Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality

“Without justice there can be no love.”–bell hooks

by Deric Shannon (WSA/NEFAC) and J. Rogue (WSA/Common Action)

Anarchism can learn a lot from the feminist movement. In many respects it already has. Anarcha-feminists have developed analyses of patriarchy that link it to the state form. We have learned from the slogan that “the personal is political” (e.g. men who espouse equality between all genders should treat the women in their lives with dignity and respect). We have learned that no revolutionary project can be complete while men systematically dominate and exploit women; that socialism is a rather empty goal–even if it is “stateless”–if men’s domination of women is left in tact.

This essay argues that anarchists can likewise learn from the theory of “intersectionality” that emerged from the feminist movement. Indeed, anarchist conceptions of class struggle have widened as a result of the rise of feminist movements, civil rights movements, gay and lesbian liberation movements (and, perhaps more contemporarily, the queer movements), disability rights movements, etc. But how do we position ourselves regarding those struggles? What is their relationship to the class struggle that undergirds the fight for socialism? Do we dismiss them as “mere identity politics” that obscure rather than clarify the historic task of the working class? If not, how might anarchists include their concerns in our political theory and work?

Why Intersectionality? How We Got here

Many people locate the beginning of the feminist movement in the U.S. with the struggle of women to gain the vote. This focus on electoralism was criticized for its narrowness by many turn-of-the-century radical women. After all, what did the vote provide for working class women? How could voting for a new set of rulers put food in their mouths and the mouths of their families? In fact, many radical women of this time period refused to identify as “feminists”, as they viewed feminism as a bourgeois women’s movement unconcerned with the class struggle (for an interesting discussion of this in the context of early 1900s Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, see Ackelsberg 2005: 118-119 and 123-124). Indeed, many working class women saw their “feminist” contemporaries as being in alliance “with all the forces that have been the most determined enemies of the working people, of the poor and disinherited”–that is, they saw the early feminist movement as a purely bourgeois women’s movement that had no solutions to the pervasive poverty and exploitation inherent in the working class experience in a classed society (Parker 2001: 125).

Anarchists of this time period, on the other hand, at times anticipated some of the arguments to come out of the feminist movement regarding intersectionality. We argued against the class reductionism that often occurred within the broader socialist milieu. Early anarchists were writing about issues such as prostitution and sex trafficking (Goldman 2001), forced sterilizations (Kropotkin 2001), and marriage (de Cleyre 2004 and 2001) to widen the anarchist critique of hierarchy to give critical concern to women’s issues in their own right, while also articulating a socialist vision of a future cooperative and classless society. Much of this early work demonstrated connections between the oppression of women and the exploitation of the working class. The refusal of many working class women to join their “feminist” contemporaries likewise demonstrated some of the problems of a universalized identity-based feminism that saw women’s oppression as a hierarchy that can be fought without also fighting capitalism.

This is not to suggest that anarchists weren’t at times reductionist. Unfortunately, many anarchist men were dismissive of women’s concerns. Part of the reason that the Mujeres Libres saw a need for a separate women’s organization around the time of the Spanish Civil War was because “many anarchists treated the issue of women’s subordination as, at best, secondary to the emancipation of workers, a problem that would be resolved ‘on the morrow of the revolution’” (Ackelsberg 2005: 38). Unfortunately, in some contexts, this attitude isn’t just a historical oddity, though it should be. And it was these kinds of assumptions that became an important theoretical backdrop for feminism’s “Second Wave”.

Competing Visions in the “Second Wave”

During the late 60s through the early 80s, new forms of feminism began to emerge. Many feminists seemed to gravitate to four competing theories with very different explanations for the oppression of women.

Like their historical bourgeois predecessors,liberal feminists saw no need for a revolutionary break with existing society. Rather, their focus was on breaking the “glass ceiling”, getting more women into positions of political and economic power. Liberal feminists assumed that the existing institutional arrangements were fundamentally unproblematic. Their task was to see to women’s equality accommodated under capitalism.

