femenins

Living feminism

2012-01-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

What is vital about feminism can be understood best in the lived relation between oneself and women. Feminism as a preconception -- yours or somebody else's -- needn't enter into the equation. Sometimes it can be helpful; other times it has to be overcome in order to really hear the concerns of women in our lives, which may or may not conform to feminism with a capital "F."

The same holds true for working class politics: it's important to have relationships with working class people. In my own experience, the attitudes and preoccupations of working class people can depart significantly from what I believe to be sound "working class politics,” even if their basic requirements do not (everyone needs a minimum level of health and self-possession to thrive as individuals).

For example, among my own coworkers, there are those who ingratiate themselves with the boss because they think this affords them security; those whose work ethic makes them favored employees; some who do as little as possible and only “look out for themselves”; and yet others who take hostile stands against the boss in self-defeating ways, making of themselves a target while they gripe about the injustice-du-jour.

In a lived work environment it is rarely enough to merely identify, on an intellectual level, what is lacking in other people’s behavior. The office or shop gossip can sometimes be a fine source of information, or possess an accurate view of what’s wrong; but the gossip does nothing to change what is deemed objectionable, and instead thrives on the act of judgment. But the organizer’s task isn’t pointing out what’s wrong and expecting everyone to change their behavior just because the diagnosis is right. I’m more inclined to see the organizer’s role as identifying what needs to be changed in the organizer’s own behavior when confronted with a particular set of circumstances -- including, for example, workers of the sort described above -- in order to engage problems in a constructive way when more often than not they haven’t been engaged at all -- only bitched about. Too often it is intellectuals who talk and diagnose, often correctly, without stepping up to the organizer’s role.

The same holds true in our political engagement with women. How individual women respond to the lived experience of patriarchy can lead to all kinds of different outcomes. I know women for whom feminism is a straightforward necessity; others who pursue the substance of feminism without walking under its banner; principled women who are ambivalent toward or uninterested in formal politics; and of course women who are either hostile toward feminism or defer to the men in their lives for security -- not unlike the worker obsequious before the boss.

Once again, in our lived experience with women, we are confronted with how to engage particular situations and specific individuals. Even individuals who practice a politics adversarial to our own can at the same time be victims of patriarchy. Any feminism which includes consideration for all women would enjoin us to shun no one, even if we reject their present point of view.

A commitment to feminist and working class politics, in practice, will inevitably mean making oneself available to individuals whose views we may reject. Ultimately it means listening to the person in front of you, whoever they are, and thinking about what they are telling you with the advantage of a political education and awareness -- and with an aim toward doing something about it. Expecting that they will change their tune because we made a better argument is folly, through and through; I often see this frustrate activists into a dead end. People modify their behavior when they are persuaded from the standpoint where they already are, not the place where we admonish them to be; this implies that we do best to understand where they are coming from.

If we are feminists then, simply speaking, we care about where women are coming from -- i.e. not strictly “feminist” women, however this is conceived. Speaking personally, this is for me where things get most challenging and most urgent; for example, getting away from radical purity tests and simply listening to someone like my elderly aunt who over the holidays distinguished herself by describing urban life as compromised by “all the blacks on their drugs.” It struck me as a responsibility that fell right into my lap, though how to approach it constructively vis-a-vis a woman whose information is FOX News for most of her waking hours -- a woman who despite her racism is also someone I love -- is much more the sort of question which occupies my thoughts these days.

Explaining feminism

2011-07-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

Work friends ask about my being a "hardcore feminist." It is easy to explain: Feminism means you acknowledge that injustice happens against women because they are women; you think injustice is wrong and want to position yourself in opposition to it.

Always remember your audience. If they are working class men, you have to account for this. People in blue collar settings don't use the same concepts or vocabulary that you're going to find in a graduate seminar. In my experience, it's best to start with other's concerns, not your own. If they are primarily concerned with getting laid, you may have some work to do before you get around to the idea of justice for women.

The fortunate thing about working with people is that you see them everyday. You don't have to resolve everything in a single conversation -- or, put differently, a single confrontation. Many activists are too quick to condemn anyone who doesn't see things their way. But if feminism stands in acknowledgment of the injustice women face, activism should stand in acknowledgment of the ignorance that stems naturally from the status quo. Rather than be surprised by it in every instance, we'd do better to be prepared.

In an important sense, you have to love other people enough to listen to them, especially when much of what they say is ugly or hateful. I'm speaking in this case of activists in the same category of power as those they interact with; in other words, as a man I have to have a measure of patience with other working class men I can't stand, at least if my long term goal is to persuade. They won't listen to women, but it's possible they will listen to another man. You always want to be pushing the possibilities in this regard, but it isn't easy; a strong sense of class consciousness helps, as well as concern for the women these men inevitably interact with.

Interview with Maria

2011-06-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

JRB: Why is your participation in the IWW significant to you?

M: I am involved in the IWW because I firmly believe in it. In my opinion, it is the only labor union in North America to acknowledge that the disparities between workers and bosses are directly caused by capitalism; and it's the only union that fights for workers' rights by fighting against capitalism. I am not one who can easily ignore social injustices, and in contemporary society, capitalism is the root of these injustices. The most logical way to fight back against this system is to collectively seize the means of production. I am only involved in activities that I believe in -- and that is the underlying reason I remain involved in the IWW, despite the many setbacks.

JRB: What are the most immediate obstacles we face in building a movement aimed at appropriating the means of production in the US?

M: The most immediate obstacles we face in building this movement are fear and a lack of true solidarity. The fear that I’m referring to is a fear of retaliation from the boss -- and we experience this every moment in the workplace. I think in order to overcome that fear, we need to stand together and develop trust amongst each other so that each of our fellow workers can feel protected morally, financially, and legally, as needed. It seems that in too many segments of the radical labor movement, people are guided by their egos rather than a sense of equality amongst their co-workers and co-organizers. Sometimes this causes participants to feel alienated because they aren’t equally included in the work. Other times, movements fall apart because of serious internal issues, such as racism and sexism, which are brushed aside or ignored entirely. These issues tend to snowball because those complicit in the discrimination will make every excuse in the book to not directly address the problem. Solidarity and trust amongst the group's members is therefore lost before coordinated action can even begin.

JRB: As a woman, have you or others you know had your solidarity and trust challenged by internal issues, such as sexism?

