Gender and anarchism
Apr 24 2009 21:22
Is there a reason for anarchist politics being dominated by males. Actually to be fair in all sections of politics bar feminism (I do classify feminism to be political) males dominate. I'm not a proper anarchist but I do sympathise with some anarchist views. Anyway I realise most people within anarchist circles are males, what do anarchist think they should do to get more females attracted to their politics? I haven't implied anywhere that I am male but already I've been referred to as a "he" which I can gladly say I am not.
Apr 25 2009 09:50
#2
Jenni wrote:
(unless they are all sex pests)
which let's face it, they are
Apr 25 2009 09:56
#3
carbon_black wrote:
Is there a reason for anarchist politics being dominated by males. Actually to be fair in all sections of politics bar feminism (I do classify feminism to be political) males dominate. I'm not a proper anarchist but I do sympathise with some anarchist views. Anyway I realise most people within anarchist circles are males, what do anarchist think they should do to get more females attracted to their politics? I haven't implied anywhere that I am male but already I've been referred to as a "he" which I can gladly say I am not.
I think it'd help if anarchist organisations made more serious efforts to engage with feminist politics. There's a real tendancy amongst some class-struggle anarchists towards seeing the struggle against patriarchy as a side issue or a distraction from class-struggle.
Apr 25 2009 12:39
#4
Some male anarchists dont like admiting or fail to see the priveledges they have as males as well, IMO
Apr 25 2009 14:04
#5
D wrote:
Some male anarchists dont like admiting or fail to see the priveledges they have as males as well, IMO
What do you want as a result of these privileged male anarchist realizing and admitting said privileges? Do you expect them to step down and allow the girls to have an equal share in running things? I suppose you're also expecting the capitalists to step down and allow the working class to triumph?
Apr 25 2009 14:52
#6
Girls - crap at sports and politics
Apr 25 2009 15:53
#7
treeofjudas wrote:
D wrote:
Some male anarchists dont like admiting or fail to see the priveledges they have as males as well, IMOWhat do you want as a result of these privileged male anarchist realizing and admitting said privileges? Do you expect them to step down and allow the girls to have an equal share in running things? I suppose you're also expecting the capitalists to step down and allow the working class to triumph?
how the hell did you make so many assumptions all from me saying some anarchists dont realise the priveledge they have?
If someone doesn't recognise the sexism within our society then it probably means it wont be seen as important to them etc
which could be one of the reasons why there are less women in anarchism, because quite often it doesnt address sexism that much
Apr 25 2009 17:08
#8
juozokas wrote:
Girls - crap at sports and politics
Who cares about sports anyway, I get no excitement from it so I'm not too fussed about sports. Just look at what men have done to this world and then come back and say girls are crap at politics 
Apr 25 2009 17:11
#9
D wrote:
treeofjudas wrote:
D wrote:
Some male anarchists dont like admiting or fail to see the priveledges they have as males as well, IMOWhat do you want as a result of these privileged male anarchist realizing and admitting said privileges? Do you expect them to step down and allow the girls to have an equal share in running things? I suppose you're also expecting the capitalists to step down and allow the working class to triumph?
how the hell did you make so many assumptions all from me saying some anarchists dont realise the priveledge they have?
If someone doesn't recognise the sexism within our society then it probably means it wont be seen as important to them etc
which could be one of the reasons why there are less women in anarchism, because quite often it doesnt address sexism that much
I recognize that there's a large amount of sexism in our society. For example, you seem to think that women who are interested in class-struggle anarchism are thrown off because the groups involved do not address sexism as much, as if sexism is automatically a pet peeve for women. If the organizations themselves condone sexist behavior, I would understand your point, but what you're saying implies that these organizations should pander to anti-sexism as a special issue, where they probably cannot really compete with the SWP or other "social" organizations, and shouldn't anyway.
Apr 25 2009 17:23
#10
treeofjudas wrote:
as if sexism is automatically a pet peeve for women
Jesus suffering fuck.
Does it not strike you as even remotely possible that sexism, being something that chiefly effects women, is something that women who get involved in radical politics might be particularly interested in? It's not a matter of "pet peeves", but a matter of people's real, material experiences of oppression.
Apr 25 2009 22:29
#11
D wrote:
If someone doesn't recognise the sexism within our society then it probably means it wont be seen as important to them etc
which could be one of the reasons why there are less women in anarchism, because quite often it doesnt address sexism that much
Subsequently:
madashell wrote:
treeofjudas wrote:
as if sexism is automatically a pet peeve for womenJesus suffering fuck.