Another theory, sometimes referred to as radical feminism, argued for abandoning the “male Left”, as it was seen as hopelessly reductionist. Indeed, many women coming out of the Civil Rights movement and anti-war movements complained of pervasive sexism within the movements, being relegated to secretarial tasks, philandering male leaders, and a generalized alienation from Left politics. According to many radical feminists of the time, this was due to the primacy of the system of patriarchy–or men’s systematic and institutionalized domination of women. To these feminists, the battle against patriarchy was the primary struggle to create a free society, as gender was our most entrenched and oldest hierarchy (see especially Firestone 1970).

Marxist feminists, on the other hand, tended to locate women’s oppression within the economic sphere. The fight against capitalism was seen as the “primary” battle, as “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles”–that is, human history could be reduced to class (Marx and Engels 1967). Further, Marxist feminists tended to believe that the economic “base” of society had a determining effect on its cultural “superstructures”. Thus, the only way to achieve equality between women and men would be to smash capitalism–as new, egalitarian economic arrangements would give rise to new, egalitarian superstructures. Such was the determining nature of the economic base.

Out of the conversations between Marxist feminism and radical feminism another approach emerged called “dual systems theory” (see e.g. Hartmann 1981; Young 1981). A product of what came to be dubbed socialist feminism, dual systems theory argued that feminists needed to develop “a theoretical account which gives as much weight to the system of patriarchy as to the system of capitalism” (Young 1981: 44). While this approach did much to resolve some of the arguments about which fight should be “primary” (i.e. the struggle against capitalism or the struggle against patriarchy), it still left much to be desired. For example, black feminists argued that this perspective left out a structural analysis of race (Joseph 1981). Further, where was oppression based on sexuality, ability, age, etc. in this analysis? Were all of these things reducible to capitalist patriarchy?

It is within this theoretical backdrop that intersectionality emerged. But it wasn’t just abstraction and theory that led to these insights. As mentioned before, part of the reason feminists saw a need for a separate analysis of patriarchy as a systemic form of oppression was due to their experiences with the broader Left. Without an analysis of patriarchy that put it on equal footing with capitalism as an organizing system in our lives, there was no adequate response to male leaders who suggested that we deal with women’s oppression after we deal with the “primary” or “more important” class struggle.

But these tensions were not limited to the Left, they also existed within the feminist movement. Perhaps one of the best examples of this on the ground was in the pro-choice movement in the United States. Before Roe vs. Wade in 1973, abortion law was considered an issue to be dealt with on a state-by-state basis. Feminists mobilized around Roe Vs. Wade to see that legal abortion would be guaranteed throughout the country. The ruling eventually did give legal guarantees to abortion through the second trimester, but the “choice” and “legalization” rhetoric left too much unaddressed for many feminists.

And this experience set the stage for re-thinking the idea of a universalized, monolithic experience of “womanhood” as it is often expressed in traditional identity politics. Black feminists and womanists, for example, argued that focusing solely on legalized abortion obscured the ways that black women in the United States underwent forced sterilizations and were often denied the right to have children (see Roberts 1997). Further, working class women argued that legalized “choice” is pretty meaningless without socialism, as having abortion legal, but unaffordable, didn’t exactly constitute a “choice”. True reproductive freedom meant something more than just legal abortion for working class women. Many wanted to have kids but simply couldn’t afford raising them; some wanted a change in the cultural norms and mores of a society that judged the decisions women made about their bodies; others wanted proximity to clinics for reproductive health–in short, a “reproductive freedom” framework would take into account the interests of all women, not just be structured around white, heterosexual, middle-class women’s concerns (the seeming default position of the “pro-choice” movement).

Intersections

These experiences within the feminist movement and the broader Left raised many questions for feminists. How do we create a movement that isn’t focused around the interests of its most privileged elements? How do we retain our commitment to socialism without being subsumed into a politic that sees women’s issues as “secondary”? What might political organization look like based on a common commitment to ending domination rather than an assumed common experience based on some single identity? These questions began to be answered largely by feminists of color, queers, and sex radicals with the theory of intersectionality–a theory that was critical of traditional class and identity politics (see especially e.g. hooks 2000; Collins 2000).

