THE MUJERES LIBRES WRITINGS

This is my writings (so far) in the "Mujeres Libres" list on the internet. Not in my wildest dreams had I thought that I would participate in any way in the debates there, but when reading about "testosterone" and how biology was used by some defenders of male supremacy to foster sexapartheid I just had to write something. And from there on it just escalated!

There may be even more to come.

 

My English...

My English is very far from perfect, and as a writer I find it very painful not to find all the right words to express my thoughts in the way I can do so easily in my own language. But sometimes it is better to say something, even in a clumsy way, and in a foreign language, than to not say anything at all.

Thanks to Luna, Janet, Lynne, and others on the list that made things so interesting that I just had to participate in the debates and answer questions, regardless of my very strong reservations about writing in a foreign language!

 

The "testosterone" debate

There are all kind of gradual differences between the sexes, and how you behave and live your life is a choice. If you have the ability to have babies that is just one possibility in your life that makes you different from others, there are multitudes of differences that in some lives may be much more significant. As you very well now there are even a lot of women who don't want to or even can not have children. That is determining some choices, but how significant they are is a social and individual matter.

I as a man did choose to be what in most societies would be called being a "mother" to my children, and that was an experience that I would have missed if I did not rebel against the norms that say that not only are men and women different, they have different callings in life. My experience was that some women in my neighborhood felt threatened by this and tried to tell me that as a man I should go to work instead and be the "provider" not the "caretaker" in my family.

This personal experience may or may not illustrate my point. Personal experiences can often make us ideologically shortsighted.

By the way, recently I was "accused" by a man for having raised my daughters to be "men", that is to be strong, independent and individualistic - my answer was "no, I just raised them to be human".

The only sure thing is that we are individuals. Some of us small, others are big, some are wise, some are unfortunately only "intelligent" while some are "stupid" at debates but wonders at repairing the roof or fixing the car or teaching. Some have the inborn ability to bear children, but that is not to say that they at the same time has the ability to raise them or even love them.

I do not know any normal work that can not be done by either sex apart from actually giving birth and breastfeed. This ability is of course important to mankind, but how important it is to the individual is a matter of choice, or sometimes unfortunately a matter of "accident".

Pia Lasker in the book "Anarkafeminism" says it like this:

"Two distinct, stereotype sexes are a shortsighted idea, an unimaginative construction that we are bound into and that hinders us in blossoming to become a multitude of individuals!"

The book is in Swedish, and I may have lost something in the translation there, but she goes on to say:

"Neither character, body language, personality, psychology, sexuality, work, social activities, biology, physiological characteristics, can be traced back to the two categories that are called sex."

I fully agree with that, I know women that are what a degenerate authoritarian and sexist society would call "male" and equally men that would be called "female". And in such a society they would be punished for it...

Choices must be made individually, not by society, and not based on what others think you must do or must be. In fact to me that is what the essence of anarchy is all about. Freedom and individual responsibility.

Sexism IS in fact the idea that sex is the basis of our choices.

 

"That must be the new world, that everyone will speak for themselves"

 

Nordahl Grieg.

 

---

The idea of testosterone attacks the notion that all human beings are individuals, and in fact it "backfires" in the sense that it seems to indicate that male biology makes males "hormone crazy" and really unfit to make the decisions that one must make as an adult and responsible person. If the testosterone argument for "maleness" is true, then I pray that we men must never get any political power in the future, and we must speculate that all the wrongdoings in the time since the patriarchs came to power some thousand years ago is because we really are not of a sane and balanced mind.

If the argument is true, then we men must in fact become feminists in fear of our own destructive nature. And our only hope for the future may be to be ruled like the irresponsible "boys" we are by a strong matriarchal powerstructure!

As I said: If the argument is true. But I think it is NOT! It is just one more boringly stupid attempt to make the human race into two different species that can't live and work together. It is another attack on human individuality from men that feel threatened by strong women. Masking once again behind the cloak of "science" that was used so extensively by racists if Nazi Germany, etc. to "prove" their own superiority.