M: Nearly every woman I have spoken to since I joined the union has had to compromise or sacrifice their involvement due to issues of sexism. For me, these issues caused a serious strain on my emotional health, and I had to sacrifice friendships and trust amongst fellow workers whom I had known for years. The problem stemmed from a situation in which one member verbally harassed me using highly sexist language. When I called him out on it other union members immediately questioned my credibility and defended him, even though the evidence was quite clear that my accusations were true. A sort of groupthink mentality took hold, and those who scrutinized me claimed that I had ulterior motives in making such accusations. This emboldened the individual who harassed me to continue his behavior, responding to my accusation with another verbal attack over a public list serve. Faced with a group of bullies and a harrowing charges process, the problems snowballed. What came about was months of further internet bullying, verbal harassment and continued public scrutiny. I had to regularly put out statements to both those who supported me and those who scrutinized me, explaining over and over again what had happened and why this person needed to be held accountable for his actions. All in all, the situation was never fully resolved; the person who harassed me was never fully held accountable for his actions, and those who scrutinized me continue to feel justified in doing so.

Unfortunately, I was not the first person in the union who has had to endure an experience like this. At least five other women whom I have known personally, and who were active in the IWW for years, left the union because of similar experiences with sexism. Four of these individuals were physically or verbally harassed by other Wobblies, and one of them spent years organizing, only to receive very little support or recognition for the work she did. These were all very passionate Wobblies who spent years in the IWW, but when they spoke up, their claims of sexism and harassment were brushed aside or ignored entirely.

What I and other women Wobblies went through were not isolated incidents. They were symptomatic of a larger problem that the male-dominated culture simply failed to address, therefore enabling similar incidents to occur in the future.

JRB: Your experience makes me wonder whether men interpret accusations of sexism differently than women. Activist men seem to interpret it as an attack on their character, a way to discredit them, whereas activist women, seeing sexism as something that men will naturally struggle with under patriarchy, expect men to actualize their principles with regard to specific behavior. Men who feel their character is under attack will respond in kind: they try to discredit whoever is asking them to think about their behavior, because they don't understand the request. They don't understand how you can be both honorable and accused of sexism at the same time, so they deny the sexism charge in order to preserve their honor. From their view, it is a war between reputations, rather than an opportunity for feminist struggle.

The type of character attacks you describe suggest to me that, as men, we don't know what to do when we are accused of sexist behavior except to insist that we aren't sexist. We don't see sexism as something that has to be struggled with on a personal level, but simply as something we don’t do. This leaves us no room to maneuver when someone suggests that we are.

M: I think your interpretation is very interesting, and one that I have heard snippets of here and there from male allies who have tried to come to terms with their own sexist behavior. I certainly can't speak for all women, but I think it is generally true that we expect men, and activist men in particular, to actualize their principles instead of defending their own egos. All too often it seems that men claim to believe in anti-sexist principles -- which I'm sure they really do -- but when it comes to practice they do not act on anti-sexist principles. When someone is accused of sexist behavior, he tends to over-compensate with pro-feminist language, yet he rarely acts to address that behavior.

In my experience, the individual who harassed me went so far as to essentially drive himself out of the union altogether because he acted in defense of his ego and refused to address his misogynistic behavior. If he had gone through a simple process of taking some time away from the union and attending anti-sexism workshops and sensitivity trainings, he would have had a lot of support from people within the union, and he could have improved over time.

I think one of the most practical ways of addressing this complex issue is for men to form men's groups to improve their own awareness and sensitivity around these issues. Men tend to react defensively when women tell them they have to attend a workshop, or when women preach to them about how they are sexist and what they should do to improve; but if men developed their own "safe space," out of their own will, I think the reactive ego would be stripped away and they could really begin to focus on critically looking inward and developing small steps they could take to improve themselves and the culture around them. The only way this can happen is if the men are sincerely motivated to face a challenging process to overcome patriarchy. It is a lot of hard work, but it is necessary if we're ever going to move forward in rooting out all forms of oppression.

JRB: How did you find the strength continue the work that you do at times when you felt abandoned by your allies?

M: I found the strength to continue my involvement in the IWW from the trusted friends who stuck by my side through thick and thin. While my close allies and I certainly did not agree on all aspects of my approach in dealing with the continued scrutiny and harassment, they continued to support me because they knew it was a very difficult time for me and they knew I would do the same for them. They did not allow themselves to be bullied into abandoning me because they trusted my word as a victim of harassment, who did not stand to gain anything by making baseless accusations; as a woman who has to deal with sexism just about everywhere I go in life; and as a fellow worker who has stood with them on the picket line and in the streets. That is solidarity in its true form, and our movement needs more of it.

Speaking from experience

2011-05-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not an expert on popular culture so maybe you can help me out here. There is a recent film -- maybe a Seth Rogen title, maybe not; but something in that vein -- which opens with a young woman asking for help in a guitar store. What she gets isn't so much the help she requested, but rather a demonstration of the advanced guitar knowledge of the two male employees assisting her. The woman isn't really interested, but that doesn't matter: the two men are either convinced that she is or that she should be, so they proceed to compete with each other over who, in effect, can be the most irrelevant to her concerns. Engaged by neither, she departs just as soon as her routine request is fulfilled.

This pattern of behavior is as common in activist circles as it is in guitar stores or other workplaces: men assume an expert position vis-a-vis women and proceed to "impress" them as they believe women should be impressed. Sometimes this works, but most of the time it just alienates the intended audience -- so they leave. Within activist organizations as I have experienced them, lots of women are leaving, all the time, if not because of scenarios as specific as this, then because their concerns are not being acknowledged in a more general way.

I've thought a lot about how assuming an "expert" role has impacted my own relationships, particularly with women. What I notice amongst my healthiest relationships is that while I am sometimes asked for an opinion on one topic or another because of my background or interests, most of the time I'm not occupying any expert-type position at all, but am instead engaged in a dialogue where expert roles are being exchanged depending on the context. This seems to be the norm amongst family and friends, for example.

One of the great advantages of talking about feminism as a man is that it puts you in a position where you can't be an expert on many things. I think for men this is an important experience to have, since we've been socialized to believe that our self-worth comes from occupying a greater position of certainty than the next guy. For feminism to work best, men should feel comfortable not having all the answers or even feeling like they need to have any particularly good ideas. We should be very interested in listening to others, in order to formulate what could become a good idea. But we can't know what we need to know without first acknowledging the concerns of the women around us.