Intersectionality posits that our social locations in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation of origin, ability, age, etc. are not easily parsed out one from the other. To speak of a universal experience as a “woman”, for example, is problematic because “womanhood” is experienced quite differently based on race, class, sexuality– any number of factors. As such, a non-reflective feminist movement centered ostensibly on the concerns of “women” tended to reflect the interests of the most privileged members of that social category.

As well, our various social locations and the hierarchies they inform intersect in complex ways and are not easily separable. People don’t exist as “women”, “men”, “white”, “working class”, etc. in a vacuum devoid of other patterned social relationships. Further, these systems of exploitation and oppression function in unique ways. To name two rather obvious examples, class is a social relationship based on the exploitation of one’s labor. As socialists, we seek the abolition of classes, not the end of class elitism under capitalism. This makes class unique. Similarly, the idea of “sexual orientation” developed in the 1800s with the invention of “the homosexual” as a species of a person. This effectively created an identity out of preferred gender choices in sexual partners, more or less ignoring the myriad other ways that people organize their sexuality (i.e. number of partners, preferred sexual acts, etc.). It also effectively limited sexual identity to three categories: hetero, homo, and bi–as if there could not be a large range of attractions and variety within humanity. Part of liberation based on sexuality is troubling these categories to provide a viable sexual/social existence for everyone. This makes sexuality, likewise, unique.

These structured inequalities and hierarchies inform and support one another. For example, the labor of women in child-bearing and rearing provides new bodies for the larger social factory to allow capitalism to continue. White supremacy and racism allow capitalists control over a segment of the labor market that can serve as stocks of cheap labor. Compulsory heterosexuality allows the policing of the patriarchal family form, strengthening patriarchy and male dominance. And all structured forms of inequality add to the nihilistic belief that institutionalized hierarchy is inevitable and that liberatory movements are based on utopian dreams.

Proponents of intersectionality, then, argue that all struggles against domination are necessary components for the creation of a liberatory society. It is unnecessary to create a totem pole of importance out of social struggles and suggest that some are “primary” while others are “secondary” or “peripheral” because of the complete ways that they intersect and inform one another. Further, history has shown us that this method of ranking oppressions is divisive and unnecessary–and worse, it undermines solidarity. As well, when organizing and developing political practice, we can self-reflexively move the margins to the center of our analyses to avoid the biases of privilege that has historically led to so many divisions in feminism and the Left.

A good contemporary example of intersectionality in the context of social movement practice is Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Incite! “is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing” (Incite! 2009). One reason Incite! stands out against other anti-violence organizations is their systemic analysis. They see women of color who have experienced violence as living in the “dangerous intersections” of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and other oppressive structures and institutions. Rather than simply reducing the experiences to the individual, they recognize the systems that oppress and exploit people and have structured their approach in such a way that calls for the “recentering” of marginalized folks, as opposed to a method of “inclusiveness” based on one single identity or social location. Incite! argues that “inclusiveness” simply adds a multicultural component to individualistic white-dominated organizing so common in the United States. Instead, they call for recentering the framework around the most marginalized peoples. This push is to ensure that their organizing addresses the needs of those historically overlooked by feminism, with the understanding that all people benefit from the liberation of their more marginalized peers–while focusing on the more privileged elements within a given social category leaves others behind (as in the examples we gave in the struggle for the vote and the legalization of abortion). Incite! makes a point to focus on the needs of the working class who have generally been neglected (i.e. sex workers, the incarcerated, trans folks and injection drug users). By centering these people in their organizing, they are focusing on the people standing at more dangerous intersections of oppression and exploitation, therefore tackling the entirety of the system and not just the more visible or advantaged aspects. Additionally, Incite! views the state as a major perpetrator of violence against women of color and seeks to build grassroots organizations independent of and against it. Anarchists could learn a lot from Incite! about the importance of addressing the needs of ALL sections of the working class and their attempt to check the tendency of the Left to ignore or dismiss the concerns, needs, ideas and leadership of people living in the dangerous intersections of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, etc.

