as well as
religion and the state.14 As anarcha-feminist Cathy Levine wrote in 1974, "The style, the
audacity of Emma Goldman, has been touted by women who do not regard themselves as
anarchists... because Emma was so right-on.... It is no accident, either, that the
anarchist Red Terror named Emma was also an advocate and practitioner of free-love; she
was an affront to more capitalist shackles than any of her Marxist contemporaries."15
Feminists honored Goldman's ideas and legacy by opening an Emma Goldman Clinic for Women
in Iowa in 1973, publishing new volumes of her work, naming their theater troupes after
her, and writing screenplays, operas, and stage plays about her life. 16 In 1970, the
women's liberation periodical Off Our Backs dedicated an issue to Goldman with her image
on the cover. Despite this, Betsy Auleta and Bobbie Goldstone's article about Goldman's
life discussed what they perceived as her faults (her opposition to suffrage and
disconnect from much of the women's movement) because she had become a "super-heroine" in
the movement. 17
Siren and Early Anarcha-feminist Networks
Goldman encouraged women to make connections between radical feminism and anarchism, and
her writings often served as radical feminists' introduction to anarchism or the impetus
for them to make connections between anarchism and feminism. To many anarcha-feminists
this theory represented both a critique of the sexism of the male New Left, including its
anarchist members, as well as a critique of socialist and liberal feminism. Despite this
intuitive anarchism, attempts by early anarcha-feminists to develop an anarchist analysis
within many radical feminist collectives felt silenced, while women in the anarchist
movement, where misogyny ruled as much as in the rest of the New Left, also felt
alienated. Anarcho-feminist attempts to elucidate connections between feminism and
anarchism, like those of Arlene Meyers and Evan Paxton, were often met with intimidation
and censorship in mixed groups. These conditions created the possibility for an
independent anarcha-feminist movement, but first, anarcha-feminists would have to
communicate and develop their theories.
Early anarcha-feminist theory and debate emerged through Siren newsletter. The first
issue, produced as a journal in 1971, contained "Who We Are: The Anarcho-Feminist
Manifesto," written by Arlene Wilson, a member of the Chicago Anarcho-Feminist
Collective.18 The manifesto focused on differentiating anarcha-feminism from socialist
feminism through a critique of the state: "The intelligence of womankind has at last been
brought to bear on such oppressive male inventions as the church and the legal family; it
must now be brought to re-evaluate the ultimate stronghold of male domination, the State."19
In February of 1970 Arlene Meyers and the Siren collective switched from journal to
newsletter format, which allowed feminists throughout the US to participate in defining
anarcha-feminism and its theory.20 Sirenallowed women in diverse (often not explicitly
anarchist) collectives in many regions of the country to communicate and develop their
theory. Later issues of the newsletter included news items related to feminist and
anarchist activism, including political prisoner support for anarchists in Spain through
the Anarchist Black Cross, women's health clinics, childcare and living collectives, and
working at infoshops like Mother Earth Bookstore.21
The last three issues of Siren, published in 1973, contain the majority of the
newsletter's analysis and debate, covering topics such as state power and
authoritarianism, prefigurative politics, lesbian feminism, and gender identity and
expression. Issue 10 of Siren contained two statements by transgender individuals,
critiquing both sexism and the gender binary, and offering a progressive vision of
transgender inclusion within the movement. Eden W, a member of the Tucson
Anarcho-Feminists, described her experiences as a "male woman" and critiqued "the
authoritarianism that demands that males must be of one gender and females of another,"
thus critiquing the gender binary itself as a form of authoritarianism.[22]Finally, she
asked feminists to look on "femmiphiles" as their sisters.[23]
This essay stood in contrast with the prejudice towards trans women in the larger radical
feminist movement, which sometimes portrayed them as interlopers who brought male
privilege into women only spaces. That same year radical feminist Robin Morgan famously
denounced male to female transgender feminist songwriter and activist Beth Elliot as a
rapist and "infiltrator" at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference, although it is worth
noting that two-thirds of the conference-goers voted for Elliot to stay.24 Some feminists
conflated transgender women with men in drag, accused them of being rapists, and felt that
they retained male privilege and should not be allowed in feminist spaces.25 Although
anarcha-feminists were undoubtedly influenced by this discourse, attitudes towards
transgender people were not monolithic in the feminist movement at large. Eden W's
statement emphasizes that she is heterosexual, perhaps because of this widespread fear of
transgender women as rapist infiltrators. This limited discussion of transsexuality
nevertheless reveals that anarcha-feminists were willing to discuss this conflict, and
give transgender people a voice in the movement.
Issue 8 of Siren also contained "Blood of the Flower," a statement written by Marian
Leighton and Cathy Levine, members of the Cambridge based Black Rose Anarcho-Feminist
collective.26 Unlike Wilson, Leighton and Levine reject not only socialist feminism's
analysis of the state, but its tactics and the idea of movement building altogether. To
them, "movements," as represented by the male Left and its ideas of a vanguard, separated
politics from personal dreams of liberation until women abandoned their dreams or dropped
out of the movement altogether. Instead, they advocated leaderless affinity groups in
which each member could act as an individual, and presented this anarchist form of
organization as the alternative to hierarchical movement politics practiced by socialist
feminists and liberal feminists. The small leaderless affinity group allows members to
participate "on an equal level of power" without leadership determining the direction of
the movement.27 They wrote, "Organizing women, in the New Left and Marxist left, is viewed
as amassing troops for the Revolution. But we affirm that each woman joining in struggle
is the Revolution."28 This anarcha-feminist vision, almost similar to the cell-like
structure of earlier insurrectionary anarchist groups, emphasized valuing individual
contributions in small groups instead of building the large, often authoritarian, and
impersonal "revolutionary armies" that many New Leftists and socialist feminists
envisioned. To achieve this, anarcha-feminists would build their movement through small
affinity groups and participating in various feminist and anarchist counter-institutions.
