QUIET RUMOURS QUIET RUMOURS QUIET RUMOURS AN ANARCHA-FEMINIST READER The third edition of an invaluable anarchist resource! Quiet Rumours is a fascinating window into the intersection of anar- chism and feminism from the women who catalysed both. Compiled and introduced by the UK-based anarchist collective Dark Star, this collection features articles and essays from four generations of anarchists and feminists, including Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Jo Freeman, Peggy Kornegger, Cathy Levine, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, RAG Dublin, and beyond. This expanded third edition of Quiet Rumours reprints all of the essays from the first two editions, in addition to new essays bringing the principles and practice of anarcha- feminism into conversation with twenty-first century politics. £13.00 / $17.oo DARK STAR AN ANARCHA-FEMINIST READER THIRD EDITION - TEXTS COLLECTED BY DARK STAR QUIET RUMOURS AN ANARCHA-FEMINIST READER Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader This edition © AK Press/Dark Star 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84935-103-4 (print) Library of Congress Control Number: 2012937708 AK Press AK Press UK 674-A 23rd Street PO Box 12766 Oakland, CA 94612 Edinburgh EH8 9YE USA Scotland www.akpress.org www.akuk.com [email protected] [email protected] The above addresses would be delighted to provide you with the latest AK Press distribution catalog, which features several thousand books, pamphlets, zines, audio and video recordings, and gear, all published or distributed by AK Press. Alternately, visit our websites to browse the catalog and find out the latest news from the world of anarchist publishing: www.akpress.org | www.akuk.com revolutionbythebook.akpress.org Printed in the United States on acid-free recycled paper with union labor. Design by Maisy’s Dad Illustrations and typeface by Miriam Klein Stahl CONTENTS Preface to the Third Edition The AK Press Collective 6 Foreword The Dark Star Collective 8 Quiet Rumours: An Introduction to this Anthology Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 11 0 Why Anarcha-Feminism? RAG Dublin 13 1 Anarcha-Feminism: Two Statements Red Rosa and Black Maria 15 2 Feminism as Anarchism Lynne Farrow 19 3 Anarchism: The Feminist Connection Peggy Kornegger 25 4 Anarcha-Feminism and the Newer “Woman Question” Stacy/ Sally Darity 37 5 Insurrection at the Intersection J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano 43 6 Voltairine de Cleyre: An Introduction Marian Leighton 47 7 The Making of an Anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre 51 8 Socialism, Anarchism and Feminism Carol Ehrlich 55 9 Untying the Knot—Feminism, Anarchism and Organisation Introduction by CS 67 10 The Tyranny of Structurelessness Jo Freeman aka Joreen 68 11 The Tyranny of Tyranny Cathy Levine 77 12 Social Democracy and Anarchism Charlotte Wilson 83 13 A Woman Without a Country Emma Goldman 95 14 The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation Emma Goldman 100 15 Make Your Own Tea: Women’s Realm and Other Recipes and Patterns Alice Nutter 105 16 Rote Zora: An Introduction 111 17 Interview with Rote Zora 115 18 Mujeres Creando: Bolivian Anarcha-Feminist Street Activists 121 19 An Interview with Mujeres Creando 125 20 The Creative Force of Bolivian Debtors 128 AK titles 131 . PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION The AK Press Collective THE MOST ENDURING ANARCHIST RESOURCES ARE THE ONES This book is the product of four different anarchist publish- that withstand the test of time—the ones that continuously ing projects. Black Bear was a London-based anarchist feminist change hands, that travel from place to place, across the bound- group responsible for the six pamphlets that made up the first aries of geography and history, that grow and develop a little edition of this book. Typeset and printed, and in some cases writ- every time they come into contact with a new generation of read- ten, by Black Bear throughout the 1970s, those pamphlets— ers and writers. Quiet Rumours is one of those resources. essays numbered 1, 2, 3 and 6, 7, 8 in this edition—spoke to the Originally published as a collection of pamphlets printed in the important overlap at the intersection of anarchism and the late '70s by the Black Bear collective, this volume you hold in women's liberation movement, an overlap that would, over time, your hands today is the third incarnation of Quiet Rumours, and begin to form itself into what we now call anarcha-feminism. like its two progenitors, it preserves the original, while adding to Though Black Bear itself would largely disband by the end it, and updating it for a new generation of anarchist readers and of the decade, in favor of directing collective energy to the writers. increasing pressures of the anti-nuke movement in the UK, the 6 pamphlets continued to find their way into movement