And What Can Anarchism Provide the Theory of Intersectionality?

We firmly believe that this learning process is a two-way street. That is, when synthesizing our practice to include these concerns raised by feminists, feminism could stand to benefit from learning from anarchism as well. We see the contributions of anarchists to intersectionality in two major areas. First, anarchism can provide a radical base from which to critique liberal interpretations of intersectionality. Secondly, anarchists can offer a critical analysis of the state.

Too often people using an intersectional analysis ignore the uniqueness of various systems of domination. One way this is done is by articulating a general opposition to classism. While we believe that class elitism exists, often this opposition to “classism” does not recognize the unique qualities of capitalism and can lead to a position that essentially argues for an end to class elitism under capitalism. As anarchists, we do not just oppose class elitism, we oppose class society itself. We do not want the ruling class to treat us nicer under a system based on inequality and exploitation (i.e. capitalism). We want to smash capitalism to pieces and build a new society in which classes no longer exist–that is, we fight for socialism. Anarchists, as part of the socialist movement, are well-placed to critique this liberal interpretation of intersectionality (see especially Schmidt and van der Walt 2009).

Likewise, as anarchists, we are well-placed to put forward our critiques of the state. The state, in addition to being a set of specific institutions (such as the courts, police, political bodies like senates, presidents, etc.), is a social relationship. And the state has an influence over our lives in myriad ways. For example, former prisoners are often unemployable, particularly if they have committed felonies. One only needs to take a cursory glance at the racial and class make-up of US prisons to see how intersectionality can be put to use here. Former prisoners, workers who are targeted for striking or engaging in direct actions and/or civil disobedience, etc. all have specific needs as subjects in a society that assumes political rulers and passive, ruled subjects. And the state tends to target specific sets of workers based on their existence within the dangerous intersections we mentioned above. Anarchists can offer to the theory of intersectionality an analysis of the ways that the state has come to rule our lives just as much as any other institutionalized system of domination. And we can, of course, argue for smashing such a social arrangement and replacing it with non-hierarchical social forms.

Refusing to Wait

In many ways, anarchists have historically anticipated some of the ideas in intersectionality. Further, anarchism as a political philosophy–and as a movement against all forms of structured domination, coercion, and control–seems well-suited for an intersectional practice. Unfortunately, we still have debilitating arguments about what hierarchy is “primary” and should be prioritized above others. Like in times past, this leads to easy division and a lack of solidarity (imagine being told to give up some struggle that directly involves YOU for the “correct” or “primary” fight!). Further, the smashing of any structured hierarchy can have a destabilizing effect on the rest, as the simple existence of any of these social divisions serves to naturalize the existence of all other hierarchies.

We’ve tried here to explain the rise of the theory of intersectionality within feminism and describe its contours. Perhaps more importantly, we’ve attempted to relate it throughout this piece to political practice and social movement struggles so as to avoid complete abstraction and theorization apart from practice. We hope that more anarchists become acquainted with intersectionality and put it to positive use in our political work. Finally, it is our hope that more people from marginalized groups refuse to wait, that we recognize the value of all fights against injustice and hierarchy in the here and now–and that we build a reflexive practice based on solidarity and mutual aid instead of divisive prescriptions about what struggles are “primary” and which ones, by extension, are “secondary” or “peripheral”. Rather, they are all linked and we have good reason to refuse to wait until after “the revolution” to address them!

Bibliography

Ackelsberg, Martha A. 2005. The Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women. Oakland: AK Press.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

de Cleyre, Voltairine. 2001. “They Who Marry do Ill”. Pp. 103-113 in Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, edited by Peter Glassgold. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint.

_____. 2004. “Sex Slavery”. Pp. 93-103 in The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, edited by A.J. Brigati. Oakland: AK Press.

Firestone, Shulamith. 1970. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Morrow.

Goldman, Emma. 2001. “The White Slave Traffic”. Pp. 113-120 in Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, edited by Peter Glassgold. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint.

Hartmann, Heidi. 1981. “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union.” in Women and Revolution, by Lydia Sargent (ed.). Boston, MA: South End Press.

hooks, bell. 2000. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

Incite!. 2009. http://www.incite-national.org/. Last accessed, October 2009.