Small Groups, Growing Networks
Anarcha-feminists also formed study groups, which, like the CR groups, also acted as
affinity groups, and formed and dissolved quickly. Many groups were located in university
towns, partially due to the success of AnarchoFeminist Network Notes as a communications
network, which allowed activists to communicate and organize outside of major urban areas.
Collectives were often small, flexible, and project based. Because they required intimacy
and small size, when groups became too large, as the Des Moines and Cambridge based Black
Rose Anarcho-Feminists did, they split into multiple study and action groups.29 These
groups also acted as affinity groups that collectively participated in action around
various local and national issues, from the local food coop to international political
prisoner support to the lesbian movement to ecology struggles and the anti-nuclear movement.30
The collective Tiamat originated in Ithaca, New York in 1975 and dissolved in 1978. Their
name originated from the tale of a goddess of chaos and creation, feared by men but
worshiped by women.31 The collective read anarchist theory together, shared ideas, and put
out an issue of the newsletter Anarcha-Feminist Notes in 1977. According to former member
Elaine Leeder's reflections, the collective members participated in political activities
ranging from protesting the building of a local shopping mall to raising money for a day
care center for political dissidents in Chile. Furthermore, Leeder argued that the
collective was a functioning "anarchistic society": "We are leaderless,
non-hierarchical... and always ready to change. We live self-management, learn what it is
together...and support each other." 32 Tiamat supported Leeder's interest in the mental
health liberation movement and her successful effort to stop the introduction of
electro-shock therapy at a local mental hospital.33
Anarcha-feminists worked in a wide variety of movements, and thus brought their
prefigurative and feminist ideas to a diverse audience. Furthermore, a focus on education
allowed anarcha-feminists to develop their own autonomy and talents. However, these
diverse activities and the ephemeral nature of these collectives illustrate why
anarcha-feminism is almost always ignored by historians and documents or records of these
collectives are difficult to find.
To unite a small, decentralized movement, anarcha-feminists created communications
networks through newsletters and conferences. At the Yellow Springs Socialist Feminist
Conference in Ohio in 1975, the future members of Tiamat met and anarcha-feminists
proposed that they should combine their networks and mailing lists.34 After the
conference, anarcha-feminists established new collectives in Bloomington, Illinois, and
Buffalo, New York.35 The conference was considered notable for its lack of a definitive
definition of socialist feminism, and its broad "principles of unity" included two items
associated with radical feminism and anarcha-feminism, but condemned by male socialists:
recognizing the need for an autonomous women's movement, and that all oppression is
interrelated.36 Its broad principles illustrated how socialist feminists viewed economic
oppression as one of many forms of domination rather than as the "lynchpin," as male
Marxists tended to argue.
Similar in format to Siren, Anarcha-Feminist Notes originated from a merger of two
short-lived newsletters, Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes and The Anarchist-Feminist
Communications Network.37 A different collective published each issue of the newsletter,
and thus each varied in style and content. The Des Moines anarcha-feminist study and
action group, Tiamat, and the Utopian Feminists were among the collectives who published
issues of the newsletter. Although the last issue was published in March 1978,
Anarcha-Feminist Notes, while it existed, acted as an effective means of communication for
a decentralized movement.
Prior to Tiamat's dissolution, it sponsored an Anarcha-Feminist Conference in June 1978
that attracted women from London, Italy, Toronto, and several US cities.38 In an idyllic
location in Ithaca, women attended three days of workshops on topics such as
anarcha-feminism and unions, self-liberation as social change, the ecology movement and
anarcha-feminism, women and violence, building the anarcha-feminist network, matriarchy
and feminist spirituality, beards and body hair, combatting racism, and anarcha-feminism
and class.39 The conference's theme was "Anarcha-Feminism: Growing Stronger," which
referenced the growth of anarcha-feminist theory and action since its inception. A packet
given to conference attendees contained an essay called Tribes by Martha Courtot, which
echoed conference goers' feelings about building anarcha-feminist community. "We tell you
this: we are doing the impossible. We are teaching ourselves to be human. When we are
finished, the strands which connect us will be unbreakable; already we are stronger than
we ever have been."40 Unlike purely cultural feminism, anarcha-feminists connected this
strength and community to a larger fight against domination. Both their personal lives and
organizing efforts in mixed movements like the ecology movement were important parts of
their politics.
1960s era consciousness raising meeting. The Cut
From Conscioussness Raising to Counter-Institutions
Historian Barbara Ryan argues that the "small group sector" of the feminist movement
virtually disappeared by the mid ‘70s, due to ideological and practical conflicts within
the movement and the influence of liberal feminists, who advocated larger structured
organizations.41 However this frequent narrative, which emphasizes the fast rise and fall
of small CR groups, negates the crucial contributions of anarcha-feminists, who continued
to organize within small, decentralized, and leaderless feminist collectives throughout
the 1970s. Radical feminists extended the CR group's anarchistic structure to a variety of
other projects, such as domestic violence shelters, living collectives, and periodicals,
many of which continued to support women through the late 1970s and into the 1980s.