circles. In Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist Group points out in their contri- 1984, the Dark Star collective, a group of anarchist booksellers bution to this volume. “Our struggle,” they write, “needs to be working in collaboration with Rebel Press, decided that the fought alongside the struggle against other forms of oppression, demand was great enough to issue a collection of the six pam- not treated as an afterthought or as a distraction.” The re-publi- phlets in book form—the original Quiet Rumours anthology. cation of this volume speaks to that need, celebrates how far we In 2002, Dark Star collaborated with the AK Press collective have come as a movement, and points toward the years of strug- to release an updated and expanded Quiet Rumours, pairing the gle yet to come. It is our hope that future generations of anar- six original Black Bear pamphlets with Dark Star's own “Untying chist, of feminists, of queer-liberation organizers, of racial justice the Knot” pamphlet, which printed Jo Freeman's infamous activists, and of young folks around the world will add their own "Tyranny of Structurelessness" together with Cathy Levine's stories and strategies to the essays collected here, continuing to pointed response, “The Tyranny of Tyranny.” Though these texts grow this book as a critical and lasting movement resource. For grew out of the women's liberation movement and are, in some our part, we are proud to have been a part of the life of this ways, contradictory to anarchist principles and practice, Dark important project. Star argued that the women's movement had provided an impor- tant and concrete glimpse into the revolutionary politics of equal- AK Press Collective ity that ultimately defines the anarchist vision of society. The September 2012 debate over how to organize (rather than why) that “Untying the Knot” confronted is as critically important today as it was in 1984, even as the terms and the stakes have changed. Thus, as has now become a tradition, the third edition of Quiet Rumours has grown in size, and includes three new essays that reflect a small portion of the contemporary conversations and investigations of the anarchist movement. What does it mean to talk about feminism in a social and political context that has begun—finally—to question the logic of the gender binary? In the ten years since the second edition of this book appeared, the struggle for queer and trans rights has taken center ring in the fight for the right to claim our own identities in the ways that seem most fitting to us as individuals. What does it mean to queer feminism? What do we do when these concepts intersect, and intertwine, as has happened more and more over the course of the past decade of anarchist activism and development in the English-speaking world? In their contributions to the third edition of this collection (essays number 4 and 5 in this edition), Sally Darity (editor and creator of the Anarcha Library) and J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano (editors of the AK Press collection Queering Anarchism) explore these new intersections of identity, pointing toward a new anarchist intersectionality that stands before us. At the same time, while anarcha-feminism may have shifted and changed over the years since this book was originally com- piled and published, the concept remains a vital one, as Dublin's 7 FOREWORD Dark Star Collective WITH THE PUBLICATION OF BENEATH THE PAVING STONES DARK Although we know that the criticism “why reprint old pam- Star brought together various Situationist pamphlets it had phlets?” will be levelled against us, we have no doubt that these reprinted with Rebel Press into a book format. We are now pamphlets have both a historical and continuing significance. pleased to be able to produce our second anthology which brings Also we feel no need to apologise for seeking to preserve and together the feminist and anarcha-feminist pamphlets which we pass on significant works to younger/newer comrades. Despite reprinted with Rebel press. We would like to take this opportuni- the fact that anarchism comes in and goes out of fashion, to leave ty to assert that we still think that pamphlets have an important this task to commercial publishers seems to us a gross irrespon- role to play in the dissemination of Anarchist ideas and hopefully sibility. As one-time participants in, and regular visitors to the we will go on producing them, and we encourage and support Anarchist Bookfair, the number of times we have heard the ques- other groups to continue this practice. However as a group of tion “Have you anything on anarcha-feminism?” would in itself people who have wide experience of working both in the radical justify our reprinting these pamphlets. Obviously we hope that and commercial publishing/bookselling arena our decision to the re-publication of these pamphlets will also stimulate debate produce these anthologies is also eminently practical.