Joseph, Gloria. 1981. “The Incompatible Menage à Trois: Marxism, Feminism, and Racism.” in Women and Revolution, by Lydia Sargent (ed.). Boston, MA: South End Press.

Kropotkin, Peter. 2001. “The Sterilization of the Unfit”. Pp. 120-123 in Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, edited by Peter Glassgold. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint.

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Parker, Robert Allerton. 2001. “Feminism in America”. Pp. 124-126 in Anarchy!: An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, edited by Peter Glassgold. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint.

Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Vintage.

Schmidt, M. & van der Walt, L. 2009. Black Flame: The revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism. Oakland: AK Press.

Young, Iris. 1981. “Beyond the Unhappy Marriage: A Critique of the Dual Systems Theory.” in Women and Revolution, by Lydia Sargent (ed.). Boston, MA: South End Press.

Strengthening Anarchism’s Gender Analysis: Lessons from the Transfeminist Movement

Transfeminism developed out of a critique of the mainstream and radical feminist movements. The feminist movement has a history of internal hierarchies. There are many examples of women of color, working class women, lesbians and others speaking out against the tendency of the white, affluent- dominated women’s movement to silence them and overlook their needs. Instead of honoring these marginalized voices, the mainstream feminist movement has prioritized struggling for rights primarily in the interests of white affluent women. While the feminist movement as a whole has not resolved these hierarchal tendencies, various groups have continued to speak up regarding their own marginalization – in particular, transgendered women. The process of developing a broader understanding of systems of oppression and how they interact has advanced feminism and is key to building on the theory of anarchist feminism.

Transfeminism builds on the work that came out of the multiracial feminist movement, and in particular, the work of Black feminists. Frequently, when confronted with allegations of racism, classism, or homophobia, the women’s movement dismisses these issues as divisive. The more prominent voices promote the idea of a homogenous “universal female experience,” which, as it is based on commonality between women, theoretically promotes a sense of sisterhood. In reality, it means pruning the definition of “woman” and trying to fit all women into a mold reflecting the dominant demographic of the women’s movement: white, affluent, heterosexual, and non-disabled. This “policing” of identity, whether conscious or not, reinforces systems of oppression and exploitation. When women who do not fit this mold have challenged it, they have frequently been accused of being divisive and disloyal to the sisterhood. The hierarchy of womanhood created by the women’s movement reflects, in many ways, the dominant culture of racism, capitalism and heteronormativity.

Mainstream feminist organizing frequently tries to find the common ground shared by women, and therefore focuses on what the most vocal members decide are “women’s issues” – as if the female experience existed in vacuum outside of other forms of oppression and exploitation. However, using an intersectional approach to analyzing and organizing around oppression, as advocated by multiracial feminism and transfeminism, we can discuss these differences rather than dismiss them. The multiracial feminist movement developed this approach, which argues that one cannot address the position of women without also addressing their class, race, sexuality, ability, and all other aspects of their identity and experiences. Forms of oppression and exploitation do not exist separately. They are intimately related and reinforce each other, and so trying to address them singly (i.e. “sexism” divorced from racism, capitalism, etc) does not lead to a clear understanding of the patriarchal system. This is in accordance with the anarchist view that we must fight all forms of hierarchy, oppression, and exploitation simultaneously; abolishing capitalism and the state does not ensure that white supremacy and patriarchy will be somehow magically dismantled.

Tied to this assumption of a “universal female experience” is the idea that that if a woman surrounds herself with those that embody that “universal” woman, then she is safe from patriarchy and oppression. The concept of “women’s safe spaces” (being women-only) date back to the early lesbian feminist movement, which was largely comprised of white, middle-class women who prioritized addressing sexism over other forms of oppression. This notion that an all-women space is inherently safe not only discounts the intimate violence that can occur between women, but also ignores or de-prioritizes the other types of violence that women can experience; racism, poverty, incarceration and other forms of state, economic and social brutality.

