women

Women's liberation, then and now

"Life itself becomes too dear, So vast are one's dreams." -Louise Michel

"A work is never beautiful, unless it in some way escapes its author." -D.H. Lawrence

I. YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

We have reached a turning point in our work which can by no means restrict itself only to Luxemburg and Marx. We must go both backwards and forwards in history and cover the globe. I dare say, since life itself began, woman has had to struggle; and in order to see the dialectic of development, both of our age and other historic periods, we will need to gather disparate strands that may, at first, look quite disconnected. I trust, however, that at the end a direction will manifest itself.

C L R James
On the Woman Question:
An Orientation
A discussion held on September third, 1951

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A new stage has been reached. We are finished with endless discussions on male chauvinism. We have no more time for individual attacks against individual men who are backward or against individual women who do not want to be "emancipated". These people will reorient themselves and will be drawn into their own struggles.

THE TRAGEDY OF WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION

The two essays contained in Untying the Knot relate both to how we organise radical groups and how we act as radicals so as to avoid a disordered political movement. Since being written in the early 1970s, both these essays have had a profound influence on both the feminist and anarchist movements world-wide.