According to Helen Ellenbogen's 1977 review of anarcha-feminist groups, many of these
collectives were not explicitly anarchist but "intuitively anarchist," such as the
grassroots domestic violence shelters in Cambridge and Los Angeles where anarcha-feminists
worked and observed practices like discouraging women from calling the police to deal with
abusive males.42 Ellenbogen remarks on how anarcha-feminists joined women's health clinics
in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston, which resisted cooperation with the state and
utilized collective process.43 In a 1972 article in Siren, Los Angeles anarcha-feminist
Evan Paxton explained the anarcha-feminist principles of these self-help clinics,
including the one where she worked. Clinics gave "women the confidence and knowledge to
take care of their own bodies, which is essential in the struggle for self control."44
Women's health clinics helped women avoid the paternalism of (usually male) doctors and
gain self-control.45
Anarcha-feminists operated a free school in Baltimore, which taught courses on Wilhelm
Reich, movement structural skills, how to form a co-op, and anarchist and feminist
political theory.46 Others worked on media projects like feminist newspapers or journals
such as Through the Looking Glass, which focused on women prisoners, The Second Wave, and
feminist radio stations.47 This focus on outreach and education illustrates
anarcha-feminists' long-term approach to revolution. Theorists like Kornegger and Rebecca
Staton argued that anarchist revolution, both historically and in the present, requires
preparation through education, the creation of alternative non-hierarchical structures,
changes in consciousness, and direct action.48 As Staton wrote in a 1975 article in
Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes, "Anarchists...have seen their own role in the
revolutionary process as agitators and educators-not as vanguard.... The Revolution, for
Anarchists, is the transformation of society by people taking direct control of their own
lives."49 In 1976, in the first issue of Anarcha-Feminist Notes, Judi Stein, an
anarcha-feminist who worked at a feminist health center, described her experiences with
collective processes, self-help, and feminism there as "ways to live out anarchism."50 By
working at self-help clinics, free schools, feminist radio stations, newspapers, and
domestic violence shelters, anarcha-feminists spread their ideas and organizational
methods, and helped themselves and other women in their own struggles for autonomy.
The self-described gay anarcho-feminist printer Come! Unity Press explicitly connected
their political philosophy to their organizational structure. Founded in 1972, the press
published Anarchism: The Feminist Connection, feminist writings of Emma Goldman, an issue
of Anarcho-Feminist Notes, and other classic anarchist writings, like the speeches of
Sacco and Vanzetti.51 Notably, they allowed members to decide for themselves how much they
could afford to pay for the use of their printing facilities, which exemplified their
anarcha-feminist philosophy of "survival by sharing." The women of the press wrote in
1976, "As anarcho-feminists we want to end all forms of domination. Money is a...tool of
power. It is a means of enforcing racism, sexism, or starvation and control over basic
survival."52 In a 1976 article critiquing "feminist businesses" in The Second Wave, Peggy
Kornegger praised this model, and wrote that the press' "‘survival by sharing'...certainly
demonstrates if nothing else, that there are ways of confronting capitalism that don't
involve either power or control-and that work!"53 This alternative economic model helped
the feminist movement, and its own members, survive.
"Anarcho-Sexism" and Anarcha-Feminist Interaction With the Anti-Capitalist Left
Anarcha-feminists also worked within the larger anarchist movement, attending anarchist
conferences and confronting sexism in mixed groups. Anarcha-feminists attended the Anarchs
of New York sponsored Live and Let Live Festival in April 1974. Anarcha-feminist groups
like the New York Anarcho-Feminists and Come! Unity Press participated along with several
hundred other conference goers, and the final schedule included four anarcha-feminist
workshops amongst many other unscheduled lesbian and anarcha-feminist discussions and
meet-ups. The feminist periodical Off Our Backs included a report on the conference
written by two anarcha-feminists, Mecca Reliance and Jean Horan.54 Reliance, who attended
both mixed and impromptu women-only workshops on anarcha-feminism, wrote that the mixed
workshop was uninteresting and focused on the abolition of the nuclear family, apparently
the only comfortable topic for the many male attendees, while the women-only workshop was
energetic and facilitated a focus on organization and internal process.55This mirrored one
impetus towards separatism in the radical feminist movement: male dominated meetings in
the New Left led women to censor their thoughts and long for an environment where they
could speak freely and determine their own agenda.56Anarcha-feminists also attended the
1975 Midwest Anarchist Conference, and experienced several incidents of sexism, such as a
man trying to take a hammer away from Karen Johnson, assuming that she could not use it
because of her gender. However, the man eventually accepted her and other women's
criticism of his actions.57
Anarcha-feminists experienced sexism in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
meetings, and conflicts over sexism in anarchist periodicals like the Social Revolutionary
Anarchist Federation Bulletin and The Matchconfirmed that many male anarchists shared the
sexist attitudes of their Marxist counterparts.58 These attitudes encouraged separatism,
but some anarcha-feminists worked in mixed collectives. Grant Purdy, a member of the Des
Moines anarcha-feminist The New World Collective, which existed from 1973-76, wrote an
article about her group's experience in a mixed anarchist group called the Redwing Workers
Organization (RWO) in the Spring 1977 issue of Anarcha-Feminist Notes.59 RWO focused on
healthcare organizing, but the women in the group pushed feminist perspectives and led the
group to treat personal struggles as political ones.60 She argued that despite
frustrations, women could thrive in mixed groups if they created separate women's groups
outside of the larger organization, as the Des Moines women did. Women in mixed anarchist
organizations taught male anarchists about their own misogyny and learned new skills from
their comrades.61 However, for anarcha-feminists like Purdy, "involvement with men has
always been conditional. Men are clear that they are not a priority for us over other
women."62 These separate women's support groups and their presence at conferences
illustrate how anarcha-feminists brought their ideas and organizational styles to the male
anarchist movement as the radical feminist movement declined.