The Transfeminist Manifesto states: “Transfeminism believes that we construct our own gender identities based on what feels genuine, comfortable and sincere to us as we live and relate to others within given social and cultural constraint. (1)” The notion that gender is a social construct is a key concept in transfeminism, and are also essential (no pun intended) to an anarchist approach to feminism. Transfeminism also criticizes the idea of a “universal female experience” and argues against the biologically essentialist view that one’s gender is defined by one’s genitalia. Other feminisms have embraced the essentialist argument, seeing the idea of “women’s unity” as being built off a sameness, some kind of core “woman-ness.” This definition of woman is generally reliant on what is between a person’s legs. Yet what specifically about the definition of woman is intrinsic to two X chromosomes? If it is defined as being in possession of a womb, does that mean women who have had hysterectomies are somehow less of a woman? Perhaps, if we reduce the definition of “woman” to the role of child-bearer. That seems rather antithetical to feminism. Gender roles have long been under scrutiny in radical communities. The idea that women are born to be mothers, are more sensitive and peaceful, are predisposed to wearing the color pink and all the other stereotypes out there are socially constructed, not biological. If the (repressive) gender role does not define what a woman is, and if the organs one is born with do not define gender either, the next logical step is to recognize that gender can only be defined by the individual, for themselves. While this concept may cause some to panic, that does not make it any less legitimate with regards to a person’s identity.

It is important to note that not all transgender people chose to physically transition, and that each person’s decision to do so or not is their own. The decision is highly personal and generally irrelevant to theoretical conceptions of gender. There are many reasons to physically change one’s body, from getting a haircut to taking hormones. Some reasons might be to feel more at ease in a world with strict definitions of male and female. Another is to look in the mirror and see on the outside (the popular understanding of) the gender one feels on the inside. Surely, for some, it is the belief that gender is defined by the physical construction of one’s genitalia. But rather than draw from speculation as to the motivations for the personal decisions of trans people (as if they where not vast and varied), it is more productive to note the challenge to the idea that biology is destiny.

Thus far, gender and feminist theory that includes trans experiences exists almost solely in academia. There are very few working class intellectuals in the field, and the academic language used is not particularly accessible to the average person. This is unfortunate, since the issues that transfeminism addresses affect all people. Capitalism, racism, the state, patriarchy and the medical field mediate the way everyone experiences gender. There is a significant amount of coercion employed by these institutions to police human experiences, which applies to everyone, trans and non-trans alike. Capitalism and the state play a very direct role in the experiences of trans people. Access to hormones and surgery, if desired, costs a significant amount of money, and people are often forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops in order to acquire them. Trans people are disproportionately likely to be members of the working and under classes. However, within the radical queer and transfeminist communities, while there may be discussions of class, they are generally framed around identity – arguing for “anti-classist” politics, but not necessarily anti-capitalist.

The concepts espoused by transfeminism help us understand gender, but there is a need for the theory to break out of academia and to develop praxis amongst the working class and social movements. This is not to say that there are no examples of transfeminist organizing, but rather that there needs to be an incorporation of transfeminist principles into broad based movements. Even gay and lesbian movements have a history of leaving trans people behind. For example, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act does not protect gender identity. Again we see a hierarchy of importance; the gay and lesbian movement compromises (throwing trans folks under the bus), rather than employing an inclusive strategy for liberation. There is frequently a sense of a “scarcity of liberation” within reformist social movements, the feeling that the possibilities for freedom are so limited that we must fight against other marginalized groups for a piece of the pie. This is in direct opposition to the concept of intersectionality, since it often requires people to betray one aspect of their identity in order to politically prioritize another. How can a person be expected to engage in a fight against gender oppression if it ignores or worsens their racial oppression? Where does one aspect of their identity and experiences end and another begin? Anarchism offers a possible society in which liberation is anything but scarce. It provides a theoretical framework that calls for an end to all hierarchies, and, as stated by Martha Ackelsberg, “It offers a perspective on the nature and process of social revolutionary transformation (e.g. the insistence that means must be consistent with ends, and that economic issues are critical, but not the only source of hierarchal power relations) that can be extremely valuable to/ for women’s emancipation. (2)”
Anarchists need to be developing working class theory that includes an awareness of the diversity of the working class. The anarchist movement can benefit from the development of a working class, anarchist approach to gender issues that incorporates the lessons of transfeminism and intersectionality. It is not so much a matter of asking anarchists to become active in the transfeminist movement as it is a need for anarchists to take a page from the Mujeres Libres and integrate the principles of (trans)feminism into our organizing within the working class and social movements. Continuing to develop contemporary anarchist theory of gender rooted in the working class requires a real and integrated understanding of transfeminism.

