(en) Canada, Common Cause Mortar #2 - Taking Account of our Politics: An Anarchist Perspective on Contending with Sexual Violence

Editor's note: This article discusses some of our members' experiences of sexual assault 
and accountability processes. Where we have included specific details, we have only done 
so with the consent of those parties involved. ---- 1 Hamilton member, 1 Toronto member, 1 
former Toronto member ---- In the fall of 2010, several female members of Common Cause 
took on the task of developing a sexual violence policy for the organization. At the time, 
and as far as we were aware, there had never been an instance of sexual violence in Common 
Cause. Our drive to write the policy came from some members' past experiences of being 
sexually assaulted while participating in other organizations, from a desire to do better, 
and from our own readings on sexual violence and accountability processes generally. Since 
then, we have, unfortunately, had to make use of the policy to address issues of sexual 
violence as an organization. There have been situations in which our members have been 
sexually assaulted, situations where members have been aggressors, and situations outside 
our organization where we have been asked or felt compelled to offer our perspective.

We strive to develop our politics through a process of trying things, analyzing our 
successes and failures, and using our conclusions to make a better attempt in the future. 
There are few situations we encounter with as high stakes as sexual violence. Failures 
have been devastating, both to individuals and organizations. For this reason, our 
analysis must be thorough and considered. It is often easy to attribute failures of 
accountability processes to factors specific to the situation?this aggressor was too 
manipulative, this support committee couldn't get its shit together, this or that person 
flaked out on their assigned tasks. Specifics do need to be considered, but our analysis 
needs to come from our politics. As anarchists, we are seeking to develop a strong 
foundation from which to address issues of sexual assault and sexism seriously and 
genuinely, and we seem to be struggling.

Common Cause has struggled as much as any other organization in this regard. When dealing 
with sexual violence, we have found that we are at our worst when we worry too much about 
what others think, when we equivocate, apologize, or try to control or guess at others' 
behaviour. We have found that we are at our best when we let our politics lead. For us 
this means that people who sexually assault others should be thought of less as ?community 
members? and more as class traitors. They take advantage of the divisions in society (and 
particularly of the oppressed members) for their personal gain, and in doing so actively 
prevent organizing to overcome them. In Common Cause, we have found that reorienting 
ourselves away from ?community accountability? and toward ?political accountability? has 
been a positive step in addressing sexual violence and sexism more broadly.

The first section of this article will outline the ways in which we saw the development of 
accountability processes, some of the major critiques, and our views on them. It will also 
introduce the concept of political accountability. The second section will take on the 
important question: what are our politics? Common Cause certainly made the mistake of 
putting the cart before the horse?that is, trying to figure out how we would deal with 
sexual assault before working out our politics around patriarchy. This section will 
examine how the power dynamics at play within issues of wage inequality, the gendered 
division of labour, colonialism, and broader issues of sexism affect and play out in 
sexual violence and community accountability processes. The final section looks for ways 
of countering the emerging Men's Rights Activist (MRA) movement in Canada, particularly on 
university campuses.

MRA movements may seem like a departure in an article primarily focused on sexual assault, 
but we see a link. Not only do MRAs directly address sexual assault, but they are a social 
movement organizing around sexism. In order to combat sexism and sexual violence, we need 
to be active both in dealing with direct instances of sexual assault, and in countering 
broader social movements, such as MRAs and anti-abortion activists, who actively oppose 
women?s liberation. As with accountability processes, we have struggled to understand how 
best to counter these groups. What can we do beyond the counter-demonstration? How do we 
address groups that form in response to perceived declines in male privilege? How do we 
apply our understanding of the current terrain of patriarchy in ways that can lead to 
meaningful actions?

The overall goal of this article is to link our actions around sexual violence, our 
political, social, and economic understanding of gender oppression, and possibilities for 
activism against patriarchy into a coherent whole. This does not spell an end to our 
mistakes. Unfortunately, fuck-ups are likely to continue. Rather, this is an attempt to 
understand our experiences of the past four years ? hammered out in boring procedural 
discussions, emotional outbursts, and some clear, collective discussion ? politically. It 
is an attempt to learn from our mistakes and our successes, to make better attempts, 
better failures, and better analysis in the future.

