An Anarcha-Feminist Journey

[bryan]

More on adjectives.

Michele asks what imagery I intend to conjure up when I use the phrase ‘Sue Machins’ Sexy Cross-examination. It is clear that language and words change over time. In 1940?, George Orwell wrote:
‘At present the formation of words is a slow process (I have read somewhere that English gains about six and loses about four words a year) and no words are deliberately coined except as names of material objects. Abstract words are never coined at, though old words (e.g. ‘condition’, ‘reflex’, etc) are sometimes twisted into new meanings for scientific purposes.’

The Government ‘sexing-up’ of documents has nothing to do with what I understand as ‘sexism’. The meaning of a word is in its use and dictionary definitions are hardly ever adequate. My own dictionary is clearly outdated when it comes to the use of a words like ‘sex’, ‘sexy’ or ‘sexing-up’. I suppose the word ‘racy’ comes close to the meaning of the word ‘sexy’: ‘racy’ is defined as ‘Full-flavoured; piquant or pungent: a racy wine’ or ‘Vigorous; lively: a racy manner’ or ‘Humorous and slightly sexually improper; risque’ Although the word ‘racy’ comes from the word ‘race’, I don’t suppose most sensible people would suggest that someone who uses the word is a racist.

But ‘Sue Machins’ Racy Cross-examination’ has not quite the same ring as ‘Sue Machins’ Sexy Cross-examination’. Sub-headings tend towards alliteration and ‘Sue’ and ‘Sexy’ go together better than ‘Sue’ and ‘Racy’. ‘Sam Smiths’ Sexy cross-examination’ would be even better.

[bryan]

MUM & DAD and THE NEW BOSS CLASS?

This be the verse:
‘They f**k you up, you mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.’

And another from Emily Dickinson, who Camilla Paglia calls an autoerotic sadist:

So bashful when I spied her!
So pretty - so ashamed!
So hidden in her leaflets
Lest anybody find-

So breathless till I passed her -
So helpless when I turned
And bore her struggling, blushing,
Her simple haunts beyond!

‘In the left’, writes Sheila Rowbotham (The Women’s Movement & Organizing For Socialism ~ 1979’), there are still plenty of Dads who rule OK, and remain relatively unruffled.’ She means here ‘the founding fathers of left groups’, not dads of children. Sheila then warns: ‘Feminism is rather more vigilant but all carry a Dad & Mum boss in us.’

Mitch is right to describe Ms Greer as middle-class, but when Germaine says: ‘Liberation struggles are not about assimilation but about asserting difference...’ ~ can this be dismissed as easily? After all Germaine Greer in ‘the whole woman’ is attacking ‘lifestyle feminists’ who say ‘feminism has gone far enough...’

‘Feminist assimilation’ could be just about a new female boss class or what Joseph Conrad called ‘little old men in petticoats’ ~ women priests; a female Pope etc. ~ we‘ve already had a woman Prime Minister. ‘Asserting difference’ could be about overturning values. And yet, Sheila Rowbotham argues for ‘integration’ which ‘cannot obviously be the work of the women’s movement alone’ to develop ‘an understanding of how our personal experience of gender is bound up with the politics of class and racial struggles...’.

Ms Rowbotham (1979), who I believe to be a mentor of Mitch, deals with what I as an ethnomethodologist call ‘membership categorisation devices’ and she calls ‘The Power of Definitions & Icons’. She derides ‘this manipulative approach of definitions in left groups’ or ‘the false power which avoids and actually prevents us thinking about complexities of what is happening by covering it up in a category.’

Ms Rowbotham lists the kind of categories used to dismiss their critics by authoritarian Marxists ~ such as ‘ultra-leftist’; ‘progressive peoples’; ‘social fascist’; ‘anarchism’; ‘spontaneism’ and ‘middle class’. Of course, I don’t suppose we should be surprised that when the anacho-feminists Mitch and Bridghid come to tackle me in their posts they resort to dismissive categories such as labelling me and Ms Greer as ‘middle class’ and drawing on other such dismissive categories. As Shelia Rowbotham grasps this overcomes the problem of dealing with the arguments of either me, Ms Greer or Camille Paglia in any serious way. This is partly a problem of the technology in that it encourages people to answer before they have had chance to clarify their ideas to themselves. It may also be a bad intellectual habit in which in their haste they settle for half-truths or at times pure invention.

The split-personality culture of English politics that I have addressed in the Northern Anarchist Network thread entitled ‘THE RISE & FALL OF ANARCHISM’, seems to apply no less to anglo-saxon feminism. It’s the political mind gone sour in the certainty of left wing politics. Bridghid is so certain that I am not an ‘electrician’ that no amount of reasoning to the contrary would persuade her otherwise. No matter that I served an apprenticeship of over 5 years in electrical maintenance. Or that I led one of the national engineering apprentice strikes in 1960. Or that I worked in the factories, mills and shipyards of this country, Spain and Gibraltar until the 1990s. No matter that I was on the picket line with the women strikers at GEC in 1974, at Heywood, Rochdale, and reported the strike as did Bea Campbell and Shelia Rowbotham: ‘I’m still no friend of working women’ says Mitch. I envy someone who is so certain and knows so much.

Here we have the problem of the English political mind when it adopts the fundamentalism of religious mania: it becomes yet another form of totalitarianism.

[michele cryer]

Guest-bryan said:

More on adjectives.