I have to believe that the dearth of male-initiated feminism within activist circles relates to this expectation on the part of men to feel like they need to be experts before they can speak with confidence on these subjects. And yet they will never be able to approach this standard as compared with women. Subsequently, it's not something men pursue in an open, active way.

But you don't have to be an expert on feminism to care about injustice as women experience it. Practicing feminism as a man doesn't mean speaking for women, but speaking for yourself about your relations with women. We all have relationships with women which are informed by political considerations, so why not talk about them? We are all experts when it comes to our own experiences.

Being an expert on everything is rarely all it's cracked up to be. In many ways it's just a lot easier to admit we don't have all the answers, namely because it's true! Why try to bear some impossible burden, when the work can be shared? A public endorsement of not knowing can be very reassuring to others who feel the same way.

Ideally, we should want to offer leadership in places where our skills are useful, but the flip side should be encouraging others to do the same. Feminist practice for men may even mean taking feminist rhetoric down a notch, or refraining from "taking action" on everything without first thinking about how this impacts the group. I think this is something I am struggling with at present.

The shell of the old

2011-04-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Katie comments:

[M]y reasons for being politically engaged in a different way than many politically engaged men include:

-Finding "male egos" in activist groups tiresome. I think this relates to the way men are socialized to have their personal worth conflated with roles like leader or expert. These are things related to the emotional aspects of gender roles. I've seen dudes repeatedly have this emotional need to have social status in the group. I just find it an uninteresting and time consuming distraction from the work at hand, when anyone of any gender brings their ego needs to an activist project.

-Another turn off for me has been that males in a group or in political circles will actually not include me in conversation unless they find me sexually attractive. It's the "be desired or be invisible" thing.

-Things I'm turned off about when it comes to left wing political subcultures in general which are perpetuated by both women and men are: rigid, inflexible thinking, an uncomfortable emphasis on political purity, judgmental attitudes towards ourselves and others on degree of purity. That has been my experience over 15 years of association with left/progressive/activist realms.

All of these kinds of things are reasons why I now participate only very selectively. These things have just not made it very appealing to be involved.

Katie is a good example of someone who shares the values of IWW-style organization (i.e. non-hierarchical direct action) but nevertheless finds herself estranged from initiatives of this sort.

This is significant because lots of people likely share these values and would jump at the chance to pursue them in a constructive way. But more often than not, the obstacle to lasting involvement in such organizations is an internal culture which does not adequately anticipate the needs of its members, who aspire to something positive when so much of their lives is spent navigating the negative.

In my experience, it is too often the case that progressive political organization is in fact much more negative than even the sort of nonsense I have to tolerate on the job. At least on the job there is some coherent structure of expectation: I know how to avoid drama if I want to. But bring a group of people together on a voluntary basis around purportedly social objectives, and it seems there is no limit to the ignominy one party will resort to in asserting its dominance over another!*

Working class organization could benefit by administering to itself a simple working class test: After a long day at work, do people want to invest what limited time they have in our organization? Or do they purposefully stay away?

*Notably true when it is done in the name of non-domination.

Membership has its privileges

2011-04-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've been thinking a lot about political guys and socially engaged gals, and now I think I'd like to turn the focus on myself as one of these political types of guys. I can speak as someone whose political development has happened in large part because I was able to single-mindedly focus on one thing over a long period of time. When I look at other guys like me, there's a similar sort of pattern. We've managed to specialize in one particular area very well -- like theory, for example -- and having done that, we want to remain in that space because that's where we feel in control. Everything outside of this space is suspect; for radicals, it's too commercial or too low-brow or whatever. So you end up insisting that everyone should arrive where you already are -- and insofar as they don't, or won't, they're dumb.

What's funny is that I see this pattern replicated in all kinds of cultural activity between men and women, where the men have invested huge amounts of time in trying to excel at one thing, in order to ensure that they can be seen as the best or the go-to guy or at the very least not be questioned in whatever it is they do. It literally doesn't matter what the activity is. It can be yoga or cooking: rest assured, there will be some dude who spends the bulk of his time trying to be just as good as he humanly can at one thing, while spending the rest of his time working to ensure that he only does that one thing around other people. Think about how this plays itself out in the business world, for example.

What immediately separates women from men in this regard, however, isn't that women can't be just as good in any particular capacity, but that women by and large don't spend the bulk of their time invested only in one thing. The reality of women's lives is that they don't have the same luxury to do this. In fact, when I reflect on my own life, it is precisely the fact that women were constantly taking care of lots of things around me that I was able to focus so singularly on what I liked to do. This kills me about gender -- how many times guys get really good at something because women are fielding everything else. Totally random examples: I'm reading a biography about Sophia Tolstoy, and it's all the same; if you watch the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, about street artists, it's the same once more.*

Let me reinforce the fact that I am totally this kind of guy, and the more I understand about it, the more it makes my skin crawl. Not because I'm a bad person or because I haven't done useful things with whatever talent I have -- and that's important. Guys who focus narrowly in particular areas frequently have lots to give that everyone can appreciate and celebrate. The problem for me comes when someone like my partner, who works more than full-time, hears what I, someone who only works part-time, have to say about some current affair, only to declare that I'm "so smart" because she had no idea what was even going on. There's a reason for that, and it has zero to do with intelligence, but a lot to do with privilege.

* Yet another documentary where only men go to extreme lengths at the expense, if also with the admiration, of their families can be found by the title Kings of Pastry.

Demonstrating the relevance of ideas

2011-04-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

When I think about the formal political organizations I've been involved in on one hand, and the overwhelming majority of socially aware women in my life on the other, the two just don't fit together very well. The women I know are active doing interesting and constructive things, if not expressly political; while many of the very intelligent "political" types I know are men with whom one can have a very interesting discussion just so long as you both hold the same views in the first place.

Between the two, the political type is always engaged on some level with the broader culture, whether in their "political" capacity they ever bother to admit this (for instance, as an online persona): they participate in mainstream life whether they like it or not; but the women I know don't participate in formal political activity, or eventually move away from it, because they simply don't like it. Why they don't like it has nothing to do with any lack of social awareness on their part, but instead reflects an honest appraisal of their options and a judgment in favor of the kinds of activities that are most fulfilling to them. By and large I have found that the tendency does not draw them toward hanging out with overtly political dudes -- again, my experience -- and the organizations they populate.