I. Development and Critiques of Accountability Processes

Development

In this article, the term "accountability process" will refer to the ideas and principles 
around sexual violence and community accountability developed on the activist Left in the 
past ten to fifteen years. Of course, the activist Left of the past ten to fifteen years 
has no monopoly on responding in informal, community based ways around sexual violence. It 
happens in many contexts: among high school friends, coworkers, people who share cultural 
ties, etc., often spontaneously and in response to the situation and, like more formalized 
accountability processes, with varying degrees of success. However, for this article, we 
will use a more specific definition of accountability processes as the formal and 
politically motivated processes that have developed by Left activists in North America. A 
caveat to add is that this account is skewed by how we experienced the development of 
these ideas as anarchists in southern Ontario who generally became involved at the tail 
end of the anti-globalization movement. So it will be reflective of what gained traction 
in the circles we run in, and works that may have had important impact elsewhere may be 
left out. In the interest of not ignoring our context, this section will also describe 
some of Common Cause's own experiences with developing and working with accountability 
processes.

The first real test of Common Cause?s ability to navigate an accountability process guided 
by our sexual violence policy came in the fall of 2011. Earlier in the year, a Toronto 
member was called out for sexually assaulting a female friend in a club. He had been 
intoxicated and had repeatedly touched her without her consent, despite what should have 
been obvious non-verbal cues to stop. After receiving an email detailing the assault, he 
informed several fellow members of Common Cause as to what had happened, and indicated his 
understanding that the woman in question would be preparing an accountability process. He 
responded to the email thanking the woman for calling him out, and indicating his 
willingness to engage in a process, saying this was not the first time something like this 
had happened, and it needed to be addressed. Hearing this, the woman responded by 
indicating that she would be speaking to other women about his behaviour, and requesting 
that he not bring the issue up with any of them unless asked about it directly. Another 
member of Common Cause was tasked with communicating with her in order to help coordinate 
an organizational response, and was told to wait until they had decided how they wanted to 
approach it. Over the next several months, she got in touch with another individual who 
was interested in participating in a process of holding the male member accountable, and 
the two of them met to discuss what they felt would be a proper response. While this was 
going on, the male Common Cause member continued to participate in a number of other 
activist organizations in the city. When the news that he had committed sexual assault 
reached the attention of members of one of these organizations, he was asked to leave the 
three organizations he was then active in, and questions were raised as to why this 
information had not been shared earlier. This turn of events took place shortly after the 
Ontario Conference in the summer of 2011, where Common Cause had officially passed our 
sexual violence policy, and so this policy was used to draft a process of holding the 
member of Common Cause accountable for his behaviour. The Toronto branch met to discuss 
the terms of this process, and it was agreed that the male member would abstain from 
drinking in public for six months (and abstain from drinking to excess at all times), 
during which time he would participate in the research and presentations of two internal 
workshops dealing with proactive consent practises. He was also to draft a letter to the 
three organizations he had been a part of, informing their members of his actions. This 
plan was shared with the woman who had originally initiated the process, and she and 
others working with her agreed it was an appropriate response, while maintaining their 
option to initiate a separate process in the future, should they decide to. The following 
summer, Common Cause added a section to our sexual violence policy that attempted to 
balance the desire for privacy and confidentiality on the part of the survivor with the 
need of people in the community to be properly informed, so that they can make decisions 
about who they want to be around, and work with.

Other incidents, whose examination deserve their own article, have resulted in similar 
policy changes. For example, one such incident necessitated the drafting and 
implementation of a member expulsion policy. These processes were significantly more 
complex than a brief and sterile summation allows. They represent hundreds of hours of 
work and conversation on the part of our members and those involved. Both were emotionally 
challenging and far from perfect, but allowed for many opportunities to reflect on the 
efficacy of our efforts.

Often times we find organizations (including our own) engage with these processes in a 
manner that is lacking in political clarity, and consequently disingenuous. We endeavour 
to treat these processes as politically necessary and not tokenistically, as if they're 
just another box to check off to prove we made an attempt. In the spirit of those who have 
shown commitment to creating processes of accountability, we must be committed to 
re-evaluating the results of our efforts and learning from our mistakes. In order to do 
this, it's appropriate to examine their nascent form.

Some of the first discussion of accountability processes we saw came from the Incite! 
Women of Colour Against Violence collective, particularly in the zine (and later book) The 
Revolution Starts at Home. While zines and Internet accounts about consent and the 
problems of responding to sexual assault in activist spaces were not uncommon, Incite! 
clearly outlined a framework for responding to sexual assault in a formalized, 
community-based, and politically principled way. Some of the principles they proposed, and 
which other accountability processes tend to hold in common were:

Being survivor-centric: this means that the survivor is in control of the process. Often, 
this is cast as a sharp contrast to police and social services interventions that 
disempower and re-traumatize the survivor. In practice, this means that the survivor often 
has a specific support group or set of people who take direction on how the process should 
go. It also means that survivor?s accounts of incidents and definitions of violence are to 
be believed, and that groups are not to take action that is counter to the survivor's wishes.
Processes that do not involve police and/or formal social services: virtually all groups 
that work on accountability processes are critical of police. Incite! particularly 
emphasizes the violence of police toward people of colour of all genders, whereas other 
groups emphasize the above mentioned poor treatment of survivors. Many groups are also 
critical of the mainstream domestic violence sector and its collaboration with police and 
treatment of survivors. There is some variation here, with some groups working with, or 
being okay with, at least some sectors of the mainstream domestic violence sector?for 
example, supporting survivors going to counselling provided by not-for-profit organizations.
That the aggressor/perpetrator be held to account: this one appears basic, but is worth 
addressing. Essentially, that something can and should be done that would make the 
aggressor/perpetrator accountable for his actions.
But, that the broader community is also responsible: this principle emphasizes the 
importance of context that an act of sexual violence is not the sole responsibility of the 
aggressor, but may also be allowed or supported by the broader community?for example, by 
failing to challenge aggressive behaviours displayed in a public setting. The community 
also has a stake in holding the aggressor to account, as once the violent nature of the 
aggressor is revealed it is only reasonable that others will be concerned for their own 
safety. So, the ?community? plays an interesting role, in both holding the aggressor to 
account, and being itself held to account.
That broader social context of gender, race, sexuality, and class also play a role: again, 
there is typically an emphasis on the impact of social context that we would generally 
find lacking in mainstream services. The other side of this argument is that successful 
accountability processes can be themselves a form of activism against patriarchy.
The development of accountability processes was promising to many people. Sexual assault 
has always been common in activist organizations, as well as in broader society, and many 
people felt powerless to address it when they or their friends were affected. The idea 
that, through hard work and good communication, we could not only heal, but improve our 
communities and prevent sexual assault was a very invigorating one. As mentioned, in 
Common Cause, a small group of women got together in 2010 to work on our own 
accountability process framework. It was a long, detailed document that laid out in 
specific terms how a process would start and be carried out, with considerations made for 
many different situations that we imagined could arise. It is worth emphasizing that, at 
this point, there had not been a known sexual assault involving Common Cause?although some 
of the women involved had been sexually assaulted previously, some while in activist 
groups. But we all felt motivated by the idea we could address this productively, by 
making it part of our political work?rather than an isolating personal experience.

Critique

In the past ten years, many accounts of attempted accountability processes, and 
critiques?both practical and political?of accountability processes in general have been 
written, too much to provide a decent account of all the contributions on this topic. For 
this section of the article, we will focus on three major critiques: 1) the efficacy of 
community accountability processes, 2) the definition/role of ?community,? and 3) the 
limitations of accountability processes in linking with and advancing anti-capitalist and 
anti-patriarchal struggles.

So to the first critique?"do these processes work?"?the first step would be to define what 
we mean by work. A working definition might be: that they support the survivor in 
continuing their life and activism in the ways they want it, that they overall strengthen 
and improve the community more than they harm it (or, if they do break it down, it is in 
the right ways), and that the aggressor is held to either learn and change, or face 
consequences for his actions.

A common conclusion seems to be that these processes are much longer, more complicated, 
more exhausting, and more triggering than we ever expect, for everyone involved. As to 
survivors, The Broken Teapot makes an especially salient point that accountability 
processes can harm survivors by essentially tying their healing to their aggressor, so 
that his failure to take account of his behaviour continues to impact on them. This zine 
and others have also argued that the exclusive categories of "aggressor" and "survivor" 
often fail to account for the often complex dynamics of interpersonal conflict and 
volatile relationships. But despite all the hardship and the low success rate, it is 
probably better than not having any process at all. It is certainly better than victims of 
sexual assault feeling that they have no other choice other than to quietly leave. But a 
serious tweaking of our goals and expectations from these processes is very needed.

The question of community is an important one. One critique that has been made is that the 
activist/anarchist/Left ?community? is not really a community in any proper sense of the 
word. That is, communities are groups of people linked by something that promotes or even 
necessitates long-term interaction, such as shared language, culture, geographic location, 
workplace, or social identity. The activist community is porous, sprawling, and tends to 
attract short-term participants who quickly move on to other things.

Essentially, the activist community lacks precisely the qualities that would allow a 
community to deal effectively with a problem like sexual violence. Another important 
critique is that these processes can come to promote a sort of fishbowl effect?once a 
sexual assault becomes widely known, those closely involved with the process are 
scrutinized by those who aren't directly involved. These individuals and groups may know 
some of the relevant details, but may miss other important information or nuances. The 
broader community can thereby overtake the survivor in asserting demands. Another critique 
is around the limits of community culpability. For sure, we all carry some responsibility 
for the actions of those around us, at the same time, we do not grow our friends and 
comrades from test tubes. We are not involved in every aspect of their relationships. 
Setting reasonable limits based on context seems to be a good idea. And the role of the 
"community" as both judge and judged needs to be re-examined.