Does it not strike you as even remotely possible that sexism, being something that chiefly effects women, is something that women who get involved in radical politics might be particularly interested in? It's not a matter of "pet peeves", but a matter of people's real, material experiences of oppression.
Back up a bit so's I can extract my foot from my mouth. What do you lot mean by sexism?
Apr 25 2009 22:35
#12
If I understand what treeofjudas is saying, I think I agree.
No one is denying that women suffer from sexism more than men, or that if there is sexist shit going on it shouldn't be challenged. In my experience though, I have seen the focus on "anti-sexism" be very marginalizing for women in anarchist groups. Most of the anarchist groups I've been around have had both men and women in them (usually somewhat more men). What is usually proscribed as "anti-sexist" work is things like anti-oppression workshops, women's caucuses, writing position papers on gender and politics, abortion, domestic violence, etc... This stuff then has to be done by women (because they're women). There gets to be an assumption that if you're a women, you're going to be the one who deals with this stuff. Women anarchists are expected to have the women's perspective on everything, in order to give the organization or collective an anti-sexist passing grade. Either this "anti-sexism" becomes an auxiliary to the class struggle activities (in which case the people involved in it (usually women) are seen as complaining about gendered speakers lists and feminizing words when there's real work to do)... or the class struggle activities are seen as no more important than that sort of "anti-sexist" stuff... in which case the group tends to turn inward and become ineffective... always worrying about why there aren't enough women involved or enough people of color etc.... What passes for anti-sexism or women's empowerment is, in my experience, completely ineffective.
The groups that I've been involved with where there are strong women who take a leading role, have without exception been focused on concrete class needs: tenants groups, workers networks, anti-poverty groups. The women anarchists in these groups are not expected to provide the women's perspective, the people of color are not expected to provide the POC perspective, and no one really cares about the demographics. Still by focusing on class needs, and not being strange guilty anarchists, they almost always do a better job of involving a broad cross section of people.
So I'd say that the fact that anarchist groups don't have as many women involved as men is not because they don't focus enough on feminism or anti-sexism, but because they don't focus enough on concrete class struggle and are therefore largely irrelevant to the working class (more than half of whom are women).
Apr 25 2009 22:50
#13
quint wrote:
The groups that I've been involved with where there are strong women who take a leading role, have without exception been focused on concrete class needs: tenants groups, workers networks, anti-poverty groups. The women anarchists in these groups are not expected to provide the women's perspective, the people of color are not expected to provide the POC perspective, and no one really cares about the demographics.
it's very heartening to hear this, b/c you'd think this is as things should be, and yet they aren't, so often.
Apr 26 2009 00:06
#14
carbon_black wrote:
juozokas wrote:
Girls - crap at sports and politicsWho cares about sports anyway, I get no excitement from it so I'm not too fussed about sports. Just look at what men have done to this world and then come back and say girls are crap at politics
Apr 26 2009 10:41
#15
Thanks, quint. Your response subsumes what I was trying to say while being a lot less antagonistic and adding concrete examples. I feel rather superfluous. Carry on. 
Apr 26 2009 13:05
#16
weeler wrote:
carbon_black wrote:
juozokas wrote:
Girls - crap at sports and politicsWho cares about sports anyway, I get no excitement from it so I'm not too fussed about sports. Just look at what men have done to this world and then come back and say girls are crap at politics
What's your point? That is a man.
Apr 26 2009 13:48
#17
Great post quint- I completely agree.
Apr 26 2009 15:38
#18
Yeah I think Quint has effectively summed up how many class struggle anarchists feel about this stuff, male and female. Even thinking of girls that have been in groups I've been in, or who post here, or have a general interest in class struggle, they don't feel this 'automatic affinity' for 'womens issues'. They're just interested in class struggle anarchism, in the same way that any man might be, and don't feel like oppressed minority within anarchism all the time.
I find it particularly patronising when fellas actually go on about gender issues. I DO realise there are problems with representation within anarchist groups, but I'm not sure focusing on gender issues or feminism particularly helps the problem, because it necessarily assumes that that is what females are interested in rather than concrete class politics, and here again I agree with Quint.
There is a problem with female participation within lots of sphere of public life, beyond even just politics. I don't have an easy answer as to how we address this, as I don't think there is one, but, yeah focusing on concrete class struggle can only be a good thing.