Michele asks what imagery I intend to conjure up when I use the phrase ‘Sue Machins’ Sexy Cross-examination. It is clear that language and words change over time. In 1940?, George Orwell wrote:
‘At present the formation of words is a slow process (I have read somewhere that English gains about six and loses about four words a year) and no words are deliberately coined except as names of material objects. Abstract words are never coined at, though old words (e.g. ‘condition’, ‘reflex’, etc) are sometimes twisted into new meanings for scientific purposes.’

The Government ‘sexing-up’ of documents has nothing to do with what I understand as ‘sexism’. The meaning of a word is in its use and dictionary definitions are hardly ever adequate. My own dictionary is clearly outdated when it comes to the use of a words like ‘sex’, ‘sexy’ or ‘sexing-up’. I suppose the word ‘racy’ comes close to the meaning of the word ‘sexy’: ‘racy’ is defined as ‘Full-flavoured; piquant or pungent: a racy wine’ or ‘Vigorous; lively: a racy manner’ or ‘Humorous and slightly sexually improper; risque’ Although the word ‘racy’ comes from the word ‘race’, I don’t suppose most sensible people would suggest that someone who uses the word is a racist.

But ‘Sue Machins’ Racy Cross-examination’ has not quite the same ring as ‘Sue Machins’ Sexy Cross-examination’. Sub-headings tend towards alliteration and ‘Sue’ and ‘Sexy’ go together better than ‘Sue’ and ‘Racy’. ‘Sam Smiths’ Sexy cross-examination’ would be even better.

Thanks for your reply and explanation of your use of alliteration in the above...I do agree that alliteration is a more effective way of writing...I think we can kill this part of the argument here and now!! thankfully... ;D

I will leave Mitch and Brighid to deal with the remainder of your post...Btw...if it wont let you write D i c k i n s o n because of the censor (which is auto, I didn't set it!) then just do as I have done above, and put spaces between the letters!!

[Brighid]

Greetings to all sisters on this site for International Women's Day - death to all tyrants, lickspittles and patronising gits and here's to the day we no longer have to rehearse the arguments over and over again to those who should know better and listen to the dross of those men who think they can teach us how to be feminists!

In Solidarity and love,

Brighid

[michele cryer]

Greetings to you too...sister...and to all our other sisters whereever they may be!!! ;D

[Mitch]

There are a couple of lines in 'Fragments' that stick out for me, but I apply them to situations rather than an approach where I guess it's easy to pick out any lines from books and use them to push an argument you want, if you carry a weight of personal baggage behind it.

"How can we bring together in our practice the separations in ourselves which paralyse us?". (Rowbotham, Fragments)

"What are the ways in which we can organise together without sacrificing our autonomy". (ditto)

Funny you should pick out 'Fragments' - this is not one of Sheila's texts that sticks out for me, but I don't know that it was written for me anyway - rather to an audience on the left at that time, and a bit of a shake up. Seems to me anarchism could do with a similar style of book, cutting through the tensions at the moment that prevent us from moving forward. God help us if your gonna write it - titter! I've been most inspired by her writing about other women - not just working class women activists like Selina Cooper, Ada Nield Chew and Alice Wheelden, but other women like Gracie Fields, Marie Lloyd, and Gertie Roche. And of course she led me into Emma Goldman, and Edward Carpenter - she's currently working on a book about Edward Carpenter and I'm waiting for that with much enthusiasm. Sheila's given me many gifts, which I like to think I am using well now by ACTING. What I most learnt from her was that people's EXPERIENCE, their consciousness carries great weight. I was lucky enough to have met her, and I liked her very much, even though there were silences between us - great hulking gaps of experience I suppose to do with class so there was a struggle to connect. Much like when Selina Cooper met Olive Schreiner once, and was slightly in awe because she'd been so inspired by her. But my journey has led me towards anarchist ideas - something I don't think she would have predicted at the time?

If my responses aren't considered Bryan, it may 'ave sommit to do with the fact that I have two jobs and am trying hard to help on three community campaigns at the moment. If I have time to read, it is usually late at night and at the moment I'm looking at Thomas Paine's 'The Rights of Man' - I like the accessibility of his writing style, although I've flipped back to Ada Nield Chew (a working class woman activist around these parts 100 years ago) - someone I always return to for some common sense and who like Edward Carpenter managed to convey in her writing a deep caring, affection and respect for working class communities. I guess Camilla Paglia is a little low down my reading list at the moment, as my reading time is a rare treat, so I use the time wisely.

I'm tired now of all this, if my responses are silly it is because all this friction between anarchists in the North West I consider a real barrier to moving forward - and there is so much to do. On the sexist angle, it is not my style to sit on the sidelines and criticise - I'd prefer to be inside NAN, writing for Northern Voices and hammering your C o c k o' the North from within - and that would have been my approach, for like I said in the beginning I see so much good there, especially for round here. The accessible approach of NAN, the humour, and the experience of those involved - and the momentum we were building in Burnley, temporarily on hold because of an influx on tensions between anarchists that frankly Michele, myself and thismachinebleeds cannot understand.

On the other side, I have heard much criticism of Solfed but like a good anarchist I find things out for myself, and I certainly don't judge the approach of individuals based on a wider assessment of a group, and with Steve and Brighid both Michele and I have received great support and friendship.