The final question, what is the broader political value of these processes? Community 
accountability infers that the anarchist/activist ?community? implicitly holds good 
standards to which someone can be held accountable. This is often untrue. Often, the 
anarchists/activists in question assume that their politics around sexual assault are 
good, but have not done the work of understanding sexual assault in the context of 
patriarchy and capitalism. The shaky terrain of our assumptions plays out over and over 
again, with confusing, unclear, unsatisfying attempts at accountability. This is where the 
question of political accountability comes in.

Political Accountability

Political accountability means that our politics form the basis of the decisions we make 
when dealing with an instance of sexual assault, that rather than the ?community?. Our 
politics tell us that an activist who commits sexual assault is acting as a class traitor. 
He is continuing to participate in the long-term cross-class alliance between working 
class and employing class men, resulting in devastating levels of violence?most often 
aimed toward working class women. This cross-class alliance provides men with unpaid 
reproductive labour, much greater status in social/public life, and an outlet for 
aggression that, until very recently, was not even considered a crime. Men who sexually 
assault women reproduce this cross-class alliance in the interest of Capital. Furthermore, 
an aggressor who claims commitment to anarchist politics is acting directly against his 
own held politics, against his comrades, against 50% of his class, and in misogynistic 
solidarity with Capital. So, what kind of accountability do we hold these people to?

Of course, many situations are complex and often less than clear cut. Sometimes, simply 
focusing on the politics and trying to ignore the interpersonal issues is enough. Other 
times, situations are legitimately complex, and require careful handling. The call here is 
not simply to turn the hatred and vitriol and violence up, but to collectively develop a 
shared view of what sexual assault really is, and let that lead our decisions. In our 
view, this also helps take the pressure off the survivor to constantly have to hold their 
aggressor to account. If we hold strong collective positions on patriarchy, sexual 
assault, and the relationships between them, hopefully our decisions in an accountability 
process will be led less by our personal connections and more by what our analysis tells 
us. The way to get better at responding to sexual assault is not to develop better 
processes, but to develop better politics.

II: Developing our Politics on Sexual Violence

When confronting an incident of sexual assault, we strive for clear and definitive answers 
and direction, both in terms of how to best deal with the particular situation and how to 
work more broadly toward confronting sexual assault politically. Too often feminists have 
looked for fundamental or reductionist truths to guide their response, mistaking hard 
lines for clarity. Political accountability, instead, looks to complexity in order to find 
direction. There is a complex interplay of economic factors, such as the gendered division 
of labour and the oppression of women who are forced to take on the vast majority of 
unpaid and low-paid reproductive labour. More sociological factors also play a role, such 
as the extreme objectification of women's bodies in media and mainstream culture. There is 
a long history of men claiming ownership and entitlement to women's bodies, and this is 
seen clearly in the way marriage is treated in relatively recent laws around rape. Race, 
colonialism, heterosexism, and ableism all interact with sexual assault. And reproductive 
justice, in its broadest sense, has strong links with sexual assault?women of colour, poor 
women, and disabled women being forcibly sterilized by the State seems like one of the 
very clearest examples of sexual violence.

Political accountability seeks to look at how these factors impact on issues of sexual 
violence honestly and complexly, without drawing forced equivalencies. That is to say 
that, while patterns of sexual violence are influenced by gendered divisions of labour and 
wealth, they also occur in great numbers in cases where there is no economic relationship 
between parties. The forced simplicity of both liberal feminists and MRAs?for example, 
MRAs' focus on gender imbalances in prisons, without any consideration of other factors or 
broader issues?is a type of gender reductionism that we hope to avoid. But being nuanced 
should not be confused with being soft: a perpetrator of assault is a class traitor, like 
a white supremacist, carrying out a devastating form of intra-class violence against those 
he holds privilege and power over. We should be harsh, but we should be clear why we're 
doing it. False claims of community are no justification. In this section, we consider 
some of the factors at play.

Capitalism and Patriarchy

Patriarchal gender relations and patterns of sexual violence existed prior to the 
development of capitalism and have manifested in many forms throughout history. However, 
given that capitalism is the dominant social order of the day, and a system that 
structures all of our lives, focus will be given here to Capital and patriarchy. 
Throughout capitalism, working class men have held a cross-class allegiance with ruling 
class men. They have claimed ownership of, power over, and benefits from women's bodies 
and labour, as well as more access to property ownership and higher wages. This is evident 
in many ways. One is that women have historically taken on huge amounts of unpaid 
reproductive labour, such as childcare, cooking, and housekeeping. This has meant that, no 
matter how exploited a male worker may be, he has still had the ability to further exploit 
and oppress in his own home. This has also meant that, historically, working class men who 
married possessed a right to the body and sexuality of his wife.