Apr 26 2009 15:48
#19
Choccy wrote:
Yeah I think Quint has effectively summed up how many class struggle anarchists feel about this stuff, male and female. Even thinking of girls that have been in groups I've been in, or who post here, or have a general interest in class struggle, they don't feel this 'automatic affinity' for 'womens issues'. They're just interested in class struggle anarchism, in the same way that any man might be, and don't feel like oppressed minority within anarchism all the time.I find it particularly patronising when fellas actually go on about gender issues. I DO realise there are problems with representation within anarchist groups, but I'm not sure focusing on gender issues or feminism particularly helps the problem, because it necessarily assumes that that is what females are interested in rather than concrete class politics, and here again I agree with Quint.
There is a problem with female participation within lots of sphere of public life, beyond even just politics. I don't have an easy answer as to how we address this, as I don't think there is one, but, yeah focusing on concrete class struggle can only be a good thing.
I never said women have an automatic affinity for 'womens issues', (not that Im saying your accusing me of that just pointing it out) just that a possible reason for there being less women in anarchism could be a lack of work against sexism, something which logically causes a lot of women problems.
gender issues aren't only oppressive to women either so i dont see why men cant talk about gender issues. Thinking sexism is something important to address in a movement aiming for equality doesnt mean concrete class struggle is put on a back foot.
If anarchism is ONLy interested in class struggle then I would say its missing out on combating lots of oppression - sexism, racism homphobia etc
I recognise that these oppressions are often linked to class oppression anyway but i dont beleive thats its completely the case
sexism long predates capitalism
Apr 26 2009 16:07
#20
D wrote:
gender issues aren't only oppressive to women either so i dont see why men cant talk about gender issues. Thinking sexism is something important to address in a movement aiming for equality doesnt mean concrete class struggle is put on a back foot.
Oh I think we'd all agree, in fact gender binaries affect men in many negative ways - it's men who fill up prison, it's men who are sent to die in war, men have higher suicide rates, men have less support networks for discussing emotional stuff etc
But in spite of all this, I think it's more effective to attack the root cause, the social relations that make these gender issues salient.
Quote:
If anarchism is ONLy interested in class struggle then I would say its missing out on combating lots of oppression - sexism, racism homphobia etcI recognise that these oppressions are often linked to class oppression anyway but i dont beleive thats its completely the case
sexism long predates capitalism
I think most anarchists would agree that the moethods by which we acheive a class-less society themselves must be anarchistic. So it's unacceptable for anarchists to strive to acheive a classless society if their organisations are sexist, racist, homophobc etc. it should be common sense that we're opposed to these things and challenge them in our organisations should they arise.
Apr 27 2009 09:11
#21
Choccy wrote:
Oh I think we'd all agree, in fact gender binaries affect men in many negative ways - it's men who fill up prison, it's men who are sent to die in war, men have higher suicide rates, men have less support networks for discussing emotional stuff etc
It's not a contest, you know.
Quote:
But in spite of all this, I think it's more effective to attack the root cause, the social relations that make these gender issues salient.
While class and patriarchy do not exist independent of one another, it's wrong headed, to say the least, to imply that class is the "root cause" of gender specific oppression, which predates capitalism by quite a bit. A classless patriarchical or racist society is entirely concievable, if not desirable, after all.
Quote:
it should be common sense that we're opposed to these things and challenge them in our organisations should they arise.
Perhaps it should be, but that isn't always the case, which is the nub of the issue really. Poor gender balance in anarchist organisations isn't a problem to be solved by trying to attract more women to our politics, that's getting it completely backwards. It's an indication of a failure to take women's issues seriously, which is a problem in itself. It's not good enough for anarchist organisations to hold themselves to the same standards as bourgeois political parties in terms of gender equality.
Apr 27 2009 09:21
#22
quint wrote:
No one is denying that women suffer from sexism more than men, or that if there is sexist shit going on it shouldn't be challenged. In my experience though, I have seen the focus on "anti-sexism" be very marginalizing for women in anarchist groups. Most of the anarchist groups I've been around have had both men and women in them (usually somewhat more men). What is usually proscribed as "anti-sexist" work is things like anti-oppression workshops, women's caucuses, writing position papers on gender and politics, abortion, domestic violence, etc... This stuff then has to be done by women (because they're women). There gets to be an assumption that if you're a women, you're going to be the one who deals with this stuff. Women anarchists are expected to have the women's perspective on everything, in order to give the organization or collective an anti-sexist passing grade. Either this "anti-sexism" becomes an auxiliary to the class struggle activities (in which case the people involved in it (usually women) are seen as complaining about gendered speakers lists and feminizing words when there's real work to do)... or the class struggle activities are seen as no more important than that sort of "anti-sexist" stuff... in which case the group tends to turn inward and become ineffective... always worrying about why there aren't enough women involved or enough people of color etc.... What passes for anti-sexism or women's empowerment is, in my experience, completely ineffective.