Funny. I have never seen anyone in power using science to prove their own INferiority - even if this "testosterone" thing unwittingly may come dangerously close to doing just that.

The conspiracy against equality is and have always been a loosing game, and if there is any hope for the future it must be in letting all and everyone find and live out their own individuality in cooperation and respect for each others choices, regardless of all differences. And then I mean REAL choices, not the ones that society expects us to do.

Of all "isms" few are more crippling both for women and for men than sexism and the notion of sexapartheid.

 

Sexism, individualism and liberty

To me we are all of the human race, that is an easy and straight forward assumption one can make about us all. The only one even easier is that we are all animals.

Then we are all the other things, gender included. Much of what we are depends on forces that we initially have little control over, like place of birth, family relations, the language we speak, the culture and class we are brought up in. But as we develop we begin to make choices, and this is the point where we ourselves begin to "take over" some of the responsibility for who we are.

To have a womb or not to have it can of course be seen as a final dividing line, but "masculinity" and "femininity" is a social and personal matter as well as a biological one, and is a matter of social and individual definitions and decisions.

I remember seeing a movie from a society that had not (yet) lost its matriarchal roots, and the one thing that has stuck in my mind is the "feminine" behavior that seemed to be the norm for the men in that society!

Even the "womb" as a dividing line is not as definite as one may think. The function of that is to be able to have babies, and in fact that function in a woman's life is not as important in a free choice society as in a primitive society. Paradoxically having a womb is nowhere seen as so important as in a religiously fundamentalistic and strongly patriarchal society!

"Wombness" as an important measure of a woman's worth is really crippling to any female ambition in any other field than childbirth and childcare. It is also a bodily function that one can not have more than a certain number of years. And some women can not bear children at all, and do this make them less feminine? Of course not.

If "femininity" then is a social and individual definition more or less defined on the basis of bodily differences between men and women, then we must look at what feminISM really is. Feminism is in fact a protest ideology, and what it protests are just the notion that what the western society defines as a "woman" is inferior to men, and it tries to find a different set of values that can be used to bring an end to this gender oppression.

Then comes the reservations and difficulties. Some feminists may in fact not want gender equality, they may want a matriarchal society where women dominates men! They even have a valid point if they can prove that men are in fact unfit for biological reasons to have the same rights as women. That is why I stated earlier that the testosterone debate was a thing that very well could backfire on the masculinists.

But if feminism rather can be seen as an ideology that preaches equality between genders, or even in a broader sense says that "masculinity" and "femininity" are social inventions that can be altered by society, and even partly eliminated to the point where any woman and any man can live without over and over and over again be stopped by the barbed wire and control towers guarding the frontiers between sexes in a sexist society. Then it is an ideology that also crosses the gender line, and there IS in fact such a possibility as a "male" feminist. Male as in the strictly genital sense.

I think "female" feminists must try to find a definition of feminism that do not lead to gender apartheid. No only will that shut out the men, it will shut out the many who are not so sure of their own femininity and masculinity, and reduce feminism to a question of biology. And even that may be a difficult border in some instances?

As the observant reader would have understood long ago: I am making a case for the individual, and the individuals rights to make their own choices. When I call myself a feminist I have often been met with stupid responses like "you don't look feminine to me". And I sometimes even get the question if I'm gay. To that I usually answer that I am of course a lesbian in disguise.

But the reaction from some men when I call myself a feminist is rage. Naked violent rage. When I was called a traitor to my sex after writing my books on the amazons, I must confess that I thought that if "they" were the definition of "men" and "masculine" then being a traitor to my sex was a pleasure and a joy.

Women that stands a such a violent guard around their definition of their own femininity and of the their definition of feminism should be a bit wary and go into themselves and look at WHAT they are guarding. Is it maybe the borders of a new ideologically pure territory that have just the barbed wire and the watchtowers I described? Is it the safety of being in a manfree zone? If so, what will the future society that they are creating behind that border look like?

I can understand, but I can not tolerate the notion that feminism as an ideology are just for women. It is not even only for the feminine! If it is a just fight and a fight for the freedom to make individual choices I will not be shut out. I will go on calling myself an anarchist, a feminist, an atheist, animal rights supporter and a humanist. Among many, many other things that I am, good and bad. That also depends on the definition and the definer.