Differing Feminisms
From the beginning of the movement. anarcha-feminists differentiated socialist feminists
and their theories from the traditional male socialist Left. In a 1971 article in the
first issue of Siren, Arlene Wilson's Chicago-based anarcha-feminist group emphasized that
anarcho-feminists "are all socialists" and "refuse to give up this pre-Marxist term," and
continued, "We love our Marxist sisters...and have no interest in disassociating ourselves
from their constructive struggles." In 1974 Black Rose anarcha-feminist Marian Leighton
commented that socialist feminist literature is not "narrowly dogmatic or opportunistic"63
like that of traditional male Marxists. Rather, it could be included in anarcha-feminist
analysis. Anarcha-feminist film maker Lizzie Borden argued in a 1977 article in feminist
art journal Heresies that Marxist women like Rosa Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollantai, and
Angelica Balabanoff came closer to anarchism in their opposition to bureaucracy,
authoritarianism, and the subversion of the revolution by the Bolsheviks than their male
comrades.64However, like Leighton, she emphasized that these anarchistic tendencies
stemmed from socialization and lack of access to power, not simple essentialist
understandings of gender. As Carol Ehrlich wrote in her 1977 article Socialism, Anarchism,
and Feminism, which appealed to socialist and radical feminists to embrace anarchism,
"Women of all classes, races, and life circumstances have been on the receiving end of
domination too long to want to exchange one set of masters for another."65 Leighton,
Kronneger, and Ehrlich argued the defining distinction between radical feminism and
anarcha-feminism was largely a step in self-conscious theoretical development.66 Thus, it
was feminists' unfamiliarity with anarchism that led them to embrace Marxism, although
their ideology, "skeptical of any social theory that comes with a built-in set of leaders
and followers" held more in common with anarchism.67
Anarcha-Feminists and socialist feminists often found their common interests outweighed
their ideological differences, and worked together. Arlene Wilson was also a member of the
socialist feminist group the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU), along with other
anti-authoritarian women.68 Wilson introduced Penny Pixler and other CWLU women to the
Chicago chapter of the newly reconstituted IWW in the early 70s.69 They found the Chicago
IWW less patriarchal and hierarchical than many Marxist parties and sects and were
impressed with its history of women organizers. Several joined the union and became active
in the Chicago Branch in addition to their continued work with CWLU projects.70 The CWLU
dissolved acrimoniously in 1976 due to internal conflict over what some members observed
as the group's white middle-class orientation. Pixler and other former members shifted
their primary activity to the IWW. Pixler contributed many articles to the Industrial
Workerfocusing on women workers, and contributed an article about the position of women in
Maoist China to anarcha-feminist literary journal, Whirlwind in 1978.71
Anarcha-Feminists were also influenced by the theories of the French situationists, who
positioned women's oppression as a part of larger systems of power relations without
reducing it to an effect of capitalism. Carol Ehrlich and Lynne Farrow argued that
Situationism should be a component of anarcha-feminist analysis because it emphasizes both
an awareness of capitalist oppression and the need to transform everyday
life.72Situationists expanded Marx's theories of alienation and commodity fetishism to
apply to modern consumer capitalism and argued that capitalist society led to the
increasing tendency towards the consumption of social relations and identity through
commodities and alienated people from all aspects of their lives, not just their labor.73
In her 1977 article Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism, Ehrlich argued that a Situationist
analysis is applicable to anarcha-feminist theory. With a Situationist analysis, all
women's oppression is real, despite their class status. Furthermore, women held a special
relationship to the commodity economy as both consumers and objects to be consumed by men.
Ehlrich argued "A Situationist analysis ties consumption of economic goods to consumption
of ideological goods, and then tells us to create situations (guerrilla actions on many
levels) that will break that pattern of socialized acceptance of the world as it is."74
Historian Alice Echols argued that after 1975 cultural feminism eclipsed radical feminism,
and fundamentally depoliticized it. She wrote, "Radical feminism was a political movement
dedicated to eliminating the sex-class system, whereas cultural feminism was a
countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the
devaluation of the female."75 Echols argued that feminists embraced cultural feminism
because they could not deal with their differences in race, class, and sexuality, and it
became easier to subsume them under universal ideals of womanhood. Anarcha-feminism
embraced elements of cultural feminism, but rejected its apolitical aspects and the
popular matriarchy theories pioneered by Elizabeth Gould Davis, Jane Alpert, Phyllis
Chesler, and Mary Daly.76 These essentialist theories argued that the negative valuation
of femininity rather than femininity itself should be challenged, and that power in the
hands of women, rather than men, could lead to a feminist society. For example, Jane
Alpert's influential manifesto Mother Right argued that women's potential for motherhood
made them different from, but superior to, men.
Ehrlich critiqued "spirituality trippers" and the Amazon Nation for being out of touch
with the reality of political and economic oppression, and for failing to recognize that
all power, whether in the hands of women or men, is coercive, but other anarcha-feminists
saw positive aspects of cultural feminism.77 Cathy Levine defended cultural projects and
argued "creating a woman's culture is the means through which we shall restore our lost
humanity."78 To Levine and other anarcha-feminists, notably Peggy Kornegger who crafted a
theory of anarcha-feminist spirituality, anarcha-feminism embraced both the cultural and
political. As many former feminists embraced spirituality gurus and their pacifying,
depoliticizing, and anti-feminist programs, Kornegger argued that feminists must embrace
both the feminist spirituality of theorists such as Mary Daly and physical and political
resistance. Her 1976 article "The Spirituality Ripoff" in The Second Waveargued for a
feminist approach to spirituality which emphasized both personal growth and political
action. Kornegger wrote, "We need no longer separate being and action into two categories.
It means that we need no longer call ourselves ‘cultural feminists' or ‘political
feminists' but must see ourselves as both.... It means teaching ourselves womancraft and
self-defense."79 Describing this realization as a revolutionary "leap of consciousness,"
Kornegger positioned anarcha-feminism as the next stage of consciousness raising which
would mend the divides between spirituality and politics and between groups of feminists.