I'd suggest, as I think I did ages ago, that the problem preventing us from moving forward is not with us on this little web forum, but with two particular parties who must seek some kind of compromise of workings out. We are new to anarchism here, we would learn from you, and I have the greatest respect for older activists - I spend a lot of time listening to local activists of old (I've learnt much from 'Headless Les recently, and others in Burnley would do well to listen to him more!) but you all have something to learn from us too. I have respect for your anarchist past and would learn from it, but I think I have as much to learn from Karen in Nelson bringing up six kids on her own, or Michele who has a strong connection with her local community and a deep caring for those around her.

As for Fred, you all have put us in a most difficult position here very unfairly - particularly myself and Michele. Fred was the pivot and motivation here in Burnley for a build in anarchist ideas recently, and a coming together of just a few people worn out and tired of the ridiculous activities of the Swerps locally. He helped us build in confidence, when we had none, he encouraged us to act autonomously from the Swerps and he brought humour, and took away some of the fear - by god we need people like this as their is enough fear and fright in Burnley and Nelson already. His religious persuasions are his own business, and if I've beef with it I'll take it up with him, as I have done. Not make snide remarks on a web forum. He has never forced any of his beliefs on me, and I have got from him only encouragement and an infusion of confidence to act - urr even if he does struggle with finding one of the most important buildings in Nelson where a very important event is going on.

Your continuing tensions and arguments are creating more fear, and stopping people from wanting to contribute on this forum. As long as this goes on, I personally cannot come to Solfed events, nor help with NAN - which saddens me greatly.

You must sort it - tenemos que ser como uno.

A weary Mitch

[Mitch]

Guest-Brighid said:

Greetings to all sisters on this site for International Women's Day - death to all tyrants, lickspittles and patronising gits and here's to the day we no longer have to rehearse the arguments over and over again to those who should know better and listen to the dross of those men who think they can teach us how to be feminists!

In Solidarity and love,

Brighid

Sister Mitch sends love and friendship back

[michele cryer]

Mitch that was a wonderful, stirring post...I too look forward to the day when we can have a friendly co-operative membership on this forum, and outside of it amongst local anarchists...

Mucho work to be done and little time for bickering!! ;D

[michele cryer]

I would just like to add a few words to those of Mitch, which I hope that she and the other members of the Burnley local anarchists will not object to.

Mitch's thoughts/feelings about this belong only to herself...if she decides that, for the time being, she should step back from involvement with N.A.N. and Solfed, then that is her decision and we should not judge her for deciding to do this. It does not, however, reflect the views of everyone at Burnley...I agree with Mitch's sentiments in the post she made, that these 2 faces of Anarchism in the UK ought to be looking towards the ground on which they agree rather than pulling each other apart over personal differences. Where both 'parties' agree with each other over local/national campaigns, then these issues should be highlighted, and perhaps the 2 groups (better word!) can try to work out a way to co-operate and work together to campaign.

The Burnley Anarchists have been in a shambled state for quite a while now, due to various circumstances, however we are endeavouring to resume our meetings...once we can all find a good night to suit us all. We are all still very aware of the campaigns out there, and wish to be fully involved with them, whether or not they are being 'managed' from N.A.N. or Solfed, and I hope that we would be welcomed by both groups if we attended their events.

So please, everybody, let's try to work together and brush personal issues to one side...

[bryan]

Mitch! In our exchange over The Cowboy, I by chance came across a problem that has bugged me for years. When Germaine Greer says: "Liberation struggles are not about assimilation but about asserting difference with dignity and prestige..."; I can see this goes along with a notion of multi-cultural, mixed-salad view of society in which each ingredient, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation retains its own dignified identity. Thus we shouldn't attempt to integrate the Gypsies say, but rather encourage them to uphold their separate, distinct and colourful identities.

While I go along with this view in theory, it has been discredited more than a little by the experience of the death of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the ethnic wars it unleashed.

Another view was the 'melting pot' society of which the USA was, until recently, regarded as the model. Differences dissolved into a social blacmange. Integration of a kind! Equality of a kind!

Do we have to choose between these alternatives?

Mitch says Shela Rowbotham's essay in BEYOND THE FRAGMENTS (1980) is not her favourite, but what Sheila writes there is interesting. Ms Rowbotham writes: "The anarchists have certainly held a commitment in principle to connecting a critique of authority relations in the family to society and to forms of organisation for change. But as anarchist feminists have recently pointed out, the personal practice of these inter-relationships of power for women have proved more complex."

In relation to Spain she draws on Temma Kaplan's study of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism in Andalucia between 1868 and 1903, and detects tension over the involvement of women there. This strain was between the growing emphasis on the syndicate or union and the lesser concern for the pueblo or community. My reading of this, and I could be wrong, is that the union business would be mainly macho or masculine and the pueblo or community would be strongly hembra or feminine. Thus Ms Rowbotham says: "the stress on work (and the trade union) as a source of dignity rather than values of co-operative social life or upon a general concept of human creativity was becoming more marked in anarcho-syndicalism in the early years of this century (the 20th century)."

That was a time when the federations of unions in Andalucia, which later in 1910 were to go on and form the CNT, were developing. Temma Kalan and Ms Rowbotham are pointing to the early stage of a problem: the declining importance of the pueblo, the village and the rural community in Spanish anarchism and the growing significance of the industrial trade union, the urban area and the city. After the CNT was founded this trend certainly accelerated, and by the 1930s the motions at the CNT which dominated were about wages and conditions from the big industrial unions in Barcelona and the North. By then the calls for social justice of the Andalucians were being drowned out. One of the first things I was told by Nardo Ibernon, when I went to Spain in 1963, was that Malaga in Andalucia was the ANARCHIST CAPITAL of Spain, while Barcelona was the anarcho-syndicalist capital in the 1930s. Anarchism in the Andalucian rural provinces of Malaga and Cadiz etc, despite the importance of the CNT, would always be more community based than more urban Catalonian.