I have surely made some really stupid choices in my life. But you will have to argue hard and well to convince me that taking the stand for feminism is one more such stupidity on my part.

I was a member of an anarchist group in the sixties and in the beginning all the members were young men, after a year or two the situation had changed so that there was more women than men in the group. The reactions on that from some (admittedly just two or three) of the male members was to leave the group!

In reality it is an easy thing to analyze; men who can not see people as individuals, but have to see everything in a female/male context can not be anarchists, as this goes against all and everything that anarchist ideas try to teach us about equality and liberty.

SEXISTS CAN'T BE ANARCHISTS

even if no one can prevent them from (mis)using the name.

 

The "freedom" of oppression

How can one have something like a dialogue with reactionaries? When the enemies of freedom is yelling LIBERTY you know whose "freedom" they mean. Liberty for the class that owns and controls about everything in this world, and want to keep it that way, telling us all that we are free to become like them. If we are willing to exploit others for our "freedom". A few thousand people and companies worldwide controls over 90% of humanity's collective wealth. Of course they feel free! Free to do, to buy, to live the sweet life of empty capitalist values. And they have unfortunately done a very good "salescampaign" to ordinary people, convincing them that their lifestyle is within everyone's reach... How? By buying lottery tickets? By dreaming about THE BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL in front of the TV?

I remember a cartoon from IWW, where a man says to his son, who is working together with him at a machine in a factory:

"Just work hard for the next 20 years, son, and maybe you'll be where I am now."

"And where's that, Pop?"

"On this side of the machine"

No. The way to our happiness is to make capitalists extremely unhappy... by taking our freedom.

The capitalists freedom are the workers poverty. Their ownership is the chains of us all.

 

"Freedom can't be given, it must be taken!"

 

Bakunin

 

Voting and anarchy

Great! Let all vote. Make more passive "voters" (instead of active political protesters)! The vote in a plutocratic society like the US or EU where the choices are between moneybags and shitheads, or worse; in Islamic societies, between religious patriarchs and religious patriarchs, is and have been a way to get control over people and "satisfy" them by letting them vote and 'participate' in government.

I'm sure there must be some instances where voting is politically meaningful, but I just can't think of any right now...

Bakunin, Malatestas and Goldmans views on voting are still as valid as they ever was. Look at the "green party" in Germany. It is a classic example of how good intentions evaporate as fast as farths in a breeze when he "protesters" are in power themselves. Please don't invent the gunpowder again and again, learn from the past. Best book: "Lessons of the Spanish revolution" by Vernon Richards. Even devoted anarchists become crazed by power when they go into the service of the state...

 

On democracy versus freedom

It seems to me that the politicians definition of the perfect democracy is a State where everyone can be persuaded that the best thing all over is to have a dictatorship. If it is a two party or more- dictatorship that is just a smoke screen to make us all happy voters, and also the ones that is ultimately to blame for everything. In a democratic society, who is to blame but the people?

Or so it seems...?

All the best lies are the ones that in a given set of circumstances can be proven to be the truth. They become untrue only if you use a different set of values and methods - like anarchist or even Marxist theory.

Any "ideology" can be used to "understand" history, even fascism or propertarianism (excellent name for the people who stole "libertarianism" and used it as a sauce added to their otherwise unpalatable theories).

That is of course terrifying in a way, but it also gives a great sense of freedom. We can choose our values. That in fact makes an anarchist/libertarian society possible.

------

 

Janet wrote:

"IK what you mean! I call our two party system a complex game of good cop/bad cop--they alternate to the appropriate group."

That is EXACTLY what I mean! Its a political game where the looser is the people. And most of all the people that "believe".

And when you can call the two party system that, I wonder what I should call the system I live under? With 8-10 political groups in various degree of cooperation and/or animosity. I think its more like a prison, where the crime bosses and the guards takes turns in being in power and in "opposition", while in reality they are all part of the oppression of us "common criminals" - whose only crime really is that we are born and lives inside their State prison. With only one alternative - applying for a transfer to another State prison.