Anarcha-feminists combined aspects of radical, cultural, and socialist feminism, but added
a critique of domination itself. Unlike socialist feminists they saw non-hierarchical
structures as "essential to feminist practice."80 Both radical and anarchist feminists
dedicated themselves to building prefigurative institutions, a task socialist feminists
did not always see as a vital part of their revolutionary program.81 While cultural
feminists often rejected "male theory" and their roots in the New Left in favor of a
de-politicized approach to feminism, anarcha-feminists combined emphasis on building a
women's culture with a strong theoretical perspective and class-consciousness. Constantly
learning from other feminists and adjusting anarcha-feminist theory accordingly, rather
than dogmatism, was a crucial feature of anarcha-feminism and part of the reason
anarcha-feminists participated in such a variety of movements. Su Negrin wrote that "no
political umbrella can cover all my needs" while Kornegger argued that it was crucial to
break down barriers between feminists. As she wrote in 1976, "Although I call myself an
anarcha-feminist, this definition can easily include socialism, communism, cultural
feminism, lesbian separatism, or any of a dozen other political labels."82
Anarcha-feminists learned from women in other parts of the feminist movement, despite
their disagreements.
The Tyranny of Structurelessness or the Tyranny of Tyranny
The movement's debate over structure and leadership gave the new anarcha-feminist position
relevance and strategic value. An anarchistic commitment to equality and friendship
structured feminist political organizations and fostered egalitarianism and respect, and
reinforced mutual knowledge and trust, but when groups became clique-like and elites
emerged, feminists utilized various structural methods to ensure equality.83 Radical
feminist groups utilized lot systems to distribute tasks in an egalitarian manner, disc
systems that ensured equal speaking time by distributing an equal amount of discs to
members at the beginning of the meeting and instructing them to give one up each time they
spoke, and collective decision-making through consensus or other means.84 They viewed
women's capacities as equal but stymied by their socialization, and empowered thousands of
women to write, speak in public, talk to the press, chair a meeting, and make decisions
for the first time.85
However, the goals of empowerment and egalitarianism came into conflict.86 "Elites", or
women with informal leadership positions within groups, often socially coerced other women
into agreeing with them, or not stating their opinions at all, and in reaction the
movement developed a paranoia about elites; women who exercised leadership or even
attempted to teach skills to other members were often shunned and trashed.87This triggered
bitter statements like Anselma dell'Olio's 1970 speech, "Divisiveness and Self-Destruction
in the Women's Movement: A Letter of Resignation" which claimed, "If you are...an achiever
you are immediately labeled...a ruthless mercenary, out to get her fame and fortune over
the dead bodies of selfless sisters who have buried their abilities and sacrificed their
ambitions for the greater glory of Feminism."88 Ironically, to some women, this justified
the behavior of women who were in fact dominating others, and then presented themselves as
tragic heroines destroyed by their envious and less talented "sisters."89
In her widely read 1970 article, Jo Freeman, going by the pen name Joreen, argued that not
only feminists' personal practices, but the "tyranny of structurelessness" limited
democracy and that to overcome it, groups needed to create explicit structures accountable
to their membership.90 After circulating widely among feminists, the paper was published
in the feminist journal The Second Wave in 1972. To Freeman, structure was inevitable
because of individuals' differing talents, predispositions, and backgrounds, but became
pernicious when unacknowledged.91 Leaders were appointed as spokespeople by the media, and
structurelessness often disguised informal, unacknowledged, and unaccountable leadership
and hierarchies within groups. Thus, Freeman argued that structure would prevent elites
from emerging and ensure democratic decision-making. Some anarcha-feminists, such as Carol
Ehrlich agreed with this part of Freeman's analysis while others, like Cathy Levine and
Marian Leighton, opposed structure entirely.92 However, Joreen also decried the small
group's size and emphasis on consciousness raising as ineffective, and advocated for large
organizations.93 Even after calling for "diffuse, flexible, open, and temporary"
leadership, Freeman argued that to successfully fight patriarchy, the movement must move
beyond the small groups of its consciousness raising phase and shift to large, usually
hierarchical, organizations.94
Anarcha-Feminists asserted that the small group was not simply a reaction to male
hierarchical organization, but a solution to the movement's problems with both structure
and leadership. In 1974, Cathy Levine, the cowriter of "Blood of the Flower," wrote the
anarcha-feminist response to Freeman, "The Tyranny of Tyranny." Often printed with
Freeman's essay, Levine's piece first appeared in the anarchist journal Black Rose.95
Levine argued that feminists who utilize the "movement building" strategies of the male
Left forgot the importance of the personal as political, psychological oppression, and
prefigurative politics. Instead of building large, alienating, and hierarchical
organizations, feminists should continue to utilize small groups which "multiply the
strength of each member" by developing their skills and relationships in a nurturing
non-hierarchical environment.96 Building on the theories of Wilhelm Reich, she argued that
psychological repression kept women from confronting capitalism and patriarchy, and thus
caused the problem of elites.97 Developing small groups and a women's culture would
invigorate individual women and prevent burn out, but also create a prefigurative
alternative to hierarchical organization. She wrote, "The reason for building a movement
on a foundation of collectives is that we want to create a revolutionary culture
consistent with our view of the new society; it is more than a reaction; the small group
is a solution."98
Similarly, Carol Ehlrich, Su Negrin, and Lynne Farrow argued that the small group allowed
individuals to fight oppression in their everyday lives.99 All oppression involved
individual actors, even if they acted as an agent of the state or the ruling class. Su
Negrin, a member of Murray Bookchin's Anarchos group and radical feminist, wrote and
published Begin At Start in 1972.100 Negrin argued that the root structures of domination
lie in everyday life because we are dominated but also dominate others, especially in
sexual relationships and parenting, and applied this theory to her own life and
relationships with her husband and children. These ideas reflected the feminist emphasis
on the personal as political and pointing out domination in everyday life. Mutual trust in
small groups helps people recognize and work with stylistic differences rather than trying
to eliminate them. Similarly, Sue Katz, an anarchist lesbian leader of the working-class
feminist Stick it in the Wall Motherfucker collective, responded to Rita Mae Brown's calls
for a lesbian party in a May 1972 issue of The Furies, claiming that small groups were
actually efficient and could deal more effectively with internal problems.101 The small
group emphasized the personal as political and developing relationships instead of the
national campaign related strategy of liberal feminists and some socialist feminist groups.