Out of ignorance or short-sightedness I suppose we have glossed over these problems for too long.

[Mitch]

Yo Bryan,

I missed this last post by you for some reason along the busy way, and have just read it. Fascinating stuff, thanks.

There are books I need to go back to and look again - fragments is probably one of them.

Those are important problems you raise - and really (although I was already thinking of this, but your post here has sharpened my thoughts on it but perhaps I'll struggle to put it into words?), is not our current situation here in Burnley and the troubles that have arisen relating to these points.

If we take personalities out of it, and think about anarchist organisation in Burnley, what I think I realised a while back is that the Solfed approach would not quite work here. We need a small autonomous anarchist group (linked of course with wider anarchist networks, but autonomous nonetheless) where people can grow in confidence, try their wings a little without being penned in and perhaps limited by a set way of doing things. We need to work on building trust and confidence in a small group here, people are beaten down and to be presented with 'you must do it this way' will not work here - that is the Swerp way!

The NAN conference in Burnley was a space where Michele and I could come in without anyone telling us you must do it this way - rather it was a supportive forum with an approach of how can we help. I warmed to it greatly and thank you and others for it Bryan.

Steve, if you're listening - I think within anarchist organisation now, and there's an urgency for this, we need to think about how different approaches work in different places, and I don't doubt that a rigorous anarcho-syndicalist work-based approach will be successful in other places. In other places, smaller anarchist groups in the community finding their own feet will work better.

The issue then is about different approaches of anarchist organisation fitting in different places, not one is better than the other. Our continuing dramas in the North West are a barrier to the spread of anarchist ideas within the community. What trust will the community place in those who continue to fight their own?

[michele cryer]

Thank you Mitch...that was a great summing up of the current situation and what we feel is the 'desired' approach here in East Lancashire, well Burnley and Pendle at least.

[bryan]

Mitch I don't want to open old wounds, but I remember you declared as follows:
'Germaine Greer,... is... detached from the day to day experiences of myself and my women friends here in Nelson.'

But did you hear her reply to Christopher Hitchens (previously a Trot & interesting polemicist who still oddly supported the latest Iraq War) when on Monday's 'START THE WEEK' yesterday he refered 'those on the Western Left'. She responded as I heard it roughly as follows: 'I don't know if I am on the left anymore, I don't know if being an anarchist is still left - these things go round in circles - perhaps we anarchists are now on the right.' She of course opposes the Iraq War.

I spoke to Sheila's companero and I know Sheila Rowbothem doesn't care much for Germaine, because he says Sheila regards her as a bit of a media celebrity. But I wonder if she ought to be dismissed so easily? She went on again that women should preferably claim 'liberation' rather than 'equality', because she said 'equality for women merely means women becoming corporate women like corporate men'.

I hope I have presented the case properly as she did, but do you think she has a point?

[Mitch]

bryan said:

Mitch I don't want to open old wounds, but I remember you declared as follows:
'Germaine Greer,... is... detached from the day to day experiences of myself and my women friends here in Nelson.'

But did you hear her reply to Christopher Hitchens (previously a Trot & interesting polemicist who still oddly supported the latest Iraq War) when on Monday's 'START THE WEEK' yesterday he refered 'those on the Western Left'. She responded as I heard it roughly as follows: 'I don't know if I am on the left anymore, I don't know if being an anarchist is still left - these things go round in circles - perhaps we anarchists are now on the right.' She of course opposes the Iraq War.

I spoke to Sheila's companero and I know Sheila Rowbothem doesn't care much for Germaine, because he says Sheila regards her as a bit of a media celebrity. But I wonder if she ought to be dismissed so easily? She went on again that women should preferably claim 'liberation' rather than 'equality', because she said 'equality for women merely means women becoming corporate women like corporate men'.

I hope I have presented the case properly as she did, but do you think she has a point?

Yes the point is clear, and I'd agree on claiming liberation as opposed to an equality with men in the greedy competitive hell of capitalism. There's plenty in this thread about liberation.

What is liberation for women do you think? You can have personal liberation, like say when I realised I was in an oppressive relationship and left my ex-husband, or I realised that the depression and detioration of my mother had more to do with the chips of the system stacked against her than anything she did wrong.

Where I might question Greer, and I am put off too by the media celebrity angle which I think she rather revels in, and I have said this before that I can claim my personal liberation which came from a realisation of my own and other women's oppression, but can I really be liberated when a sister round the corner is in chains. No.

I think my beef with Greer comes from a background of very different experiences, we are different classes, and she is missing things about the different experiences of women - working class and middle class women - in day to day life. It is not essential for her to connect with other women in a co-operative sense - but for me and some of my friends this is the crux of our very survival.

Greer has not made connections across class. Sheila has though, although you can tell her from me she misses things too!!

Sheila once said to me that she learnt a lot from Hannah Mitchell's book 'The Hard Way Up', that many things became clear to her - and I think she meant about working class and lower middle class women's struggle to act with so many more chips stacked against them.

When you've had a working class or lower middle class background you've had struggles - constant fear is what Hannah Mitchell talked about (when Hannah Mitchell got pregant with her son over 100 years ago this filled her with fear, because she didn't know how she was going to afford a child) - and it's still with us, us women of a certain class, fear about survival, money, depression, losing control, our kids and how we are gonna give them the best, how the state/employers/husbands crush our creativity and independence.