It is important to note that while this may be an example of intra-class violence, in the 
sense that both the man and woman in this example belong to the working class, it is not 
horizontal violence ? because men nonetheless hold structural economic and political power 
over women. Working class men are faced with a choice ? to ally themselves with working 
class women and fight for gender equality and class struggle, or to continue to reproduce 
the gender imbalance and gender violence that they have historically benefited from. Too 
often, even men who called themselves revolutionaries have chosen the latter.

The concept of social reproduction is central to an understanding of how the functioning 
of capitalism has served to reinforce and perpetuate patriarchy as a system of male 
dominance. Social reproduction, in this case, refers to work required in order to 
reproduce workers?things like cooking, raising children, and keeping a clean home. These 
tasks are as necessary to capitalism as wage labour, but they are often unpaid and hidden 
away within the private realm of the household. However, in contemporary North American 
society, we often see this work being carried out by low-paid workers, who are almost all 
women, mostly women of colour, and often migrant workers. A key example in Ontario is the 
Live-In Caregiver Program, in which women workers live in employers? homes and work for 
long hours, for low wages, and in vulnerable situations.

The material and ideological undervaluing and subordination of women under capitalism is 
the basis for the reproduction of male dominance and patriarchal relations. Women are, as 
a group, paid less than men, take on more unpaid reproductive labour, and make up a large 
part of the most precarious and low-paid workers. For this reason, a political 
understanding of accountability must also be an anti-capitalist struggle. This means both 
that instances of sexual assault must be seen in the context of gendered class relations, 
and that we as anarchists must engage in feminist struggle in workplaces and 
neighbourhoods around issues of unpaid and low-paid reproductive labour.

Struggling Against Sexual Assault and For Reproductive Justice

While social reproduction plays a central role in capitalism and has been a focal point 
for the collusion of capitalism and patriarchy, it cannot entirely explain the 
complexities of patriarchy and sexual assault. Women?s bodies and reproductive decisions 
are under constant scrutiny and control. Here, we see a link between struggles against 
sexual violence and struggles for greater access to reproductive control for women. We see 
reproductive rights broadly, as encompassing not only access to birth control and 
abortion, but the right to have and raise children as well. Poor women, women of colour, 
and disabled women have been targets of sterilization and other eugenic practices for many 
years, in the U.S. and in Canada. For example, in the 1990s, state legislators within the 
United States joined hands with the private pharmaceutical interests in a campaign to 
manage the reproductive activities of poor women of colour through the coercive and 
manipulative spread of long-term birth control medication.

In the midst of 1990s neoliberal expenditure cutbacks, state funding was poured into the 
accessible distribution amongst poor women of an implanted long-term contraceptive known 
as Norplant. Reminiscent of the racist pseudo-science of eugenics, which once justified 
targeted sterilization on the basis of supposed biological predispositions toward various 
social ills, distribution of Norplant was deliberately concentrated in urban centres with 
a higher proportion of women of colour on welfare. In some states, Norplant was even 
implanted as a condition for these women to receive social assistance benefits. In 
addition to such coercive methods, many states used manipulation?through the promise of 
additional benefits to those women who complied with the implantation procedure.

In her book Conquest (2005), Andrea Smith also outlines how sexual violence has played a 
role in colonialism in North America. This has taken many forms?from sexual assault to 
eugenics practices, from war and weapons testing to environmental racism. Destructive 
environmental practices, carried out by corporations in cooperation with the State, 
seriously impact the ability of women to have children, in addition to posing other 
extreme health risks. Undeniably, these effects have most impact on women of colour, 
Indigenous women, and poor women.

Political accountability must also take into consideration the complex realities of 
reproductive justice, and the ways in which capitalist states exert control over women?s 
bodies?particularly those of otherwise marginalized women. State institutions?such as 
residential schools and institutions for individuals with intellectual disabilities?have 
perpetuated extremely high rates of sexual violence as part of their broader eugenics 
projects. So, our confrontations against instances of sexual assault must also account for 
the dynamics of state control and power over women?s bodies?and especially those of women 
who are also oppressed on the basis of race, poverty, sexuality, and disability. Perhaps 
more importantly, our struggle against sexual assault is woefully inadequate without a 
struggle against those institutions of the State that continue to perpetuate abuse and 
control of women?s sexuality and reproduction.

III: Politics to the Front ? Participating in Feminist Struggle

The point is not for women simply to take power out of men?s hands, since that wouldn?t 
change anything about the world. It?s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power.