And between the sights and moans most of the believers all are SO proud that they are living in "the best system ever". I'm believe, no - I KNOW, that the majority of people in Stalin's USSR, and even the people in nazi Germany considered themselves to be extremely fortunate in living in "the best system ever".

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Funny how Dickens words in "A Tale of Two Cities" fit any place and any time, depending on your "truth".

For me the worst is not fascism or capitalism or sexism or racism as convictions of individuals - it is that it's the character of truths like that to become part of ideologies and political systems and "pyramidal" state and business structures that impose their "truths" on other people, and force them/us to live under their rule.

 

The Theft of Libertarianism

The words "libertarian" and "libertarianism" was invented by the French anarchist Sebastien Fauré in 1898, in the anarchist periodical "Revista Blanca". The reason was serious enough. Anarchist propaganda, and even the words "anarchist" and "anarchism" was forbidden by law. So he used this word instead, and every anarchist of course knew what it really meant... The word has been used extensively by anarchist since that time, in describing both the "libertarian revolution" and by anarchists and syndicalists calling themselves "libertarians" - e.g. in the Spanish Civil War. It has been translated and used in many languages - in my country (Norway) the word is "frihetlig".

So the theft of the word "libertarian" by people that all true anarchists must see as the enemies of real liberation and of course enemies of the working people and anarchism is really in league with the similar theft by Mussolini's fascists of the color black (black shirts, black flag) using that as a symbol of another oppressive ideology.

 

Violence and counterviolence

Ways and means have always been a tricky problem for anarchists and others that wants to make a better world. "Wiping out" other people may be the easy solution to get rid of their "evil" deeds or even their racist, fascist, reactionary, propertarian, stateist convictions, but what does it do to the society we must try to build afterwards? Will killing be an easy solution the next time we meet some opposition? And the next time? And the next? This was the tragedy of Russian communism, that ended in Stalin killing most of his former party comrades.

Violence has a way of going in smaller and smaller circles around us, and its an easier solution every time we use it, and our excuse for using it gets more and more diluted (maybe this is not the word I really wanted, but it fits in an odd sort of way). What I am trying to say is that as a society gets more violent violence also becomes the solution in smaller and smaller conflicts.

The opposite view is of course pacifism and non-violence. The trouble with that is that when the SA or the S.A.S. or the Khmer Rouge or the U.S.Marines kills the pacifist they also kills his pacifism. And its also a problem that the really devoted pacifist that has renounced all kinds of violence may be willing to sacrifice any number of people because of his own sacred principle of peace...

There is no clear solution to this. One MUST have the right to oppose violence and enslavement, but the libertarian revolutionary counterviolence should be just that at all times - counterviolence.

And remember that violence may not be unrest and police and stormtroopers in the streets, it may be the silencing of opposition in much more devious ways than that - but of course always with the police and troops at hand if the slaves gets agitated or tries to escape!

But where IS the border between justified violence and excessive violence? Between violence and counterviolence? Wish I knew. The factors are as always in matters of politics, people and social relations much to complex for easy answers. In fact, if an answer is easy, then it is probably not an answer at all.

I have pondered this problem for nearly thirty years, and gone from pacifist at 17 to an "all knowing" revolutionary at 25 to still being revolutionary and anarchist at 55, but I do not believe in any easy answers anymore! Not even my own. In fact especially not my own.

Those of you who can, see the Spanish movie "Libertarias" with Ana Belen and Victoria Abril from 1995. I did buy the videotape in Barcelona three years ago and it sees the problems discussed above in the perspective of the Spanish Revolution in 1936 and also in the perspective of the Mujeres Libres and the disarming of the militia women in the middle that conflict - to tell you the truth I cry every time I see the ending of it, and if I was there in a similar situation I would gladly have killed every fascist and Moroccan mercenary in sight if I had the chance! So as you know it...

 

"Our way of refusing to attempt to patch up a rotten world, but striving to build a new one, is not only constructive, its the _only_ way out"

 

Marie Louise Berneri