This article neglects to address another important concept: the idea that biological sex is somewhat socially constructed as well. Given the high prevalence of intersex folks, it is worth re-evaluating whether or not there are only two supposed biological sexes. This is a whole additional discussion, and one that would require a bit more research. Recommended sites for more information are www.isna.org and www.eminism.org.

Notes

1. The Transfeminist Manifesto by Emi Koyama (2000)

2. Lessons from the Free Women of Spain an interview with Martha Ackelsberg
by Geert Dhont (2004)

This article appears in the latest issue of the Northeastern Anarchist

Lights! Camera! Direct Action! An Anarchist Review of “Battle in Seattle”

I spent my nineteenth birthday in the cold and rain, breathing in tear gas and fleeing the police. It was 1999 and I was in Seattle, joining in the tens of thousands who descended on the city to protest the World Trade Organization’s first Ministerial Conference in the United States. I was sympathetic to the myriad of issues represented by the various sections of protesters, from the environment to workers struggles to access to medicine. I proudly marched with my banner reading, “Think the WTO is bad? Wait til you hear about capitalism!” The reasons to oppose the WTO were a thousand-fold, but central to me was the larger system at play: global capitalism.

My fellow anarchists worked alongside union members, sea turtles, and activists of all kinds in an effort to shut down the WTO’s meeting. The diversity of the protesters brought with them a diversity of tactics, and the anarchists participated in many, from locking down in intersections and doorways, to squatting a building downtown, to breaking the windows of targeted multinational corporations. While the debate about the protests and aftermath has seen hundreds of opinions, perspectives and critiques, there is one thing most can agree on: the 1999 WTO protests brought American attention to global economic issues. In addition to successfully shutting down the meeting, activists in the U.S. illustrated an awareness of and resistance to the WTO’s repression and exploitation of peoples across the globe.

Almost ten years later, the protests have inspired a feature film. Directed by Stuart Townsend, Battle in Seattle is a clearly well-researched fictionalized drama taking place during the WTO protests. The pacing and general narrative is quite accurate to the events as they actually unfolded. This new, sympathetic attention to a pivotal moment of the anti-globalization movement brings up many old questions and debates, most of which still linger on today. The movie itself is engaging and likeable, with plenty of well-staged action to keep the viewer’s interest. Michelle Rodriguez, bad-ass as always, makes a fierce anarchist (in the interest of disclosure, I watched Blue Crush three times and Blood Rayne twice just for Rodriguez). The intentions of the film are clearly sympathetic to the protesters and seek to bring to light the motivations and ideas of the activists, which had not been well represented by the media.

The film is independently produced, not a product of Hollywood, though it uses Hollywood style to capture its audience. Like the popular Oscar-winner Crash, it weaves together individual stories and illustrates how they connect. For an effort as collective as the WTO protests, this approach ultimately focuses too much on individual people. One of the shortcomings of the film is the fact that it is comprised of anecdotes. Certainly, to be an entertaining movie, one has to tell the story of some compelling characters, but when telling the story of the WTO protests, this causes some key ideas to slip through the cracks. By focusing on the personal lives and motivations of a handful of characters, we miss the greater, systemic causes at play.