Simone de Beauvoir

The struggle against sexual violence and patriarchy must manifest in our daily lives and 
organizing efforts. As we develop our politics around these issues, it is imperative that 
we find ways to test our ideas in practice. As we have seen, a key problem with 
emphasizing accountability processes is that, by doing so, we are slipping away from 
addressing the structural roots of sexual violence. By side-stepping an analysis of the 
wider systems of power that are at play, we risk containing our politics within 
inward-looking activist scenes. Of course, we absolutely must contend with individual 
instances of sexual violence, as they will continue to occur. In this regard, an attempt 
has been made above to underscore how we feel that an approach that stresses political 
accountability can potentially address some of the short-comings of the community 
accountability model. However, we must also deal with movements that are actively and 
publicly organizing to perpetuate patriarchal social relations more broadly. MRAs comprise 
one such movement. As we endeavour to spread feminist ideas, we can expect to contend with 
reactionary elements in society that see these ideas as a threat to their relatively 
privileged existence.

By developing and putting into practice an anarchist political analysis of sexual violence 
and patriarchy, we are better poised to critique and build upon the failings of current 
feminist challenges to MRAs. More specifically, as will be explored below, the same 
absence of structural analysis which seems to plague accountability processes can be 
detected within the more liberal feminist responses to MRA organizing thus far.

The MRA movement is a growing force in North America, appearing most prominently on 
university campuses as student clubs that purport to address and raise awareness about 
?men's issues?. By manipulating the anxieties men face under the regime of neoliberal 
austerity, ?men?s issues? groups choose to scapegoat feminism, thereby obscuring the 
underlying social relations of Capital and patriarchy that both men and women must 
navigate in order to survive.

Men's rights groups have existed in various forms since the 1850s, and more concretely 
since the 1970s. Historically, this movement has been framed as a critical response to the 
advancement of women's rights. More than offering a mere critical response, MRAs represent 
a patriarchal reactionary politics. It is no coincidence that their solidification in the 
1970s took place against the backdrop of an influx of women into the paid labour force, 
and the increasing material gains won through women?s rights struggles as part of the 
expansion of the post-World War II Welfare State. Over the decades, the movement's 
rhetoric has been finessed to include pleasant words like ?equality? and ?inclusivity? and 
phrases that attempt to highlight a commitment to ?achieving equality for all Canadians, 
regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, family status, 
race, ethnicity, creed, age or disability.? Rhetoric like this almost seems to betray the 
core message, which has remained consistent. The message being that feminists represent a 
special interest group that place themselves in direct competition with men for access to 
finite societal resources, and should therefore be opposed.

MRAs' claims that men endure hardships in society, such as lack of access to mental 
healthcare, problems in the judicial and prison systems, and unsafe working conditions are 
partly legitimate. However, like the anti-choice activist interested in fetal rights, it's 
clear that much of the interest MRAs have in these issues, and the debates they lead to, 
are occurring in bad faith. For instance, discussion of unsafe working conditions amongst 
MRAs does not lend focus to the operation of Capital as a force of exploitation that does 
harm to working class bodies through its consumption of labour power. Further, of little 
surprise, MRA discourse lacks any analysis regarding the gendered division of labour that 
has historically exposed women to uniquely unsafe working conditions. One contemporary 
example of such exposure is the disproportionate threat of sexual violence faced by female 
workers in the retail, service and hospitality industries, or the threat of workplace 
injury to predominantly female personal support workers in understaffed care facilities. 
Clearly, any attempt to genuinely contend with unsafe working conditions on the job 
necessarily requires an understanding of work in the context of capitalism. An 
understanding that lends itself to a strategy that is only enhanced, not threatened, by a 
knowledge of women's unique exploitation under capitalism.

Nevertheless, the surface utilization of partially legitimate issues by MRAs ? coupled 
with their reliance on liberal concepts such as ?gender blindness? and ?equality? as a 
cover for their anti-feminism ? make them a difficult group to engage with using rational 
discourse. In the absence of a feminist movement that could posit a revolutionary 
explanation as to why these problems are necessarily perpetuated in a patriarchal, 
capitalist society, MRAs are able to use this void as an opportunity for their further 
development. This has taken the form of challenging the very idea that women are 
structurally oppressed in society.