Levine's individualist focus starkly challenges the emphasis on conformity to ensure
egalitarianism in many groups.102An anarcha-feminist understanding of equality, rather,
would allow women to excel in different areas, provided they teach others the skills.
Indeed, much anarcha-feminist work was educational and theorists like Kornegger focused on
political education as a crucial area of tactics. As she argued in Anarchism: The Feminist
Connection, women's intuitive anarchism and egalitarianism was counteracted by
socialization in an authoritarian society, but anarchist history and theory provided
useful precedent for creating egalitarian structured organizations that also ensured
leadership development and individual autonomy. Kornegger cited the example of the
achievements of the anarchist organizations CNT-FAI and the collectives during the Spanish
Civil War as an example of "the realization of basic human ideals: freedom, individual
creativity, and collective cooperation."103
Historically, anarchists grappled with the same questions of structure, organization, and
prefiguration feminists were debating. These examples of political education and fluid
structures that rotated tasks and leadership would help feminists watch for elites without
resorting to voting or hierarchical models of organization.
No Gods, No Masters, No Nukes
As the anti-nuclear movement emerged and gained strength through the Seabrook nuclear
power plant occupation, and later the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown incident,
anarcha-feminists shifted their activity to large mixed-gender coalitions of affinity
groups.104 Many anarcha-feminists who attended the 1978 Anarcha-Feminism: Growing Stronger
conference sponsored by TIAMAT met up at the Seabrook anti-nuclear demonstrations, which
attracted thousands to participate in non-violent civil disobedience to occupy the
plant.105 Tellingly, when Tiamat eventually dissolved, members joined a women's
anti-nuclear affinity group, the Lesbian Alliance, and others worked with a mixed group on
ecology issues.106Although they usually participated in women-only affinity groups, they
interacted with men and authoritarian male politics in the larger movement.
Anarcha-feminists also formed collectives in universities like Hunter College, Cornell,
and Wesleyan.107 Often influenced by the writings of Murray Bookchin, who advocated
political study groups, these affinity groups became the primary organizational model of
the anti-nuclear direct action movement just as the similarly structured small group was
the organizational model of the radical feminist movement.108
Throughout the 1980s, anarchist feminists connected the ideas they formed in the women's
liberation movement to an even wider range of issues, including violence against women,
environmental destruction, militarism, and the nuclear arms race.109 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
argues in the introduction to Quiet Rumors that the anarcha-feminist movement "had to all
intents and purposes ceased to function" by 1980 as liberal feminists eclipsed radicals
and male anarchists remained "traditional" in their sexism.110 However, even as
anarcha-feminists shifted from focusing primarily on women's oppression to a wider array
of political issues, the organizational form and process, and the concern with both the
personal and political remained. Consensus decision-making, a hallmark of prefigurative
politics, was referred to as "feminist process" in the anti-nuclear movement, illustrating
the influence of the many anarcha-feminist affinity groups and other feminists.111
However, it remains to be seen if replacing a separate women's movement of small affinity
groups with often mixed gender affinity groups was strategic. Today, many anarchist women
and queer people, often in reaction to the sexism of anarchist men and rape culture inside
anarchist collectives and movements, are forming their own affinity groups once again. It
is worth investigating how changing ideas about gender and sexuality and the rise of queer
and trans politics affected this change, and if it is a strategic one. How did theories of
intersectionality and Black feminism interact with anarcha-feminism, and differ from
earlier anarcha-feminist arguments that often did not directly address racial politics?
The history of anarcha-feminism points to these and many more questions in an area of
anarchist politics and theory that is generally under-investigated.
Conclusion
Often anarcha-feminists remarked that women were "natural anarchists" and positioned
feminists as an untapped revolutionary force. However, neither the women's movement nor
the women in it always acted anarchistically. As activist Kytha Kurin wrote in 1980, "if
anarchist tendencies within the feminist movement are accepted as a natural by-product of
being female, it puts an unfair pressure on women to ‘live up to their natural anarchism'
and limits our potential for political development.... Many women's groups do
disintegrate, many women do exploit other women and men."112 Radical feminists functioned
as anarchists in anarchist spaces while lacking knowledge of anarchism. I think this
proves the power of prefigurative politics and liberated anarchist spaces and
organizations, free of the unnatural hierarchies that the white supremacist capitalist
patriarchy forces upon us, to bring out the "intuitive anarchism" of a variety of people
from white middle-class feminists to Occupy Wall Street protestors.113 Whether their
relationships are based on sisterhood, ecology, or race or class solidarity, people have
tried, and sometimes failed, to live without dominance and hierarchy. Once radical
feminism was, as Kornegger wrote, "the connection that links anarchism to the future."114
We must look for similar links in our movements today; we can see them throughout what
anarchist scholar and activist Chris Dixon termed the anti-authoritarian current, from the
prison abolition movement to the radical environmental movement to queer and feminist
struggles today.115 If another world is possible, we can and must create it now.
Julia Tanenbaum is a library student and Black Rose/Rosa Negra member in Los Angeles. She
works to put anarcha-feminist theory into practice in the Anti-Capitalist Feminist
Coalition and in the Palestine solidarity movement.
"To Destroy Domination in All Its Forms: Anarcha-Feminist Theory, Organization and Action
1970-1978" was first published in the Anarcha-Feminisms issue. No. 29 (2016) of
Perspectives on Anarchist Theory published by the Institute for Anarchist Studies.
