uniformity or diversity?

[texanarchy]

But, there seem to be plenty of women into anarchism - I saw them at the one and only anarchist demo I ever went to. A brief search for 'anarcha feminism' comes up with a lot of pages and names (though, obviously, a woman dosnt have to be an anarcha-feminist to be an anarchist - emma goldman was a just plain anarchist...) Also, the existence of groups like APOC proves that there are certainly anarchists of color.

So I think what you are saying about women and racial minorities is contraindicated by the facts. There are most certainly women and people of color who have an interest in anarchism - they just don't seem to want to talk to you about it.

I suppose there's a chicken-and-egg going on here - do they avoid you or do you avoid them?

[xvxChrisxvx]

Emma Goldman wasn't part of the middle-class bourgeoisie feminist movement, but today she is definitely considered an anarcha-feminist by most. If she were around today, it seems like she would probably align herself with the anarcha-feminist movement or some other radical feminist movement.

[texanarchy]

Ok, let's say she was an anarcha-feminist. The question remains, why is it that female anarchists and people of color don't participate here, while they clearly do participate in anarchism as a whole.

I haven't seen anyone say (seriously) that women and people of color are not welcome here. And yet, with rare (single, actually) exception, they are not here - even though they do indeed exist.

Why?

[|Y|]

How many anarchist females protest in the black bloc compared to the males? It's at least a 10:1 potentially as high as 20:1 ratio of males to females in my experience (and yes while people cover their faces in the black bloc and often wear heavy clothing, you can still tell with a good degree of accuracy the gender of your comrades).

Social gatherings do have larger numbers of anarchist females (consider the Anarchist Book Fair), but they still are small in number, and some may not even self-identify as anarchist (the ABF is attended by many yuppies, being in one of the most yuppy friendly places in the country). You have feminist gatherings where no males are allowed, as another example, but I'm still not sure they explictly self-identify as anarchists as a whole. Certainly females like Kirsten Andeberg who at one point claimed to be an anarchist rejected it because it didn't give her the power she wanted.

The Black Bloc is representative of anarchism as a whole because it's an explicitly anarchist grouping. They don't associate with communists or marxists or liberals in either their appearence or their tactics. (I do not consider their attending protests other groups protest an addmission of association, especially after the mass arrests the rest of the groups disavow completely the Black Bloc).

When I was sqatting a few years ago the guys outnumbered the women 5:1 at the bare minimum (OK, our group was small and there were only 2 girls). It was disappointed because in those times I was highly romantic about the whole thing (living free baby), and it sort of left me dismayed that there wasn't someone out there "like me." You could try getting a "regular" partner, but it's unlikely a regular one would hang out in abandoned buildings with you.

Here are some recent photos of a Black Bloc in France: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/0 ... 423925.php

Count the women (and the other minorities). My thesis is that anarchism isn't really what minorities are in to due to the system making it seem like a scary prospect, holding their hands, and so on.

We have to fix this of course. We have to show how anarchism can be quite empowering, despite that it removes power from the hands of many. We have to show that individual empowerment, rather than collective dependency on a state is a better alternative.

[Insecuritykiller]

Women aswell are women. They aren't into manly stuff like us.

Women just like useing men for everything in their lives. They just rely on us men to do everything.

Hey by the way, men use men too. Everyone uses men. I don't care, no one cares, everyones happy.

[dinsdale]

Because the state gives minorities more power in their eyes. The white male, having power for so long, is almost invariably the first of the philosophers to realize their own condition, despise it, and write something about it. It is of no surprise that most of the major writers on classical anarchism were whites of various nationalities. Minorities, however, have a more difficult time getting to this point because they never had power, and they want it, because the state intices them with it.

In a perhaps more rigorous forum you might have to produce evidence in support of this otherwise interesting thesis.

[bored]

Most anarchists are not white. It just appears that way to us since the majority of us live in european countries or countries of european descent. Some regions of Africa and Asia have active anarchist organizations which out number ours. As far as women are concerned, im not really sure why the ratio is slanted.

[tedster]

And don't forget Latin America.

I think there is also a tendency that carries over from the main culture were whites stick with each other, and non white groups stay with there respective groups. I don't think it is something that people are always conscious of, but that is what people tend to do.

[|Y|]

Proudhon, Tucker, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Bookchin, Chomsky, Rocker, Lucy and Albert Parsons, Engel, Fischer, (among the several Haymarket Myrters, too lazy to get the rest), Berkman, Hakim Bey, Guy Debord, and of course more modern anarchists, like Bob Black, Jello Biafra, Alan Moore, Ursula K. Le Guin (potentially), Iain Banks, Kevin Carson, Ward Churchill, Derrick Jensen, John Zerzan, and so on. Those are off the top of my head, but if you go here you can find a more exhaustive list of anarchists: http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/ ... anarchists (some of those are iffy though).

One thing that these people share in common is that they came from a European white background and had the privledges to a great extent that white people in those times and in current times share. It's not an overt thing, it's a subtle thing. As tedster writes, there is a phenemona, group identity, that causes certain groups to stay away from other certain groups. And capitalism naturally has exploited this group identity. For instance, I recently saw a news story about this black fellow who killed another black fellow. Apparently the sole reason he did it was because the guy "looked at him wrong and was from an educated background." In other words, the guy who was shot and killed was attempting to get an education, and thus was moving away from the group identity that he was 'supposed' to connect with (ghetto/gang culture). The capitalists eat that shit up.

It's far more complex than I'm making it out to be of course. It is just that in my experience if you don't have to deal with societial pressures as much as anyone else, you are more prone to rebel against that society in a philosophical and political way, as anarchists are known to do. You can look at it introspectivly and create conclusions that to the capitalsts are very dangerous. I wouldn't say it necessarily requires a wealthy background (I grew up very poor), but more of the freedoms associated with being part of the higher class in society. And certainly it applies less and less in societies that don't have these strong class distinctions.

[Insecuritykiller]

The anarchist movement was born in europe. Makes sense that it would travel to the english colonies too. Anarchism is apart of our culture, and it's about as simple as that.

[dinsdale]

The anarchist movement was born in europe. Makes sense that it would travel to the english colonies too. Anarchism is apart of our culture, and it's about as simple as that.

American native anarchism is unique not just philosophically, but insofar as it has attracted both men and women. The nonresistant aspect is a hallmark that makes it more attractive to people in general. European anarchism being not so averse to violence as a means of social change or conflict resolution has not caught on in America, as well.

[tedster]

The Chinese had independently developed an Anarchist movement, and so were the Africans and Latin Americans. The only continent that didn't have an anarchist movement that was born naïve of another anarchist movement would be Antarctica.

[Canteloupe]

The Chinese had independently developed an Anarchist movement, and so were the Africans and Latin Americans. The only continent that didn't have an anarchist movement that was born na�ve of another anarchist movement would be Antarctica.

Surely gay penguins count (not to mention Penguin Classics):

[tedster]

The Chinese had independently developed an Anarchist movement, and so were the Africans and Latin Americans. The only continent that didn't have an anarchist movement that was born na�ve of another anarchist movement would be Antarctica.

Surely gay penguins count (not to mention Penguin Classics):

Why your right, gay penguins do count

[Crustanarchy]

Haha, I love penguins and clever humor