And all of this is very healthy I think, because insofar as such organizations fail to demonstrate their relevancy to, say, working class women, why should they deserve to grow? The kinds of social activity that are most meaningful to people, or best meet their needs under the circumstances, are the ones that people are excited to be a part of. If the "one big union" is as relevant an idea today as I believe it has always been throughout the history of industrial capitalism, then surely there is a way of articulating its relevance to women (and other underrepresented workers) in their daily lives. It seems evident to me that we haven't quite hit on this yet in the context of a highly-saturated consumer culture, where commercial distractions can be counted on to obliterate whatever excitement might be found in the lessons of early 20th-century labor struggle. In my view, this is a place to come to, but not the right place to begin, depending on the audiences we want to reach.

Talking about feminism

2011-04-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

It's important for men to talk openly about their relationships with women. That's always going to be the most important part of a project like this one -- just getting men to talk. By and large, this doesn't happen; so I think we have to look at it as a goal in itself, since little else can happen without it.

To some extent this means being flexible enough in focus to accommodate what men honestly want to say when reflecting on their relationships with women. For many men, trying to articulate themselves along feminist lines is daunting enough, without the added expectation of being fluent in considerations of class. So the emphasis for me is on making working class men comfortable in their pursuit of feminism -- in other words, class and feminism coming together in practice, if not immediately in theory.

As I reflect on my own role, I'm a little disappointed I haven't pursued this thinking more aggressively, because I think it's prevented me from saying very much around here lately. And that sucks! So I'm going to try to put more of the raw material from my own life out here, without worrying so much about where it falls or whether it will do any good. I think an inevitable part of being a "feminist man in solidarity with women" is that a lot of the time you aren't going to know this in advance; though this mustn't stop you from trying.

Interview with CDW

2011-04-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

Guest contributor C.D.W. recently left her local branch of the IWW, she wants to stress, for several different reasons; she agrees to speak about one of them here. -- JRB

JRB: What first attracted you to the IWW?

CDW: I had been politically active for years before joining the IWW. I began to feel a sense of disillusionment stemming from Leninist forms of organizing. The Leninist party [model], in my opinion, was not honoring Marxism. I felt a disconnect between the workers and the “party.” My libertarian tendencies had me searching for groups that were less bureaucratic and more “worker” oriented. The IWW takes a nonhierarchical approach to organizing. The IWW does not consider itself separate, or better than workers -- they are the workers! The practice of direct action was also appealing. The IWW did not concern itself with selling newspapers or recruiting party members; it enmeshes itself in workers' struggles. The IWW has a rich history in the labor movement, and its philosophy of inclusiveness was among the first of its kind —- how could one not be attracted to the IWW?

JRB: Did you initially feel that this inclusiveness was extended to women workers?

CDW: I would be lying if I said no. I would never join an organization that is so obviously exclusive. I think most radical organizations have enough awareness about structural issues that they are not overtly discriminatory; most of these groups attempt to mask the inequities within. Power dynamics take time to surface, and are not always easy to identify. Although the composition of the IWW is telling. Women make up only a small fraction of its members. The organization needs to question why it’s not recruiting and/or retaining female members. While I was a member of my local branch, there were only two females. There was a third woman who left prior to my arrival. Although I do not know much about why she left, I know there were allegations of sexism.

JRB: Regarding recruitment and retention, I've often thought along similar lines: What are we doing wrong? Can you think of anything in the culture of the IWW, as you experienced it, that might have been alienating or off-putting for women?

CDW: I'll preface this answer by saying that I do not make any attempt to be a spokesperson for all women in the IWW. Albeit, my experiences in the IWW are not isolated cases within the movement, and may be emblematic of more systemic issues. I will speak more generally and will not use identifiable information -- as to not distract from the more salient issues of patriarchy.

First and foremost, women are vastly underrepresented in the IWW. Women's issues are seldom addressed and tactics to recruit women are almost never employed. The last National Conference was a huge success, and I value my experience and the people I met. However, I do have some complaints. I want to say this carefully, as to not devalue the input and participation of the two or three female speakers. The women who participated on a panel spoke about their “experiences,” whereas male comrades educated participants on theory and the historical struggles of the working class. I make this comparison because higher levels of prestige are associated with more academic types of presentations. During the planning stages of the conference, I expressed interest in leading a workshop on the theoretical basis for organizing in a post-industrial society. My suggestion was shrugged off and no one bothered to get back to me.

Female comrades sometimes fail to receive recognition for their organizing skills and strategic planning. I witnessed a male comrade receiving congratulatory remarks on a project that I worked on diligently. Needless to say, my involvement was not acknowledged.

Sexist attitudes and behaviors of male comrades are often dismissed as non-problematic or are labeled a “miscommunication.” Unfortunately, instead of providing a safe space to express grievances, women have frequently experienced hostility and alienation as a result of speaking up. I want to add that I do not think these incidences are indicative of any particular negative culture within the IWW, but more the remnants of patriarchy found within broader society.

Solidarity Against Sexism On The Shop Floor

2011-03-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

This article originally appeared in the March edition of the Industrial Worker. It does a great job answering many questions relating to sexual harassment, so I wanted to post it here. -- JRB

By Angel Gardner

If there is anything that I have learned from working in the restaurant and retail industry for over 14 years, it is that sexual harassment and sexism in the workplace is an issue that has not gone away. Perhaps you have become more tolerant of being sexually objectified. Maybe you are afraid that being uncomfortable with sexual advances or comments means that you are a prude or hopelessly outdated. The reality is that sexual harassment and sexism are all about power. We feel uncomfortable about standing up for ourselves in these situations because to do so questions power relations; not only in the workplace, but in society in general.

Is it sexual harassment or sexism in the workplace?

• A district manager asks you and your 40-year old female coworker, “Will you girls make us some coffee for our meeting?”

• Your manager makes all the women in the workplace wear tight baby doll t-shirts
which are intentionally a size too small that say, “For a Good Time Call ...” while the men are told to wear plain black polo shirts that do not have to be form-fitting.

• During your training at a retail clothing store, you are told to flirt with potential customers to make sales. You feel uncomfortable with this and despite your efforts to be proactive about sales in a professional way, you are pulled aside later for not being “friendly enough.”

• A conventionally-attractive regular customer often sits at the bar and stares at you throughout your shift and has made several comments about your appearance that make you uncomfortable. When you tell him to stop, he says that you should be flattered. Your boss fails to act and your other coworkers, who appreciate his attention, tell you that you are strange for not liking it.