Notes
[1]Peggy Kornegger, "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection," in Reinventing Anarchy: What Are
Anarchists Thinking These Days?, ed. Howard Ehrlich (Routledge and Kegan Paul Books, 1979)
[2]Prefigurative politics is the desire is to embody within a movement's political and
social practices, the forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human
experience that are the ultimate goal. Although anarcha-feminists did not use this
language, various scholars have applied it to the women's movement and the New Left. See
Sheila Rowbotham, "The Women's Movement and Organizing for Socialism," in Beyond The
Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism, ed. Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, and
Hilary Wainwright. (London: Merlin Press, 1979), 21-155, and Francesca Polletta, Freedom
Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (Chicago: University Of
Chicago Press, 2004). Anarcha-feminists frequently used language like "living the
revolution" and "living out anarchism" to describe these practices. See Andrew Cornell,
Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century (Oakland: University of
California Press, 2016) on anarchist prefigurative politics during this period.
[3]Wini Breines, The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the
Feminist Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 92.
[4]Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 72.
[5]Sue Katz, "An Anarchist Plebe Fights Back," The Furies 1, no. 4 (n.d.): 12. Rainbow
History Online Archives.
[6]Breines, The Trouble Between Us, 90.
[7]It Ain't Me Babe, December, 1, 1970, p.11. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
[8]Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Beacon
Press, 1973), 133.
[9]Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, 162.
[10]Although today radical feminism is associated with trans exclusive feminists, during
the 1970s it referred to a wider movement which asserted that gender, not class or race,
was the primary contradiction and that all other forms of social domination originated
with male supremacy. The "radical" served to differentiate it from liberal feminism, which
focused solely on formal equality and ignored the fundamental problem of fighting for
equality in an inherently unjust society. It also referred to the roots of radical
feminists in the Marxist and sometimes anarchist New Left, where they experienced sexism
that led them to reject the "male movement" and start their own, without the interference
of their male oppressors. Radical feminists also differentiated themselves from
"politicos," women working in male dominated Leftist groups where the struggle against
male supremacy was neglected. See Echols, Daring To Be Bad.
[11]"It Ain't Me Babe - A Struggle for Identity," It Ain't Me Babe, June 8, 1970, 11.
Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
[12]Ellen Leo, "Power Trips," It Ain't Me Babe, September 17, 1970, 6. Wagner Labor
Archives, New York University.
[13]Alix Kates Shulman, "Emma Goldman's Feminism: A Reappraisal" in Shulman, ed., Red Emma
Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 4.
[14]Shulman, "Emma Goldman's Feminism", 6.
[15]Cathy Levine, "The Tyranny of Tyranny," Black Rose 1 (1974): 56. Anarchy Archives.
[16]Emma Goldman Clinic, "Emma Goldman Clinic Mission Statement," available at
http://www.emmagoldman.com/about/mission.html (accessed July 9, 2015).
[17]"Emma Goldman" Off Our Backs. July 10, 1970, Wagner Labor Archives, New York
University, 9, See also Candace Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1984), and Kathy E. Ferguson, Emma Goldman Political Thinking in
the Streets (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011) for discussions of Goldman's
relationship with the feminist movement and working-class women's movement
[18]Chicago Anarcho-Feminists, "Who We Are: The Anarcho-Feminist Manifesto," Siren 1, no.
1 (April 1971). Anarchy Archives.
[19]Ibid.
[20]Arlene Meyers, "To Our Siren Subscribers," Siren Journal, No. 1. Weber, "On the Edge
of All Dichotomies: Anarch@-Feminist Thought, Process and Action, 1970-1983.," 64.
[21]"Black Cross Appears Again," Siren Newsletter 1, no. 3 (1972): 2.; Siren 1, no. 4
(1972): 8. Anarchy Archives.
[22]Eden W, "The Other Side of the Coin," Siren Newsletter, no. 10 (1973). Anarchy Archives.
[23]Ibid.
[24]How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2004), 258.
[25]Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008), 105.
[26]Marie Leighton and Cathy Levine, "Blood of the Flower," Siren, no. 8 (1973), 5.
Anarchy Archives.
[27]Ibid.
[28]Ibid.
[29]Marie Leighton, "Letter," Anarcha-Feminist Notes 1, no. 2 (Spring 1977): 12. Anarchy
Archives.
[30]Elaine Leeder, "The Makings of An Anarchist Feminist," 1984, 2, Anarchy Archives.
[31]Ibid.
[32]Ibid.
[33]Elaine Leeder, "Tiamat to Me," Anarcho-Feminist Notes 1, no. 2 (March 20, 1977), 14,
Anarchy Archives.
[34]Siren Newsletter, No. 2, and Siren Journal, No. 1. Slater, "Des Moines Women Form
Support Group." Anarchy Archives.
[35]Leeder, "Tiamat to Me."
[36]Weber, "On the Edge of All Dichotomies," 103.
[37]"Proposal to Merge the Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes and the Anarchist Feminist
Communications Network," Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes 1, no. 3 (October 1975): 9.
Anarchy Archives.
[38]"Conference Flyer - Anarcha-Feminism: Growing Stronger" (TIAMAT Collective, June 9,
1978), Anarchy Archives.
[39]Leeder, "The Makings of An Anarchist Feminist."
[40]Conference Flyer - Anarcha-Feminism: Growing Stronger" (TIAMAT Collective, June 9,
1978), Anarchy Archives.
[41]Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement
Ideology, and Activism (New York, NY: Psychology Press, 1992), 54.
[42]Hellen Ellenbogen, "Feminism: The Anarchist Impulse Comes Alive," in Emma's Daughters
(Unpublished, 1977), 6. Anarchy Archives.
[43]Ibid., 5.
[44]Evan Paxton, "Self Help Clinc Busted," Siren, 1972, 8 edition, Anarchy Archives. Also
see Sandra Morgen, Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health Movement in the United States,
1969-1990 (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2002).
[45]Farrow, "Feminism as Anarchism," 7. Also see Morgen, Into Our Own Hands.