That kind of thing is a problem, but I still think there's a place for separate women's (or black/queer/whatever) caucuses in organisations. Some women in the AF are talking about setting up such a caucus at the moment, a few of them have expressed the opinion that it's easier for them to discuss feminism and women's issues without having to stop and explain things to men that they don't have any real experience of.
The problem is when this becomes an inward looking thing, with gender issues being treated as something to be dealt with by the women's caucus, rather than the caucus providing a space for women to discuss their own experiences and ideas and feed that back into discussions and activity within the wider group.
There's also good arguments for making some effort to address personal behaviour within groups, where that behaviour works to exclude women or damages the working of the group. Just like with women's caucuses, it's just a matter of having sufficient common sense to think about your behaviour without dissappearing up your own arse.
Apr 27 2009 09:40
#23
quint wrote:
The groups that I've been involved with where there are strong women who take a leading role, have without exception been focused on concrete class needs: tenants groups, workers networks, anti-poverty groups. The women anarchists in these groups are not expected to provide the women's perspective, the people of color are not expected to provide the POC perspective, and no one really cares about the demographics. Still by focusing on class needs, and not being strange guilty anarchists, they almost always do a better job of involving a broad cross section of people.
So I'd say that the fact that anarchist groups don't have as many women involved as men is not because they don't focus enough on feminism or anti-sexism, but because they don't focus enough on concrete class struggle and are therefore largely irrelevant to the working class (more than half of whom are women).
This is spot on.
Certainly most organisations I have been involved in with radical and/or class struggle politics have had a relatively good ratio of women to men, and sometimes women have been in a clear majority. None of these groups have paid lipservice to feminism, or had massive tracts written about appropriate language and behaviour (though thse issues have naturally been discussed and deliberated upon as an organice part of engaging with class struggle). All these groups have been involved in practical day to day work.
I would say the only anarchist groups in the UK with a really low ratio of women to men are the national rev "federations", (a tiny % of total anarchists) and that is partly for the same reason that you don't see many women playing warhammer, because there is a perception right or wrong that these are sterile discussion groups theorising about obscure Russian and Spanish history.
That is not to deny that there is still a problem, intergrating anti-patriarchy into class struggle anarchism, there is and there needs to be a forward movement on this.
Can we all agree though that men who object to women anarchists holding their own meetings and organising their own spaces and who try to invade are complete cockunts and should be shot, or at least ridiculed?
Apr 27 2009 09:39
#24
madashell wrote:
That kind of thing is a problem, but I still think there's a place for separate women's (or black/queer/whatever) caucuses in organisations. Some women in the AF are talking about setting up such a caucus at the moment, a few of them have expressed the opinion that it's easier for them to discuss feminism and women's issues without having to stop and explain things to men that they don't have any real experience of.The problem is when this becomes an inward looking thing, with gender issues being treated as something to be dealt with by the women's caucus, rather than the caucus providing a space for women to discuss their own experiences and ideas and feed that back into discussions and activity within the wider group.
There's also good arguments for making some effort to address personal behaviour within groups, where that behaviour works to exclude women or damages the working of the group. Just like with women's caucuses, it's just a matter of having sufficient common sense to think about your behaviour without dissappearing up your own arse.
This is spot on.
Apr 27 2009 09:46
#25
madashell wrote:
Choccy wrote:
Oh I think we'd all agree, in fact gender binaries affect men in many negative ways - it's men who fill up prison, it's men who are sent to die in war, men have higher suicide rates, men have less support networks for discussing emotional stuff etcIt's not a contest, you know.
Yeah I'm just curious as to why you're not pissing and moaning about there not being enough 'mens groups' given men are subject to som pretty fucking horrific roles under capitalist gender relations.
madashell wrote:
choccy wrote:
But in spite of all this, I think it's more effective to attack the root cause, the social relations that make these gender issues salient.While class and patriarchy do not exist independent of one another, it's wrong headed, to say the least, to imply that class is the "root cause" of gender specific oppression, which predates capitalism by quite a bit. A classless patriarchical or racist society is entirely concievable, if not desirable, after all.