I am interested in anarcho and socialist feminists who are working towards breaking the isolation of working and lower middle class women, and who are actively looking for ways to bring the voices of these women to the fore. I'm afraid Greer fails on this count for me, but I agree she makes some interesting comments occasionally.

Sheila on the other hand seems to have worked most of her life to bring the voices and experiences of working and lower middle class women to the fore (have you read 'Dutiful Daughters' - in Sheila's books she has a habit of letting working class women speak for themselves - so you'll forgive me Bryan if I tend to return to Sheila's work often, when I have the time to read, rather than picking up the latest Greer.

As for the state of anarchism, well perhaps I am a little disappointed with that for the same reasons that Greer disappoints me - the aloof and detached theoretical gameplaying, where I can get no wiff of experience, no connections across class let alone voices of working class and lower middle class women particularly. There are not many women on the Libcom forum - have you noticed? I have.


But I'm not pissed off with all, and the ideas of bottom up/grassroots organising, co-operation and doing things for yourself, wanting power in the hand of the community - well the ideas are good and I've seen enough anarchists putting this into practice, especially locally (Reg is one of my anarchist heroes - a quiet soul who works in the background! You should interview him for NV about his anti-poll tax resistance Bryan).

Anyway, enough waffle, please pass on to Sheila that there is nothing new I learnt from reading Hannah Mitchell's 'The Hard Way Up', I simply marvelled at her ability to act, despite a life time of hardship. It is much harder for women of a certain class to act, but when they do you'd better watch out - they'll be much more of a ripple than Greer could ever hope to create.

By the way, they're having dreams about you over at Libcom Bryan - have you seen. ;D Good god, are they all on drugs?

[bryan]

Thanks Mitch. I'll try to pass the message on to Sheila.

Yes I know all about their wet dreams on LIBCOM! They have the effect of giving us nightmares down here in the city. I just wish they'd make themselves useful and get there fingers out; for 'they are neither use nor ornament' most of them.

[Mitch]

bryan said:

Thanks Mitch. I'll try to pass the message on to Sheila.

Yes I know all about their wet dreams on LIBCOM! They have the effect of giving us nightmares down here in the city. I just wish they'd make themselves useful and get there fingers out; for 'they are neither use nor ornament' most of them.

I concur. That editor of Freedom, wet dream John who is based down in Hackney might have done better getting his middle class arse across to the High Court on the Strand and doing an interview, making connections with Janet Alder who was again at the High Court this Wednesday facing another attempt by Humberside Police to wangle their way out of taking responsibility for their murder of Janet's brother, Christopher Alder at Queens Gardens Police station in 1998.

This campaign needs strong anachist support, working with Janet to organise consistent direct action pressure both in Hull outside Queens Gardens Police Station, and down in London.

Pathetic I call it. Does Northern Voices have any contacts/distribution networks in Hull?

[bryan]

As far as I know we don't have any sales in Hull. But I think there is someone who is involved with the IWW down there now you mention it.

We could put a short report on the case you mention in the next issue of NV: fill Jim in & I'll talk to him. I'm mostly worried about getting the stuff in on Burnley at the moment: I take your point about Reg & I'll be in touch with him & Sally shortly.

[Mitch]

bryan said:

As far as I know we don't have any sales in Hull. But I think there is someone who is involved with the IWW down there now you mention it.

We could put a short report on the case you mention in the next issue of NV: fill Jim in & I'll talk to him. I'm mostly worried about getting the stuff in on Burnley at the moment: I take your point about Reg & I'll be in touch with him & Sally shortly.

Ok ta, I was in Manchester briefly on Saturday, and noticed a copy of Northern Voices in the People's History Museum.

That copy of Northern Voices is the only aspect of Anarchist ideas present in the Peoples History Museum - something I've noticed in museums which focus on labour history, there is no information on anarchist ideas and organisation, nothing on Samual Fielden and May Day. The Museum of Liverpool Life is likewise - Perhaps the national mining museum in Wakefield is different. It's a problem as sources of funding increasingly dictate the agenda and focus.

The Health and Safety at Work exhibition at the Peoples' History Museum is weak, twee and makes no attempt to link the past with the current situation of increasing accidents and deaths at work - there is no political edge to it.

[bryan]

The Galician Elections: FRAGA ACCUSED OF 'SUPERMACHISMO'.

The President of the Galician Xunta (or Junta) stood accused at the weekend of 'SUPERMACHISMO', during the Galician election campaign now taking place. Galicia is in the North West of Spain, it had a strong anarchist presence in 1936 but was also the birthplace of General Franco.

Anxo Quintana of the Galician Nationalist Party (BNG) arguing, in Santiago, against the Partido Popular and the current President of the Galician Xunta Manuel Fraga, declared:
'The SUPERGALICIA that Fraga wants to sell us is that of SUPERMACHISMO.'

Quintana at a meeting of 200 women members of the was reported in El Pais as calling for 'A new nation for women' and arguing against 'machismo laboral' in which women in Galicia are paid 40% less than men and suffer more unsafe working conditions, and that he was determined to combat 'violence against women'.

The current President of the Galician Xunta, Manuel Fraga, a veteran of the PP, insisted that the principal function of the woman was to be 'a mother'. He said: The Government 'has the obligation to give equality of opportunity to women. Fraga, who was Minister of Tourism under General Franco in 1963 when I first went to Spain, also invoked the era of Franco as being a period when the means of 'positive discrimination' were first introduced for women. A period, he said, when women first entered the universities.