[46]Ellenbogen, "Feminism: The Anarchist Impulse Comes Alive," 7.
[47]Ibid.
[48]Kornegger, "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection."
[49]Rebecca Staton, "Anarchism and Feminism," Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes 1, no. 3
(October 1975): 6. Anarchy Archives.
[50]Judy Stein, Anarchist Feminist Notes 1, no. 1, 1976, 6 Anarchy Archives.
[51]Come! Unity Press, "Some Thoughts On Money and Women's Culture," 1976, Anarchy Archives.
[52]Peggy Kornegger, "Anarchism, Feminism, and Economics or: You Can't Have Your Pie and
Share It Too," The Second Wave 4, no. 4 (Fall 1976): 4. Northeastern University Special
Collections.
[53]Ibid.
[54]Mecca Reliance and Jean Horan, "Anarchist Conference April 19-21: Hunter College." Off
Our Backs, May 31, 1974. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University
[55]Ibid.
[56]Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, Dear Sisters: Dispatches From The Women's
Liberation Movement(New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001), 12.
[57]Karen Johnson, "Mid West Conference," Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes 1, no. 3 (October
1975): 5. Anarchy Archives.
[58]Marie Leighton, "Anarcho-Feminism and Louise Michel," Black Rose 1, no. 1 (1974): 14.
[59]Karen Johnson, "Mid West Conference," Anarcho-Feminist Network Notes 1, no. 3 (October
1975): 5. Anarchy Archives.
[60]Midge Slater, "Des Moines Women Form Support Group," Anarchist Feminist Notes 1, no. 1
(1976): 10. Anarchy Archives.
[61]Grant Purdy, "Red Wing," Anarcho-Feminist Notes 1, no. 2 (Spring 1977): 7. Anarchy
Archives.
[62]Ibid. 8.
[63]Marie Leighton, "Anarcho-Feminism and Louise Michel," Black Rose 1, no. 1 (1974): 8.
Anarchy Archives.
[64]Lizzie Borden, "Women and Anarchy," Heresies 1, no. 2 (1977): 74.
[65]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 268.
[66]Leighton, "Anarcho-Feminism and Louise Michel," 14.
[67]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 26.
[68]Patrick Murfin, "International Working Women's Day: Portrait of Penny Pixler, Feminist
and Wobbly," The Industrial Worker, March 8, 2015.
[69]Ibid.
[70]Ibid.
[71]On the CWLU's split in 1976, see "The Chicago Women's Liberation Union: An
Introduction," The Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Website, 2000. Some members
angry at what they saw as the group's white middle class orientation unleashed a scathing
attack on the organization's leadership at the 1976 International Women's Day event which
denounced feminism, lesbianism and the ERA. The CWLU split over how to deal with this
situation and officially disbanded in 1977. Penny Pixler, "Notes From China," Whirlwind 1,
no. 11 (1978).
[72]Carol Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," in Reinventing Anarchy: What Are
Anarchists Thinking These Days?, ed. Howard Ehrlich (Routledge and Kegan Paul Books,
1977), 271.
[73]"Situationists - an Introduction," Libcom.org, October 12, 2006 "Situationists -
Reading Guide," Libcom.org
[74]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 271.
[75]Echols, Daring To Be Bad, 6.
[76]Ibid., 252.
[77]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 260.
[78]Ibid.
[79]Peggy Kornegger, "The Spirituality Ripoff," The Second Wave 4, no. 3 (Spring 1976):
18. Northeastern University Special Collections.
[80]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 5.
[81]Ibid.
[82]Su Negrin, Begin at Start (Times Change Press, 1972), 128.; Kornegger, "Anarchism: The
Feminist Connection."
[83]Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, 152.
[84]Ibid., 160.
[85]Baxandall and Gordon, Dear Sisters, 15.
[86]Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, 169.
[87]Ibid., 152.
[88]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism."
[89]Ibid.
[90]Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," The Second Wave 2, no. 1 (1972).
[91]Ibid.
[92]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 271.
[93]Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness."
[94]Ibid.
[95]Cathy Levine, "The Tyranny of Tyranny" in Untying the Knot: Feminism, Anarchism, and
Organization (Dark Star Press and Rebel Press, 1984).
[96]Levine, "The Tyranny of Tyranny," 49.
[97]Ibid., 53.
[98]Ibid., 54.
[99]Ehrlich, "Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism," 271; Farrow, "Feminism as Anarchism."
[100]Negrin, Begin at Start, 1.
[101]Sue Katz, "An Anarchist Plebe Fights Back," The Furies 1, no. 4 (n.d.): 10.
[102]Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, 170.
[103]Kornegger, "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection
[104]Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action
in the 1970s and 1980s(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) 100.
[105]Elaine Leeder, "Feminism as Anarchist Process," in Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist
Reader, ed. Dark Star Collective, 2nd edition (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2008).
[106]Leeder, "The Makings of An Anarchist Feminist."
[107]Weber, "On the Edge of All Dichotomies,"168.
[108]Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution, 55.
[109]Weber, "On the Edge of All Dichotomies,"133.
[110]Leeder, "Feminism as Anarchist Process," 3.
[111]Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution, 159.
[112]Kytha Kurin, "Anarcha-Feminism: Why the Hyphen?" in Only a Beginning: An Anarchist
Anthology, ed. Allan Antliff (Vancouver, BC.: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004), 262.
[113]Cindy Milstein, "‘Occupy Anarchism': Musings on
Prehistories, Present (Im)Perfects & Future (Im)Perfects," in We Are Many: Reflections on
Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, ed. Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, and
Mike McGuire, (Oakland: AK Press, 2012).
[114]Kornegger, "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection," 248.
[115]Chris Dixon, Another Politics: Talking Across Today's Transformative Movements
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).
http://blackrosefed.org/anarcha-feminism-to-destroy-domination-in-all-forms/
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