The answer: If any of these policies, attitudes or behavior makes you feel uncomfortable, then you should not have to deal with it. Everyone’s comfort level is different. Some of your coworkers might not mind being called “girl” or “sweetie,” while others may take offense to being referred to as a “woman” or by any gender-specific pronoun. Different expectations for employee uniforms that force coworkers into stereotyped gender roles are sexist practices that create a potentially hostile workplace. Flirting with customers should never be a given, but a choice. Some people may find that they like the attention and get better tips by flaunting their appearance and flirting, but not everyone should have to interact in a similar fashion. Berating others for what makes them uncomfortable promotes an environment of harassment.

So you feel like a policy or an individual at work is creating a hostile work environment? Going the legal route is not always the best or solitary option. Collectively standing up together with your coworkers against sexist practices, policies or individuals can often be the safest and most powerful way to fight. Though it is technically illegal, it is easier for companies to retaliate against an individual than a group of workers. In addition, sexual harassment cases often result in companies dragging women through the mud and can prove to be very traumatic for the victim. Legal processes can take a long time to resolve, but taking direct action in your workplace is immediate. When workers come together to fight sexual harassment and sexism, we are empowered by taking back the workplace and at the same time, form closer bonds with our coworkers by building mutual trust and respect for one another.

How do I fight sexism and harassment in my workplace?

• Form a coalition with coworkers who share and/or are sympathetic to your concerns. Sexual harassment affects union and non-union members alike, so do not exclude any possible allies.

• Ban customers and clients who are repeat offenders from the store and make sure that the ban is being enforced by the rest of your coworkers.

• Confront your boss as a group about sexual harassment issues (perhaps even a definition) and make it known that you take it very seriously and so should they.

• Confront workers who refuse to support their fellow workers when they feel harassed, violated, or uncomfortable. Have one-on-one conversations about the impact of their actions (not respecting boundaries) and words (“it's not a big deal”), and express your feelings in a genuine, but professional manner.

• Any policy, dress code, or expectations that fellow workers find to be sexist should be addressed, regardless of whether or not you’ve reached consensus. If you are required by your job to wear a tight baby doll t-shirt, but men can wear polos, you should also be able to wear polo, if you do not want to wear the t-shirt.

No revolution without women

2011-03-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

Photo by Delilah

What feminism means for me

2011-03-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

In practical terms, what feminism means for me is meeting people where they are and encouraging them in a direction that fulfills the aspirations of every individual. I'm not sure why feminism has this universal aspect for me; probably because women are overrepresented in the lower tiers of so many social hierarchies: in practice, you can't help but change communities by changing the roles of women. And from my perspective as a man, I can't help but gain from this in my relationships with both women and other men.

I have a hard time understanding arguments that suggest otherwise, as though I benefit by being estranged from the people I love. Yes, I benefit in many ways; but it's kind of like the boss who is asked to give up his $100,000 salary if it means his kids can live in a pollution-free world: once we grasp the connection, we see what there is to gain. A lot of what patriarchy does is to prevent us, as men, from making that connection. A feminist strategy, directed at men, could make a very persuasive case, I think, but only by starting from their assumptions and working toward others they never thought possible. In negotiating these concerns amongst men, I believe male feminist activists will prove invaluable.

Madison: Pro Union, Pro Families, Pro Women, Pro Choice

2011-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

What is Required?

2011-02-25T23:42:00.000-08:00

I'm heading to a protest tomorrow, and this is the text to the leaflet I typed out to bring and distribute.

What is Required?

People are born into a cold world. The uncertainty of life, regardless of one’s religious affiliation or leanings, must be acknowledged. “By the sweat of our brow”, say the workers, “we earn our daily bread and keep” But what does this metaphor mean, now? That I stock a shelf, another repairs vehicles, another waits a table, and so on. The bread comes from the store, where I stock, and was generated by the factory worker, and his material came from the farmer. The house I live in was built by a carpenter. The pipes put in place by a plumber. In short, the metaphor is no longer on bread, but “By the sweat of our brow” What is required is labor.

Required for what? The immediate answer is self reliance and survival. If one does not work in this world, then one will not enjoy the material benefits of it – including the material benefit of bread. Work also gives the benefit of providing for those we love, and earning a self respect. I know that I have value because I have earned that value through work. Though this answer is true, one may then reflect: if there was no stock man, factory worker, or mechanic, would I only be a carpenter? Surely I could construct my own house, and build useful tools, and so on, but would I have the required skill to grow wheat at a requisite level of proficiency? Even above the bare necessities, what of the other things I enjoy? Surely the world we live in is lived in because others work. So it follows that, what is required is not only my own work, but the work of others: And it is required for our society.

If labor is required for our society, then labor should have a say in our society. After all, it was built by labor, and therefore it follows that it justly belongs to labor. There is a catch: labor works in concert, not as isolated units. This is one of the reasons that wealth has been generated. And, even beyond this, if this society belongs to workers, they are often busy working. As such, they often do not have the time to proclaim: “I built this!” However unjust these realities are, they are realities and it is better to build a pragmatic solution than to cave. Then what else is required? Naturally, what we are assembled for today: Unions.

Unions, traditionally and into the future, form the base of labor politics – not Democrats. This is to show that even Democrats are vulnerable to labor politics, and a hope that this will become a reality in the future. Labor needs to be heard. Labor needs power. Not only does it need, but labor is only demanding it’s just earnings in demanding voice and power. What is required then is union power, and the legal blocking of unions from the political process will negate that.

On the back I have attached selections from the Kansas Constitution to highlight in what way this language is not radical, but historically justified. “No special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted by the legislature” – such as the privilege of the rich corporate sector in politics, which this bill would surely grant. “There shall be no slavery in this state” – which labor would be made into were it separated from the political process. “Emoluments or privileges prohibited” – such as the privilege of the rich to have the free time to engage the political engine? One gets a sense of what is required: “This enumeration of rights shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people; and all powers not herein delegated remain with the people.” That power not enumerated is labor power – for economics is a politic.

Practicing a solidarity with women

2011-02-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

How do working class men fulfill their responsibilities as feminists? At first glance, this question seems like an obvious one: as working class men, most of us interact with women on a daily basis. Moreover, as Wobblies we are not unfamiliar with the reality of women’s struggles. But how often is this “obvious” question raised?

Just as the industrial struggle requires coordinated action to achieve working class goals, so too does feminism require its own daily acts of solidarity. Working class men who understand the spirit and practice of solidarity in one realm already possess what they need to apply it in another. They only need the confidence and determination to begin.

