Feminism is an advocacy, an extended recognition of the claims of women for individual freedom and self-responsibility. More specifically, it is a revolutionary theory of women's oppression, which has been (and still Is) developing through experience under different forms of capital, patriarchy and the state. It is oppression seen in terms of violence, exercised by the state and its institutions as the instrument of control for capital.

By this I do not only mean the obvious violence, that is directed against women physically but also that form of violence, one can call STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE: the workings of the welfare state, forced sterilisation, domestic slavery, wage discrimination (let alone work ethics themselves), sex-role conditioning in all spheres of life, etc, This violence is sanctioned by culture, that is by the state and by capital produced means to reinforce, in turn, its fundamental ideology of patriarchy in general for self-perpetuation.

To be a feminist means to be seeking self-definition as a woman in society and also to be a woman-identified-woman. By the fact that women are defined by patriarchal values and norms in all areas of their personal, social and economic life, we are oppressed as women and are forced to define ourselves in their terms, i.e. women become man defined, male-identified, categorised, and personalised, as it suits the patriarchal power-system.

Specifically, this puts women at men's material and sexual disposal to produce and reproduce in a patriarchal society.

All this results in the recognition of the need for a cooperative fight against man-made laws, institutions, world-visions, i.e. in a vertical direction against the male dominated power-structure, the state itself.

However, much energy is wasted by a great number of women in directing hostility against male-counterparts and even against fellow women complimenting the tactic of "divide and rule", instead of realising that for us to liberate ourselves, we must end a system, that oppresses all of us to exploit some of us.

The committing of individual physical violence is a personalised manifestation of the less obvious structural violence practised by the state, which in its clearest form is seen in the armed forces, the military industrial complex, and the threat of nuclear war.

Any struggle to change the structural violence is inextricably linked with bringing down PATRIARCHY, CAPITALISM, THE STATE, plus its moral justification within current culture. In fact, feminism and its practise the women's liberation movement - can be a direct challenge to such institutionalised oppression, by starting at the very bottom, at the "implanted" web of cultural norms and values, by the call for women to define themselves as women, to redefine culture on equal terms, in fact to create an alternative or counterculture, by existing for ourselves as women and therefore as people.

And in doing so, it gradually but surely erodes capital's patriarchal pillar of support.

Anarchic Elements:

Structure

Feminism insists upon non-hierarchical collective organisation based on voluntarism, mutuality, and autonomy. Each woman participates on an equal level of power, thus negating the hierarchical function of power, and instead co-operating as an individual revolutionary with others. Although there is a need to see the informal structures

- they occur- I do not believe that is sufficient reason to revert to "open leadership", but that to continue in the direction we have already taken and seeking new ways of avoiding such structures is a more positive and creative alternative. This leads to the loose forms of cooperatives, which have been explored to some extent - the notion of collectivity containing individual and group responsibility as an alternative to authoritarian, capitalistic ways of doing things.

"An affinity group could easily be regarded as a new type of extended family, in which kinship ties are replaced by deeply emphatic human relationships - relationships nourished by common revolutionary ideas and practice. Each group is deliberately kept small to allow the greatest degree of intimacy between those who compose it. Autonomous, communal and directly democratic, the group combines revolutionary theory with revolutionary life style in its everyday behaviour. It creates a free space in which revolutionaries can remake themselves individually and also as social beings..." (Murray Bookchin: Post-Scarcity Anarchism)

Personal is Political

The principle that the Personal is Political and that political theory must also have relevance to life-styles, sexuality etc. has been important to many feminists in the light of the often "personal" nature of the power exercised by men over women and the complex nature of that power. Consciousness raising groups have been one of the most effective ways of analysing and changing the way we relate to people and connecting the individual response to the wider social causes. Any political organization, which ignores the relevance and quality of "every-day" life and experience, I would consider to be promoting alienation and not getting to the roots of power structures, which in terms of feminism is the oppression of women by men as well (and not just a by-product of capitalism).

Autonomy

The dynamics of autonomy come closest than any other feminist principle to putting self-definition into practice and to recognising the need to go beyond self-definition into the actual working out of what we want. It is through autonomy that women come to understand the need, the right, the obligation to define ourselves as autonomous human beings, who want to bring equality by smashing patriarchy and abolishing capitalism and the state. This notion has been important in combating the dependant and feeble image of femininity,which cripples most of us in all our lives. On the political level autonomy is the strategy, by which we learn the necessity of developing a separate power-base for women in order to gain political potential and support

Means and Ends

"No Revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society".