Men gravitate towards the anti-feminism of the MRAs, not simply because they have 
experienced hardship in their lives, but because of the significant material benefits they 
receive under patriarchy. MRAs defend a system that entitles men to the unwaged domestic 
work of women, as well as higher paid employment with greater social status. Ironically, 
MRAs consistently raise the rigid definition of masculinity, which men often adhere to 
(i.e. sexist behaviour) in order to maintain these privileges, as unfair to men. In this 
vein, the challenge to male dominance that feminism promotes manifests itself sexually as 
a challenge to male entitlement to female bodies. Female sexual agency is therefore viewed 
as a threat by many MRAs who, motivated by anger at potential rejection, and uncritical of 
the role masculine socialization has played in forming their views around consent and 
choice, like to whip up hysteria regarding so called ?false? rape accusations, thereby 
contributing to their defence of rape culture more broadly. It's likely that female sexual 
agency is the primary reason men participate in MRA groups, since it seems the bulk of 
MRAs are in their early twenties?too young to have first-hand experience of some of the 
other talking points that they rally around. Their unwavering dedication to misogyny 
should implore us to strengthen our efforts to build an organized response to MRAs. Part 
of that effort must be a persistence in exposing ?men's issues? for what they are?running 
the gamut from legitimate but misguided, to completely fraudulent.

In Toronto, MRAs are attempting to become a more permanent feature of the city's political 
landscape. They have established a student group, which they call the Canadian Association 
for Equality (CAFE), on the University of Toronto campus, where they have hosted lectures 
by anti-feminist academics such as Warren Farrell and Janice Fiamengo. CAFE has also set 
up men's rights groups at Ryerson University (also in Toronto), and several other 
university campuses in Ottawa, Montreal, Peterborough, and Guelph, as well as two 
off-campus groups in Ottawa and Vancouver. Currently CAFE is trying to establish a ?Centre 
for Men and Families? in Toronto, and claim to have already received nearly half of the 
$50,000 start-up funds required?mainly from private donations. The proposed centre would 
operate as a support hub for men who claim to experience gender-based violence or 
discrimination, but, unfortunately, will most likely act as an echo-chamber in which 
?women's issues? are assumed to undermine and eclipse the disproportionate amount of 
hardships that men are perceived to face in society.

Feminists in Toronto have combated MRA activity in a couple of ways. Rallies have been 
organized on campus to correspond with the timing of MRA events, in an attempt to engage 
attendees in dialogue about their issues of concern. Printed materials have been 
distributed that attempt to re-frame the issues raised by the MRAs as broader social 
problems perpetuated by patriarchy, and which contain lists of resources for men who are 
facing domestic abuse or depression. The goal here is to catch the fair-weather MRA before 
he falls into the abyss of misogyny and victimhood, while still operating within the 
territory of liberalism.

Much like the rise of accountability processes as a means of addressing instances of 
sexual violence, these attempts at dealing with the reactionary sexism of MRAs ought to be 
encouraged and celebrated insofar as they reflect an active undertaking to combat concrete 
manifestations of male supremacy. Unfortunately, this more liberal brand of combating MRAs 
also shares with accountability processes a shallow level of political development 
concerning the systemic roots of the issues they attempt to confront. Whether it is in the 
context of holding a presence at MRA events or through debates on social media, a 
re-framing approach has been coupled with the tendency to engage in a mere statistics war 
waged against MRA information campaigns. In this context, both sides of the debate seek to 
present and explain statistics concerning gendered trends surrounding issues such as 
homelessness, suicide, and industrial accidents, while neither group takes on a deeper 
analysis of the interlocking systems of power that underlie such trends. To engage 
genuinely, perhaps we should resist the temptation to retort MRA claims with the standard 
?but women have it worse?. Perhaps a more effective strategy would be an acknowledgement, 
?yes, men do commit suicide at a higher rate than women?so what are we going to do about 
it, besides standing around blaming feminists??

Granted, some feminist approaches to MRA activity have gone beyond the realm of a 
statistics war, and have crossed into the realm of more confrontational tactics. These 
have included vocal condemnation of MRA events, as well as actively blocking entrances. 
This has resulted in significant controversy, as well as the involvement of police. We 
must be aware that these tactics often dovetail with the MRA narrative that feminists 
oppose free speech, and stifle debate, because it threatens to undermine their position as 
most oppressed gender?with all the sweet perks that entails. Given MRAs' tendency to 
innocently claim that men's issues are being brushed aside as unsubstantiated, and that 
the discrimination men face in society is ignored due to the influence of feminism, this 
approach must certainly make them feel like modern day civil rights activists. It is 
important to note, however, that MRAs often film these events as a method of intimidation. 
The recordings are then often posted on the US-based hate site A Voice for Men, where 
anonymous men dox female protesters, making them the targets of rape and death threats.

While it is worthwhile to oppose these events as they happen, using any of the above 
tactics as context dictates, we must ask: how can we seek to organize in ways that move 
past a superficial liberal politics? How can our efforts come to truly reflect the 
development of a revolutionary politics? What can we do to expand the presence of 
revolutionary feminism to a movement that exists beyond protesting one-off MRA events? How 
can revolutionary feminism evolve to eclipse MRA activity and retake space from groups 
like CAFE?