Ok not root cos, but the fundamental social relationship that makes gender and race divisions salient today, and the one that ultimately needs to be removed if we are to have any hope of removing arbitrary gender and race divisions. My point was the rather uncontroversial one that under capitalism, we'll always have racism and sexism, while the reverse it not so.
choccy wrote:
madashell wrote:
it should be common sense that we're opposed to these things and challenge them in our organisations should they arise.Perhaps it should be, but that isn't always the case, which is the nub of the issue really. Poor gender balance in anarchist organisations isn't a problem to be solved by trying to attract more women to our politics, that's getting it completely backwards. It's an indication of a failure to take women's issues seriously, which is a problem in itself. It's not good enough for anarchist organisations to hold themselves to the same standards as bourgeois political parties in terms of gender equality.
Do we take 'mens issues' seriously? Yet we manage to still have plenty of men in groups.
Not a single person here has said we shouldn't take 'women's issues' seriously. That's a given. I mean, I know we as a group here have been active in pro-choice issues here and have done what we can where we can to engage with issues of that nature, yet Belfast anarchism is still predominantly male. I don't have an easy answer for that, but I think you're idea of 'doing more women's issues' is simplistic shit, and patronising to a degree, because it assumes women aren't interested in other issues relating to class politics, and the only way women can become interested in class struggle is if we 'do more girly stuff for them' 
To be honest I feel like a patronising cunt even just talking about this
Apr 27 2009 09:55
#26
Edit: On second thoughts, that probably wasn't the most helpful angle to aproach this from.
Apr 27 2009 10:08
#27
madashell wrote:
Some women in the AF are talking about setting up such a caucus at the moment, a few of them have expressed the opinion that it's easier for them to discuss feminism and women's issues without having to stop and explain things to men that they don't have any real experience of.
In my experience, of the few women I know that are into class politics this isn't the case. They discuss concrete class issues like everyone else and don't feel a particular affinity for 'feminism and women's issues' as you say. I mean, I do agree that issues of gender need addressed, I'm just not certain that what you're talking about, separate organising etc is the way to go about, nor is it true that these are necessarily things that women are particularly interested in.
Quote:
There's also good arguments for making some effort to address personal behaviour within groups, where that behaviour works to exclude women or damages the working of the group. Just like with women's caucuses, it's just a matter of having sufficient common sense to think about your behaviour without dissappearing up your own arse.
I agree here, but in my experience, when men whinge about behaviour that excludes women in groups they're very often the people who dominate discussion in a way that excludes women and completely undermines their point, because they've spent all their time going on about how women are being excluded and resulted in any females in attendance not being able to get a word in edge-ways
Apr 27 2009 10:34
#28
Choccy wrote:
In my experience, of the few women I know that are into class politics this isn't the case. They discuss concrete class issues like everyone else and don't feel a particular affinity for 'feminism and women's issues' as you say.
But as should be obvious from the fact that this is something within the AF, there's no necessary contradiction between "discussing concrete class issues" and "an affinity for feminism", the two often dovetail quite nicely, in fact.
Take that Subway thing Organise have been involved in, for instance, it's a retty good example of how class and gender issues interact with each other (unless I've really not been paying attention and there's been a spate of men being sacked for being pregnant lately ), there's no need to treat the two as opposed to each other.
Quote:
I mean, I do agree that issues of gender need addressed, I'm just not certain that what you're talking about, separate organising etc is the way to go about, nor is it true that these are necessarily things that women are particularly interested in.
Well as a bloke, I can only go off what women involved in class struggle politics have said to me, which is what I was repeating there. Obviously not all women are going to agree on any one issue.
Quote:
I agree here, but in my experience, when men whinge about behaviour that excludes women in groups they're very often the people who dominate discussion in a way that excludes women and completely undermines their point, because they've spent all their time going on about how women are being excluded and resulted in any females in attendance not being able to get a word in edge-ways ;)
Which is why it's something that has to be led by women in the group concerned, say, via some kind of caucus
Apr 27 2009 10:35
#29
As a man I fail to see the relevance of womens issues to further notions of the class struggle. AMAZING.
Apr 27 2009 10:36
#30
I really don't see how it's "patronising" or "sexist" to assume that people entering radical politics might do so via issues that effect them directly, by the way.
there's a very similar thread or threads to this somewhere in the archives - as with a lot of basic questions, have a search around first.
briefly though, anarchism having more males than females is probably more to do with the fact that there are more males than females in ANY brand of politics, not just anarchism/communism. it's probably nothing specific about anarchism or male anarchists. (unless they are all sex pests)