("My Disillusionment in Russia" Emma Goldman).

Hence the organisational structure and strategy for the practice of feminism are by themselves already a serious challenge to the roots and manifestations of patriachal society. Nor are the actual means for confrontation and revolutionary action meant to be those we are trying to eradicate, i.e. the tools of violent power defined by the patriarchal state for man against women, but instead those defined by women for women against patriarchy, capitalism and the state itself.

Hence feminism implies revolution, and each woman in joining this struggle IS the revolution.

Much of the practice of the Women's Liberation Movement is consistent with that of "non-violent", nonoppressive, but subversive revolution in its non-hierarchical organisation: the use of direct action, support for each other, and the analysis of the link between the personal and the political, and so on. However, all the numerous anarchic elements in feminism and its practice have not been specifically articulated in order to become aware and conscious of the essential connection between feminism and anarchism and on this basis to recognise and fight any liberal reformist and bureaucratic tendencies within the Women's Liberation Movement.

Although we do see many common elements in Anarchism and Feminism, the past and present "Anarchist Movement" has been and still is basically male-orientated how has this contradiction come about???

Fundamentally anarchist theory does take account of all oppression under all forms of capital and the state, however in a very much generalised fashion in not consciously recognising the overriding significance of the most fundamental oppression of all, i.e. that of women.

Other left groups were forced to face feminism and to try to integrate it into their analysis of class oppression seen in relation to the means of production. However, unsuccessfully so, due to its theoretical limitations. For women's oppression cuts across "class" and all other devisive categories.

In contrast, feminism is compatible with anarchist theory, in fact should be recognised as an integral part of it, which, however has been ignored up to now due to its male-dominated character and its inability to come to terms with its own male psychology. Anarchist practice contradicts its own theory by not being actively feminist.

In conclusion then, the strongest and obvious common elements of feminist and anarchist principles, in theory, organisational structure, and strategy, are the following:

1. the belief in the abolition of authority, hierarchy and governments. Anarchists, as well as feminists call for the dissolution - rather than the seizure of power through the creation of co-operative , anti-authoritarian forms, i.e. the combination of the process and the goals of revolution.
2. the belief in both individuality and collectivity. True individuality implies freedom without the infringement of the freedom of others by means of balancing individual initiative and collective action via a non-hierarchical network. This means for feminists and anarchists alike that successful revolution involves unmanipulated, autonomous individuals and groups working together to take direct, unmediated control of society and their own lives.
3. the belief in both spontaneity and organisation. We ask for organisation from below, from within, rather than from without, already practiced within the Women's Liberation Movement. Spontaneous action is necessary in order to create a society, which responds to the changing needs of changing individuals and groups.

In short, anarchism is meant to be the affirmation of human freedom and dignity signifying that no person is to be under the control of another by force or threat of force.

If this is so, how can some men call themselves anarchists in such a hypocritical manner, not recognising patriarchy as inextricably bound to capital, not stressing the essential prominence of feminism as an integral part of anarchism or even ignoring it completely, i.e. ignoring women's oppression as T H E basic form of oppression cutting across all other forms of oppression. THAT IS NOT

ANARCHISM.

Hence we need to realise this broadened revolutionary conception of anarcho-feminism as a framework, which is a long term process, a series of actions, in which we unlearn passivity and learn to take control of our own lives through the formation of mental and physical alternatives, counter-cultures, etc.

In short, anarcho-feminism means to me 1) the dissolution of ALL power (personal, sexual, social, political, economic) and ALL hierarchy (leader/follower, employer/ employed, governor/governed), and further for a revolutionary process, which equates the means with the ends and emphasises the necessity for a balance between spontaneity and organisation and between collectivity and individuality.

THE WAY WE LIVE AND WORK CHANGES THE WAY WE THINK (AND VICE VERSA), AND WHEN CHANGES IN CONSCIOUSNESS BECOME CHANGES IN ACTION AND BEHAVIOUR THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN.

BASIC OUESTIONS:

Is it worth attacking the sexism of particular anarchist groups to which we don't belong?

If we belong to a mixed group, which is sexist, is it our responsibility to change it?

Is it opting out to leave?

What is the best way to fight sexism? By direct attack? (What form would this take?) By personal attacks on the worst individual offenders?

Should we try to create a climate of intolerance to anti-feminism? Should we ignore it?

Is there any contradiction in anarchist-feminist women working exclusively in the Women's Liberation Movement? Is that the right thing to be doing right now?????

Ulrike Grund