More than any other, the concept of solidarity has provided the working class with an affirmative answer to the question of what we are fighting for: we support each other in the face of injustice, in order to create a more just and supportive world. In this sense, solidarity is both the “means to an end,” as well as the “end” in itself. We care about what happens to other people, because this always has implications for us too. Veterans of the class conflict know these truths all too well!

But we should also know that any working class that fails to practice solidarity between any of its constituent parts – like that between men and women – leaves itself that much further from its stated goals. We have to remember that building the new society in the shell of the old means establishing now the kinds of practices that we hope to develop more fully in the future. Feminism can help us address one problem area that is ever-present in our daily lives.

As working class men of the IWW, we know the appropriate response to a call for solidarity from others in the broader labor movement, especially when they are engaged in a workplace action. It isn’t something we usually need to deliberate over, fight about, or otherwise render ourselves “missing in action” because we don’t agree with the leadership or ideology of the affected group. The world and its circumstances may not conform to our preferences or expectations, but we know well enough to offer support when it is asked of us – and that is very much to our credit. Extending ourselves in solidarity to others when they are in need creates possibilities for dialogue that might not be available when we neglect to do so.

Working class men who want to establish genuine ties of solidarity to women’s struggles will have to emulate this “openness of spirit” when it is women who are asking for help and support, and to remain cognizant of the fact that many times support is welcome even if it isn’t explicitly asked for. The principle of solidarity remains the same: we give the affected individual or group the benefit of the doubt and offer support, even if the situation is complicated by other legitimate concerns.

One important way that we practice solidarity with other labor activists that should be replicated in our relations with women is, first and foremost, to listen to what they are telling us. Again, as Wobblies it would be very strange to approach another union with a different organizing model by second-guessing the claims it was making from a picket line. We know that it is inappropriate to make firm determinations about what somebody else is going through, in a situation that primarily affects them. But when it comes to our relations with women, the “boss” role that is given to men by patriarchy may lead us into a false sense of confidence of “knowing what is best” – for example, in a situation where an experience is shared by both men and women, but interpreted differently.

Our everyday interactions with women are no doubt complicated by the fact that, as working class men, we are often implicated in the same situations equally. Unlike in the case of a strike action undertaken by others, if a female activist has the courage to raise questions of sexism in her organization, it might be easy for the men to think, “Well, I was there too, and I don’t think sexism has anything to do with it.” Both may have firsthand experience to back up their perceptions, but in the case of the men, they may not be assuming general conditions of patriarchy as the woman does.

These aren’t easy or straightforward problems to address in practice, but working class men have a lot to contribute in moving us all in the right direction. One of the best approaches comes from our own tradition as Wobblies: by extending the practice of solidarity to all members of the working class. This necessarily includes women, and it is a development that is ready to be advanced, just as soon as we are ready to carry it forward.

Pro-Choice Unions - Pro-choice Allies

2011-02-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks to FUG for posting "Kansas Politics and Blog for Choice Day". I'm here in Canada, and the anti-choice backlash isn't as strong as the continued push in the US of A. There are stealth anti-choice bills that regularly get sent to the parliment, but they have been as of now defeated. Also, what would be unthinkable in the USA, Henry Morgentaler, physician and prominent pro choice advocate who has fought numerous legal battles for that cause was recently awarded the the highest civilian order that can be awarded.

I would like to put some questions out there, without really having the answers, in the hopes of sparking some debate. I agree with FUG that strengthening an effective Pro-Choice Movement can be one avenue in developing a greater socialist-feminist-class consciousness. My questions are:

1) how can we as a workers union help develop a pro-choice practice and support?
2) How can we as men help develop a pro-choice practice and support?

I'm really not sure where to start, as these questions are fundamental to our place within a growing feminist, pro-choice movement.

In terms of question #2, I'd just like to share this piece from Feminist Allies blog. It speaks largely to our role as men and how abortion interacts with patriarchy:

As a male, I’ll never have an abortion. One of the privileges of
my sex is that I will never enter an abortion clinic as a patient.
However, according to Dr. Leroy Carhart, a friend and
associate of Dr. Tiller’s, “men have had unlimited availability to
‘abortion’ since the beginning of time. Men can walk away from
unwanted pregnancies with virtually no response from
government.”

Hope more folks will chime in and help with the answering of these questions.

Race/Sex/Gender Traitor: A Tool for Workplace Feminist Direct Action

2011-01-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I work in a masculine workplace environment; the meat department of a super market. All the butchers/Meat Cutters are middle aged/elderly men. Most of the traying/clean-up, and support staff are young men, and the counters wrappers/counters/frozen foods and Deli are women.

Working with meat, it can often lead to terrible sexual innuendos and "laddish" humor. "What kind of sausage do you like". Most time, it can roll off your back, sometimes not. Complaints to management don't end up anywhere, only "we'll talk to him, but this is a meat department, it is how it is".

One elderly (76) can take the jokes to far and often goes into harassment. What were once "laddish" jokes become attacks on gays, women, and other minorities. And unfortunately, for a time they were directed at me (with implications of how I was gay and how it was wrong or a problem to the workplace).

So, I took the question to our IWW branch: what to do when you're under attack? A FW brought up the idea he read in the magazine Race Traitor: deny your whiteness, be a traitor to your straightness.

The next time he tried to make jokes about gayness at my expense, I told him "But I am gay, whats the problem?" His face was went red, "but... you have a wife?!" I said "doesn't not make me gay".

He shut up. Hasn't made those awful jokes since. I know he hasn't changed his mind, and I don't expect him to (a co-worker once told me how he warned her that if gay marriage is accepted, "gays will break into your home and steal" her new-born son.) Still, within the workplace it allowed the worst excesses of a common masculinist workplace culture to be tempered.

As I see it, it was an important, individual direct action, an attempt to deny my own privilege as a white-straight-male and declare my solidarity with the struggles for equality. But such individual actions will never change the dominate paradigm in our workplaces. Only though true organization (not UFCW business unionism), solidarity on the ground and radical eduction/culture, can such changes have a real and lasting effect.

Kansas Politics and Blog for Choice Day

2011-01-21T20:48:00.001-08:00

What Blog for Choice Day is: On January 21st (I'm barely getting in on time) this website asked bloggers everywhere to answer the following question:

Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?

News on what the new leadership in Kansas is doing: link

With news like this, how can I not be concerned about the future of pro-choice legislation?