[Mitch]

That's fascinating Bryan thanks - this news from El Pais is welcome - please keep bobbing it on this forum.

'A new nation of women', now there's a thought. Have you anymore information on how this meeting of 200 women went, and what is building there?

Did you catch Ms Greer last night on the telly, I only caught the last of it unfortunately. She's making the mistake, it seems to me, of lumping women into one homogenous group. Not helpful, because the experiences of women are different, and this is dependent on class. I met a woman once called Jill Rubery, and she similarly denied the existence of class difference - I thought her stupid because it did not fit with what I had seen and known.

Quintana mentions equal pay, and the 40% difference in pay between men/women. Yes, but there are also differences in pay between women and women, part-time working women/full time working women, and what kinds of jobs women do dependent on class.

I'd really appreciate more info on this meeting of 200 women in North West Spain if you have it Bryan?

[bryan]

I'll try to come back on this if I wake up early in the morning. But there is the Court case tomorrow & after that I'm off down to Liverpool for the weekend TUC conference. I might have to look up the details of the Galician womens' meeting when I get back.

[bryan]

This is froml last Monday's EL PAIS:


QUINTANA OPPOSES HIS DEFENCE OF EQUALITY TO THE "SUPERMACHISMO" OF FRAGA.

The Galician Nationalist Bloke (BNG) is the only force in politics to present in the coming elections on the 19th, July, election lists which are zipped-up (like a zipper); that is alternate women and men on their list of regional parliamentary candidates to the Galician Parliament in this system of propotional representation.

(This should ensure almost equal represemtation of the sexes in their continguient in the parliament.)

This was the announced by Anxo Quintana, yesterdaday (Sunday) the BNG's candidate for President of the Xunta, in an effort to advance the Party's 'credibility' for defence of equality in general, in contrast to the position of political separation of the Popular Party (PP) in its 4 administrations in Government.

He said: "The SUPERGALICIA THAT FRAGA WANTS TO SELL US IS THE SUPERMACHISMO" is an act of reproachment to nationalist women.

Quintana was commenting in his intervention before
more than 200 women of the BNG, meeting in an hotel in Santiago de Compostela beneath a banner which declared: "Un pais novo para as mulleres (A new land for women in Galician) he then said with a wink: "Then say behind every intellegient man is a surprised woman, we have to win"

He then went on without jokes to say that the promise of the nationalist program was the material of equality, to reinforce social politics 'less usless cement', a struggle against 'labour machismo' - refering to the fact that in Galica women get 40% less than men and suffer more risks - to combat the violence against women.

In elaborating the "zipped list" of candidates Anxo Quintana presented himself as a 'the president for equality' and asked for confidence in his promises. "We are equal lists and we will have an equal government with parity" he said, and said fi elected there would be a vice-president of Equality toi co-ordinate the general policies. "We will be very feminist in the public life of
Galicia" he said.

On concrete plans the spokeman said the BNG would create a benefit of 600 euros (£420) a month for victims of violence machista 'to rebuild their lives and their future'; to extend to women with children of less than 3 years a monthly benefit of 150 euros (£110) and the creation of 20,000 places in nurseries and more places
in residences for people of the third age (old people) to ease the situation for women with family responsibilities.

The candidate No. 2 por A Corona, Anxela Bugallo, claimed there would a 'revolution social' for women in public life and a reaction against the policies of Manual Fraga for his recent attacks against homosexual marriages (now permitted in Spain), and 'His discrimination against women, lesbians and gays'

(This is the best translation I can do so early in the morning: the electricians have just been ringing me about tomorrow's conference)

[bryan]

In my comment on the elections in Galicia I have said they were on '19th, July', this is not true they are to be next Sunday 19th, June. The '19th, July' is of course the historic date of General Franco's rising in 1936.

The issue next weekend is will the conservative PP be able to get an absolute majority to continue its governing of the Galicia regional Government? The PP has been accused of 'SUPERMACHISMO' by the Galician nationalists of the BNG who seem to be running on a feminist platform. The PP, which will probably have the most seats, has made it clear it can't join with the nationalist to form a government. It seems for the first time since 1989 that Galicia will be ruled by an alliance of nationalists (Bloque Nacionalista Galego - BNG) and 'socialists' of the PSdG. The former communist IU (United Left) is expected to get only 2% of the vote.

Galicia has had autonomy for 15 years and has been always ruled by the PP. The BURNLEY VOICE must be one of the few areas in the British media where the outcome of the elections in Galicia is being discussed.

[Mitch]

bryan said:

In my comment on the elections in Galicia I have said they were on '19th, July', this is not true they are to be next Sunday 19th, June. The '19th, July' is of course the historic date of General Franco's rising in 1936.

The issue next weekend is will the conservative PP be able to get an absolute majority to continue its governing of the Galicia regional Government? The PP has been accused of 'SUPERMACHISMO' by the Galician nationalists of the BNG who seem to be running on a feminist platform. The PP, which will probably have the most seats, has made it clear it can't join with the nationalist to form a government. It seems for the first time since 1989 that Galicia will be ruled by an alliance of nationalists (Bloque Nacionalista Galego - BNG) and 'socialists' of the PSdG. The former communist IU (United Left) is expected to get only 2% of the vote.

Galicia has had autonomy for 15 years and has been always ruled by the PP. The BURNLEY VOICE must be one of the few areas in the British media where the outcome of the elections in Galicia is being discussed.