Consequently, the film focuses on the isolated “mistakes” of the Seattle police and to a lesser extent, the media. There is not a larger awareness of the fact that institutions like the WTO rely on media whitewash of their activities and a negative portrayal of protesters, not to mention police repression. Cops fighting protesters is (on a smaller scale) par for the course given the violence of the WTO (poverty, white supremacy, etc). Corporate media also has something to gain by dramatizing the conflict and making the protesters look bad; sensationalism is what gets the ratings, after all. There is a broader systemic analysis of capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy, their roles in the WTO and the states that control it, which is missing from the film.

Of all the characters in the film – a cop, his wife, the Mayor, an NGO professional, an African delegate – Director Stuart Townsend gives the most screen time to various activists. Townsend has explained that Battle in Seattle’s glorification of the professional activist is aimed at trying to inspire people to become more active in progressive causes, but in an effort to show them in a positive light, their achievements are overblown. The breakaway segment of the protest’s labor march was portrayed in the film as directed by the activists, when in fact it was led by the steelworkers and other militant union folks. Townsend does make activism look sexy and exciting (though Michelle Rodriguez could make doing laundry look sexy and exciting), but as a strategy with greater political goals, it is misguided. The movie unintentionally perpetuates the middle-class do-gooder cultural concept when a more important focus would be the large-scale popular movements. Individualist activist culture has a component of vanguardism and elitism, which the movie reinforces – the film’s activists all share various motivations, but none of them seek to change the conditions of their own lives. Any strategy that overlooks the people most affected by exploitation and oppression, neglecting to put grassroots social movements in the foreground, is unsustainable.

Battle in Seattle lacks an awareness of a major theme of the protests, perhaps their most successful element: solidarity. Many of the protesters were vocal in their solidarity with those around the world in resisting global capitalism, and that piece is largely missing from the film. The film overlooks the essential movement-building debates that followed the protests, namely those concerning race (Elizabeth Martinez’s “Where Was the Color in Seattle?”) and gender (such as The Rock Bloc Collective’s essay “Stick It to the Manarchy”). While some of the main character roles were people of color, the film lacks any important dialog regarding the general whiteness and affluence of the protest demographic As organizer Hop Hopkins explains in the WTO protest documentary This is What Democracy Looks Like, “Solidarity doesn’t mean we don’t talk about issues that separate us… You’ve got to take it a step further. Race, class, gender, sexism, heterosexism, the whole nine yards… If that’s not in your analysis, than you’re only half-stepping, and you’re not really working for revolution.”

By devoting more screen time to bouts of melodrama and hot, intense protest action than actual ideas, the film’s politics are exciting but sterile. The superficial politics end up misrepresenting many protesters, especially anarchists, even when it is unintended. With the exception of Michelle Rodriguez’s character Lou, anarchists are portrayed solely as macho insurrectionists. While there were certainly many of those types within anarchism, particularly at the WTO protests, the film neglects to mention there were anarchists participating in many, many types of actions. The diversity of thought and strategy within anarchism is ignored, and in its place is a one-dimensional, sensational caricature of anarchist politics, despite being slightly more educated then the usual media portrayal.

For all its errors, Battle in Seattle provides a fun opportunity to return to the question of why the WTO protests represented such a massive victory, and what we as anarchists should focus on in our political work nearly ten years later. After all, the film arrives in a year when protests are again in the news. The summit protest has again become a popular draw for new activists and old hands alike, as we have most recently seen here in the United States with the DNC protests in Denver and the RNC in St. Paul. After several years of involvement in the protest circuit, many anarchists are developing criticisms of the usual methods, creating alternatives, or withdrawing from that scene altogether (usually in favor of organizing grounded in local struggles and communities). The group Worker’s Solidarity Alliance, in a recent statement on the RNC protests, perhaps put it best. “Specifically, we must avoid playing into the hands of the state by using rhetoric, rituals, and tactics that isolate us from the majority of the world’s population that suffers under capitalism. We call for a resistance based not exclusively on the advanced tactics of a jail-ready minority, but the solidarity and militancy of a revolutionary social bloc, organized in workplaces and neighborhoods, fighting for self-determination. As the raids on activists spaces have already shown, anything less is political suicide.”

Jen Rogue and Andrew Hedden are members of Common Action in Tacoma and Seattle, WA, USA.

From Anarkismo