Now, this may not seem, on its face, to be the most all-inclusive answer, since I'm discussing local politics. But if you read the link, you'll see that Kansas is trying to play the same card that California tried to play with gay marriage, only they're trying to repeal Roe v. Wade. And, since Sebelius left office, Kansas has turned RED. Kansas City had usually maintained a blue outline, but the Tea Party movement, in conjunction with other factors I'm sure, have turned the state deeply conservative.

Now, what does this have to do with feminism and labor? Pro-choice is the only sensible stance as a political feminist, because anything that restricts choice creates a power differential between men and women, thereby reinforcing the patriarchy. The moral choice is only such a choice when it is a choice. The political stance, as a feminist, must be directed towards equalizing power relations between the genders.

As such I think it behooves the labor movement to vocally stand up for reproductive rights. This is a power issue which can help to build a left movement for an actual socialist state, as opposed to a Democratic bourgeois state -- the current standard for leftists in the states. If a labor-based left movement wants power, then the left is going to have to embrace other issues of importance to the left. Abortion rights go hand in hand with labor feminist politics.

Sexuality, women, and work

2011-01-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

At work there is a cork board meant for union business that has become the permanent residence of a dozen or so entertainment section cut-out "hotties" -- or "bitches" as my colleagues describe them in a sincere tone of reverence and admiration.

I've been careful to gauge the response of the larger work group, which ranges from appreciation to ambivalence in the case of the men, and perplexity with regards to the women.

"Why are they so interested in imaginary women? They won't know what to do with a real woman. I don't see the point," was the verdict of one woman in particular.

I thought it was an interesting reaction, because the sentiment didn't deny the importance of sexuality between men and women, even in the context of work; it just wanted it to exist between real people.

This got me thinking about why men are so easily drawn away from what is, or could be, real between themselves and women; and why they show this preference for fantasies they could never achieve. It's almost as if they don't believe they could ever have, or don't deserve, an intimacy with women that comes close to whatever ideas they have about women in their heads. Or maybe it just has to do with controlling the terms unilaterally.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, since I have an advantage in having experienced this myself throughout life: I have known the appeal of content produced by men about women; all the many varieties of pornography -- both as a product and as a way to sell products.

Once I started writing seriously about feminism I feel like something in my brain changed in how I relate to such content, maybe because I finally understood it. Or maybe I am just older, and less prone to trifling sexual distractions (in which case I cannot take too much credit!). Whatever the case, it's very hard for me to look at commercial advertising or pornography and not be awake to the fact that, in all likelihood, some very unappealing dudes are writing the script.

Between these dudes and the women in my life, who even as workplace acquaintances are saying "I'm real: If you're so interested in women, why don't you try talking to one?" the choice is straightforward.

One of the complicating factors, however, is that when straight sexuality is almost exclusively narrated by unappealing dudes, as a guy you can become hyper-suspicious of your sexuality altogether. That's no fun, either; certainly not for your partner, at least. This is another area where I think, as a guy, you have to step back from making unilateral judgments about what is or isn't appropriate, and acclimate yourself to making choices in concert with the people you care about.

Comrades

2011-01-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

Guest contributor C.D.W. hits on some themes that have resonated with me since I joined the Industrial Workers of the World. Chief among these is the idea that an organization like the IWW should bring with it a different way of relating to one another than what you're going to get everywhere else. We are building the new society in the shell of the old, remember! Sadly, I haven't seen a lot of that; and some of what I've seen is actually worse than what I put up with on a daily basis at work. Surely we can't expect that people will be drawn to our organizations if what they offer is worse than what we are fighting against!

Women should feel like the IWW is a place where who they are and what they can do is celebrated and affirmed. If male-identified Wobs could commit themselves to even one female member of their branch who they aren't romantically invested in and ask themselves "What does this person require for the IWW to remain relevant for them?" that might be a big first step.

A More Personal Account

2011-01-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

In regards to the discourse on women’s struggles, there is a tendency to overlook the emotional and/or psychological effects of patriarchy on women. We focus on seemingly abstract concepts of power and control, and discuss concrete examples of oppression, inequality, and violence. Although these topics need to remain on the forefront of discussion, we should also be mindful of how patriarchy affects the emotional and psychological health of women in society.

From youth, women are socialized to be less than. Cartoons and childhood storybooks mirror normative behaviors and gender roles: men are the strong protectors and women are weak and in need of protecting. Commercials and magazines frequently depict half-naked women in provocative poses. We are taught that our bodies are for pleasuring and amusing men. We learn to equate love with objectification, violence, and exploitation. Women quickly realize that we live in a “man’s” world, and that to achieve any level of success and respect, we’d have to work twice as hard.

Recent studies have revealed that one in six American women have experienced a sexual assault, and one in four women have survived some form of domestic abuse. As a counselor at a domestic violence and sexual assault center, I can testify to the high level of emotional support needed after such acts of violence. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can attest that the effects of trauma are life-long.

For the men out there: Imagine growing up “female” in a society where the victimization and objectification of women is commonplace. Imagine yourself as a young girl-a girl who is inundated with sexual depictions of women. Very few images exist of strong, smart, professional women. As a young girl in a patriarchal society, even those closest to you mirror what was learned in storybooks: men are the authority and women should obey. Sadly in such a society, you have few role models exemplifying healthy, egalitarian relationships. In addition to the above mentioned, imagine yourself as a victim of sexual assault or physical abuse. The combined effects of socialization and victimization weigh heavy on your psyche. Your sense of self-efficacy and self-worth are diminished. You have learned your role in society: you are an object.

You may be wondering what this has to do with radical groups like the I.W.W. I would respond by saying that it has everything to do with groups like the I.W.W. The organization is comprised of both men and women. It is highly likely that many of the women in the organization will bring with them a history of trauma-whether the trauma was an act of violence, discrimination, or experiences of objectification. Many women join radical communities because of their past. We want to help others by creating an egalitarian society, and we expect those we work with to share similar values and ideals. Whether naively or not, we expect male comrades to understand how patriarchy functions and anticipate that groups like the I.W.W will be a safe haven from the discrimination, objectification, and violence we endure in broader society. Unfortunately, my experience has shown otherwise. Mirroring our experiences in broader society, women in the movement are victims of violence and repeatedly find themselves combating sexism and male chauvinism. The emotional damage created by the behaviors of male comrades can be even more devastating because we expect more from men in these circles.

If women cannot find respite in radical groups like the I.W.W, what hope do we have for systemic change? Radical women find themselves overwhelmed from combating a force that seems too powerful to overcome. Patriarchy can only be irradiated if both women and men take an active role dismantling it.