Thanks for this reporting Bryan, fascinating. I'd like to know more about the specifics of this 'supermachismo' that the PP are accused of. Have the PP been marginalising women in some way?

Here's what a militant worker involved in the Leeds clothing workers' strike in 1970 had to say about women's divided loyalties,

"You see, a man's job is to be a breadwinner, isn't it? to earn a wage to keep his family. And he wants what is due to him by hook or by crook ... Now a woman has a lot more other things to think about. Families and pressures at home, and owt like this. And they cannot be militant enough. If they're militant they're losing ... Now a woman comes out to work that day; now if she's going to come out to work and strike, well, her home .... is going to suffer ... A woman has to go out to work, and she works. And a man can stick up for his rights and all stick together, but a woman has a lot more other things on her mind. Feeding her family, you know ... and you think to yourself .. [on strike] the first hour you thought to yourself, you're militant, you know, and then by the second hour, you're thinking - 'Oh, I could be doing my washing ... I could be at home, doing my shopping'. And that's the whole difference".

Sally Alexander stresses, "The industrial organization of women in modern industry is a consequence and not a precondition of political consciousness - precisely the obverse of the Leninist formula". (p.32)

(from the introduction by Sally Alexander in Diane Gold, Leeds Tailoring Workers, unpublished MS, in 'From Hand to Mouth', by Marianne Herzog (1976), Penguin Books.

[bryan]

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: LETTER FROM INDIA.

DON'T DRESS SEXY IN DELHI!
by Amellia Gentleman.

No thigh flesh, no cleavage and certainly no belly buttons. Delhi's female university studentsare facing new dress-code restrictions, amid rising hysteria about series of violent rapes in the capital.

Selecting what to wear has become less a fashion statement than a politically charge dilemmafor the city' studentsafter university officials recommended that girls replace skimpy dresses with the more modest folds of a salwaz-kameez trouser suit to protect them from sexual harassment.

This suggestion that women should alter the way they look to protect themselves has met with a resentful response from manyn of the young female sudents - angery at the implication their wardrobes are to blame for the rash of recent sexual violence.

The offices of the vice-principal of a leading Delhi college were ransacked by angry students over the weekend after newspapers reported that he had recommended the introduction of a dress cde prohibiting "revealing dresses" within the university boundaries. A written apology has been demanded, and protestors have given university authorities a 10-day ultimation to repremand the official.

The official Virender Kumar claims he was misquoted. But other college principals have made similar suggestions in the last few days.

Current obsessions with womem's dress sense in Delhi is part of a broader debate over who is to blame for the problem of who is to blame for the violence against women in modern India and how the country should respond to a number of well publicised rape cases.

In mid-May, a Delhi student was abducted as she walked home with a friend early in the morning. But though the friend alerted the police straight away, they were slow to react, & the victim was held for 4 hours and gang raped before her attackers dropped her back at the spot where she had been kidnapped - just outside the headquarters of the Delhi Polices' Crime Against Women Cell.

First their was wide condemnation of the police for incompetence. Then there was speculation about the role of the woman's outfit in provoking the attackl & why had she stepped out at such an "unearthly hour." Women were urged to stay home after dark,and a debate over the evils of rising hemlines began.

When a 16-year-old girl was raped by a Mumbai policeman in early May, the extremist Hindu party Shiv Sena said women had a responsility to dress correctly & declared 'low-waist jeans & mini-skirts' were responsible for the breakdown of Indian culture.

The party's newspaper raged: 'There seems to be a competition among youngsters to show their undergarments in the name of 'below waist' fashion. If a man is incited by such clothes, who can one blame?'

Even the Minister of Women affairs, Kanti Singh, said that the way women dressed played a role in inciting men to violence.

Talk of a dress code has caused irratation among feminists. 'This is a male problem,' said Chitra Srivastava, a psychology proffessor & head of a Delhi womens' association.

She said: 'It doesn't make sense to put the blame on scanty dresses, or on female students staying out late.'

India is a country in flux. Urban Indian society is hovering between two ages. While most people outside the cities remain committed to traditional rural values, the city youth are in the throes of an identity crisis, trying to work out which life-style they aspire to.

Moral boundaries are shifting fast in India's cities, as the nation grapples with the social consequences of an economic revolution that's bringing new cultural values with imported working practices.

'Sex in the City' has become a hit show, in households where the very mention of sex remains the ultimate taboo. Speed dating is the latest trend for Delhis's 20-somethings, in a nation where the majority opt for arranged marriage.

By Western standards, the wardrobes of Delhi's college student can hardly be describe as risque'; those who opt for western styles go to the GAP catalogue rather than Britney Spears fantasies.

Shobhaa De, author of a self-help guide to navigating moder relationships in India, said she saw nothing wrong in introducing a pragmatic dress-code. She said: 'Girls are supposed to wear short skirts, short sleves or even the color red, on the grounds that these things will distract male students and lead to Eve-teasing,' or sexual harassment. She added: 'I'd rather my daughter wore something appropriate than risk a sexual assault for the sake of wearing a mini...'

But Narinder Tokas, President of Delhi students' union, claimed the dress code debate is an anachronism.

'This is a very old-fashion approach. Delhi university students have modern, westernized attitudes, & it's not appropriate to force them to wear traditional clothing' he said.