This challenging question obviously necessitates an expanded critique of patriarchy that 
defends feminism, and includes an analysis of capitalism, racism, and colonialism, while 
being able to provide a competing narrative to the real problems highlighted by MRAs. We 
need to introduce and strengthen strategies that promote the self-organization of women, 
on campuses and beyond, to take on these issues and our own. We should also propose 
tactics to deal with MRAs beyond the counter-demonstration. One possibility would be to go 
after particularly egregious MRA organizers, employing similar tactics as the Anti-Racist 
Action (ARA) network has used to such great effect in their efforts to dismantle white 
supremacist organizations. This could begin by pointing out the roles that white supremacy 
and patriarchy play in dividing the working class, by providing one group with a set of 
material benefits that come at the expense of the other.

Finally, as Amanda Marcott suggests in her article titled Confirmed:?Men?s Rights 
Activism? Is For Misogynists Without God, it may be worth considering the possibility 
that, since MRAs are overwhelmingly young, many will drift from their redditt atheist 
roots, ?maturing? into the comfort of vaguely Christian conservatism. This route provides 
a stronger and more effective opportunity to punish women, while still reaping the 
benefits of female labour. This possibility necessitates a long-term strategy that 
shouldn't be at odds with our current efforts. Whatever tactics we propose, we need to 
stress that we cannot limit ourselves to solely taking on MRA groups, and must instead 
always be working toward broader based revolutionary feminist organizing, tested in practice.

Conclusion

For the past few years, members of Common Cause have struggled to develop the 
organization?s politics around sexual violence. This work has been led mainly by women 
members, who come to it with a variety of experience in dealing with sexual violence in 
their own lives and within Left activist organizations. The policy of our organization is 
to deal collectively with instances of sexual violence perpetrated by or against our 
members, with provisions dealing with support for survivors, holding aggressors to 
account, and relating to other affected individuals and organizations. Moving forward, we 
believe Common Cause must continue to develop our politics around sexual violence. We need 
to let our politics lead both in dealing with instances of sexual violence and in 
determining our organizing strategy against sexual violence in broader society.

While it is clear that dealing with individual instances of sexual violence within our 
circles is crucial, we see that accountability processes as taken up within the activist 
Left are often flawed, and in some instances, potentially counterproductive. Where 
accountability processes have tended to tie up the well-being of the survivor with the 
transformative processes of the aggressor, we believe an aggressor-as-class traitor 
orientation is in order. Confrontational approaches to dealing with aggressors, which hold 
no false pretences of rehabilitation, should be on the table. And because we are dealing 
with entrenched ideological and institutional systems of power, we recognize that putting 
all one?s eggs into the basket of accountability is not always a survivor?s best means to 
fighting back and healing.

Strengthening our politics around sexual violence requires that we examine the operation 
of patriarchy, racism, and colonialism in capitalist society. The gendered division of 
labour in this period of capitalism provides material privileges for male members of the 
working class, while forcing many female members of the class into unpaid reproductive 
labour and putting them at high risk of violence within the patriarchal nuclear family. 
Racialized women are further attacked by state policies seeking to manage their bodies and 
ability to have children. Colonialism has intensified and re-structured patriarchal 
relations in the interests of Capital and the State amongst Indigenous populations. 
Orienting against sexual violence with a better understanding of how patriarchy, racism, 
and colonialism institutionalize it needs to underlie our strategies for dealing with 
instances of sexual violence and our broader organizing efforts.

In our current context, confronting the reactionary and fundamentally misogynistic MRA 
movement presents one possible strategic avenue for militant feminist organizing. Pushing 
this work beyond organizing the occasional counter-protests will mean developing our 
critique of MRAs to include a critique of capitalism, racism, and colonialism that puts 
forward a competing narrative to the social issues they highlight. It may also require 
targeting key MRA organizers, employing tactics used by groups like the ARA in their 
battles against white supremacist organizations.

Anarchists doing the work of aligning ourselves politically to the myriad realities of 
sexual violence helps to fill in holes that riddle the activist Left?s generally weak 
framework of understanding when it comes to confronting horizontal violence. This work can 
also help us develop strategies to contend with misogynistic social movements which shore 
up support for the patriarchal social relations we aim to overthrow. While dealing with 
instances of sexual violence remains as important as ever, we need to demonstrate that 
challenging aggressors of sexual violence can tie in to a wider revolutionary politics. We 
believe the way forward is by letting the politics lead, and by committing to the ongoing 
development of our ideas to be tested in practice.