'If we want better security for women, then we should have police constables & cameras on campus.' (edited)

(Now there lies another debate: Bryan)

[michele cryer]

Hmm...interesting story Bryan...with women once again being made 'responsible' for being victims of rape/assault as their dress standards are criticised! As almost everyone knows, rape is not about sex particularly, rather it is about power...

I feel very strongly for these students and hope that the country wakes up to the real problem and finds a more practical and reasonable solution to it...

[bryan]

Michele, I think there are a few ways of considering this. The feminist one is important. The globalisation or capitalist reading of what's going on is important as well. My first reaction was the same as yours, but look at what is happening to Indian society wrought by modernisation & world capitalism. But I've been thinking about it all day & I think we and our western culture may have to shoulder some of the blame.

Indian society is being polarized & disrupted in a way we haven't experienced since the early industrial revolution; when our forefathers & their womenfolk, were driven out of the parishes & villages by the enclosure acts & the closing of the commons to the poor and their animals.Look were the article says: 'Urban Indian society is hovering between two ages...the vast majority of society outside the metropolis remains commited to traditional rural values, the youth of the big cities are in the throes of an identity crisis, trying to work out which kind of lifestyle they aspire to - the reserve of their parents' generation or a modern culture of permissiveness & emancipation.'

Whatever are our personal preferences, this introduction of capitalist working practices in a deeply rural society is bound to cause chaotic social & personal relationships: some Indian workers working in call centres for Western firms are reported to have had to have treatment for stress because of abusive phone calls when people over here twigged the person at the other end was Asian. Capitalism, it seems to me, is not so much a decadent force but a dynamic poltergeist crazily upsetting relationships all round.

This is not to excuse the violent attacks. All anarchists, whether individualist or communist or syndicalist shoul be against force & fraud. But it makes us realise what is going on in the East, because of our exploitation of their resources.

Consider China where havoc threatens if thing go wrong with the breakneck development. The Chinese Government is delivering 9% annual growth and is hoping rising living standards will ofset what has been called the 'perpetually simmering political & social tensions'; while world businessmen look toChina's fast growing economy for future profit. But can China & the long suffering Chinese survive the chaotic dislocation? Can the ecology stand it?

China's car ownership is still tiny compared to Japan's. But a calculation of how much fuel & asphalt will be needed to meet the rising demand for cars in China is said to be 'alarming'. But every 2 million cars will says Lester Brown 'potentially reduced available cropland by 40,000 hectares', & if China reaches Japan's car ownership rate of one car for two people, Brown reckons, 'Chinawould have to pave two-thirds of the land devoted to rice farming.'

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think these countries are suffering from more than one kind of rape. Sexual rape or that of physical personal domination in relationships, and economic rape of cultures & civilisations in the East.

On Friday last, The Independent reported on a video saying: 'The world got a rare glimpse of the deadly, mostly unseen war between Chinese develkopers & the poor who stand intheir way with the release of a harrowing video showing a murderous attack on villages protesting against the construction of a power plant.' It happened in a shanty town in Shengyou in northern China. The Independent says: 'Ecopnomic growth has...led to intense competition between land-hungry developers, who often clash brutally with the 140 million migrant workers in their march to progress.'

Indian, China, Barcelona, Manchester and even Piccadilly Road, Burnley, may yet be at the mercy of developers. Indian society may be suffering less violence from their State than China, and nothing excuses the violent sex/power attacks in Delhi, but societies are being ripped apart in the name of progress & this is wrecking human relationships as well.

Well that's my tin-pot view for what it is worth.

[michele cryer]

Bryan, I agree with you entirely on the Capitalism issue regarding these countries/areas...

I didn't bring up the westernisation of the country in my original response, because I didn't agree with the opinions of the people interviewed who thought that westernisation was the cause of the increased? attacks/rapes...westernisation is a problem but is not, I think, related to the problem of the rapes, in my opinion.

[bryan]

Michele writes:
"As almost everyone knows, rape is not about sex particularly, rather it is about power..."

I know there is some research that supports this, but is it research in this country or the USA? I'm worried about generalising on research done in this country and then extending it to other cultures. Generalisations, which I do & we all do, are a bit dangerous.

I know in that book 'The Rai Quartet' there was a gang rape in a garden, I think by Indians, and an homosexual rape by the policeman Merrick of an Indian prisoner. But I'm not sure what this tells us about the culture of the Indian sub-continent or about rape.

We all know what sex is (now there's a another generalisation!), well I think we all know, but 'power' is not an easy concept to define. Nobody seems to have solved the puzzle of satifactorily describing 'power' & who has the power in society. The Marxists stuggle with it, the sociologists struggle with it, Leo Tolstoy, who I do respect, deals with it in the epilogue to his book 'War & Peace', but even his attempt, I think, ends in failure.

The student leader in the Indian article on sex violence calls for more police & cameras on campus. That would be troubling solution for anarchists to take. The rapist of thg young girl in Mumbai was a policeman.

It surprises me how they manage to perform something like a gang rape. Erections are not automatically achieved by act of will and sometimes are achieve when you least want them. We know from Shakespeare and experience that alcohol is no aid to men in this matter: it amy spark up women, as Shakespeare says, but it has dampening effect on men. Wanting a p i s s can put anyone off. It must have something to do with the violence that arouses them and keeps them going. But I see the kidnappers in Delhi, dropped the violated girl off outside the headquarters of the Delhi Polices' Crime Against Women Cell. Now that seems strange: why did they go to the trouble and run the extra risk of getting caught?

[michele cryer]

Give me a few days...when I'm not so tired, and I will reply properly to this Bryan...