Despite the pessimistic tone of the article, I do maintain hope. I came across this blog and was immediately taken aback by the honesty of the men writing. The men in this blog are willing to take an honest look at not only their own behaviors, but the behaviors of other men in the movement. Hopefully the dialogue in this blog will pave the way for further conversations and subsequent change not only within the I.W.W. but within the movement.

-C.D.W.

Introducing Myself

2011-01-12T15:53:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd write a brief post to introduce myself to the blog, and thank Ryan for inviting me along.

I am a chemistry student who lives in Kansas. I've been involved in other political groups, and while I am a socialist I have not been involved in labor politics outside of personal advocation. I have been involved in feminist politics through the campus' philosophy club, which has discussed feminism, gay rights, atheism, and science. I had the privilege to participate in a public debate on abortion, arguing that abortion is generally a moral decision. I've also participated with an on campus anti-genocide group. Maybe all of this at once seems a little ridiculous as I'm trying to show off my credentials, but I wanted to show that while I haven't been in labor politics yet I have a little experience with public politics and I want to get involved with the IWW.

I hope to build some ties here to the labor movement in the United States, because the Midwest needs it! Further, I think there's a lot of potential for bridging between leftish groups, such as feminism and labor, and I thought this blog to be the perfect place to try and find and keep that sort of inter-group building.

As for feminism: I can't say I always was. In fact, one would be fair to say that I fit a fairly stereotypical pattern for a Kansas male with regards to women. But along the way I got to thinking, and I think that this pattern was damaging to myself and my relationships with others, even if it may have facilitated some ground-level immediate understanding, and so I decided I wanted to change that.

My experiences in calling myself a feminist thus far have revealed a few things. Some persons don't respect men that are feminists, some do. It tends to put you in a different crowd. But one thing in particular that struck me was that it's easier for me to say I'm a feminist than for a woman to do so. When a woman does so, even though it's obviously not the case, the immediate description that people generally leap to is an undesirable one. With me, as a man, people generally just don't know what to say. I'm a pretty open guy, and I'm friendly about it, so they may go for a playful ribbing, or just give me a "huh?" expression, which gives me an opportunity to explain myself. So, even in the realm of feminism, it seems that I have the easier job. Go fig! I'm not sure what to do about it -- as I said, I'm pretty open about myself, and I continue to say what I say when it seems appropriate to do so. But talk about a bad gig for the women.

Undercover feminist

2011-01-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

Don't tell anyone, but today my relationship with feminism is on the DL. If you ask me, I will not reveal any information. I will only direct you to the nearest woman and encourage you to listen closely for any top secrets she has to reveal. For this you must be specially trained in the ancient art of not interrupting. Being an undercover feminist is not easy: the more you say, the fewer top secrets you will discover. For example, Top Secret #1: Is this person on the same page with you about anything? You will want to know the answer to this before you speak in long sentences in their presence. To err at this stage could prove disastrous, as it forms the basis for everything that is to come. I know: sometimes the odds seem insurmountable. But that is the price we pay for good intelligence.

A liberated man

2011-01-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

It has dawned on me that I no longer want to pimp my feminism to an audience that is already down with feminism -- because really, who wants to hear about how "feminist" I am? I'm not interested in persuading anybody who already identifies feminist. My friend, you are on your own path, and we both have to respect that. As long as we can wave to each other every so often, or converge for a snack, all is as it should be!

How "feminist" I am is a daily choice, and it is not a particularly glamorous one. I make it glamorous, because it is important to adorn oneself with romance, particularly when folding the laundry. There are lots of necessary things to be done, but too often as a dude I don't do them. Truly, I am of dudely stock: I would sooner starve and root in the squalor of some big idea than endeavor to clean the shower or plan a meal. How in the world does a dude become such a dude?

Like so many things, however, what is appropriate in one context may not apply in another. I will never be one to out-feminist the feminists, in any room full of feminists. Please reserve that distinction for whoever wants it. If only I could out-feminist the anti-feminists, that would really be something.

Family feminist blitzkrieg postponed

2010-12-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

If I were to rate my feminist activity over the holiday I would give myself one thumb up. After all, I am biased. Mostly I found myself in the all-too-familiar position of "hanging out" while the women of the family organized and executed everything. I complimented them profusely and did some dishes. At one point I was told that I didn't need to do the dishes. I think that is a very interesting statement, in light of the fact that somebody does. But compliments are always well received. There seems to be something happening between the men and women in my family when it comes to meal preparation: if men really like the meal, this validates all the work women put into it. There are a lot of ways in which families kind of suck, quite frankly. That is why I sit by the fire and make myself keenly preoccupied with the dog.

Introducing a feminism for men

2010-12-22T13:33:00.000-08:00

Industrial Worker

When we think about feminism amongst the working class, the people we usually think about are women. Feminism, after all, is understood as the struggle for the liberation of women in much the same way that industrial unionism is conceived in terms of the struggle for the liberation of the working class.

All too often, however, the role that working class men might play as feminists is not adequately defined. As Wobbly men, we might hold feminist values, but we may not know what to do with them in concrete terms. This is a frustrating experience for those of us who would like to establish real ties of solidarity to women's struggles, much like the ones we extend to other workers -- even when they are struggling under circumstances very different than our own.

Identifying our role as feminists can be less intuitive than knowing our role as unionists: as unionists, we experience class subjugation directly; but as men, our relationship to the subjugation of women is ambiguous. After all, there always exists the possibility that we are contributing to the problem, somehow, even in spite of ourselves.

Working class men should be reassured that this problem is not insurmountable. There is a necessary role for us within feminism; and what’s more, men have something to offer feminism that even women can’t provide. This is the perspective of someone who directly experiences patriarchy as a man, but who utilizes this awareness as a feminist.

Patriarchy is a big word and complicated affair. However, to afford us a familiar starting point from which to proceed, let us think about patriarchy as being not unlike the kind of hierarchy we know so well at work. At work, there is a boss that tells us what to do, enjoys privileges we don't, and who is free of responsibilities that we bear alone. Patriarchy, in other words, is a form of authority which assigns the role of “boss” to men.

Like bosses in the workplace, when a person occupies a formal position of authority over others, this doesn’t tell us everything about what kind of person they are, or what their first preferences might be. But like bosses who were promoted from the ranks of the working class by their employers, the role that patriarchy assigns to men isn’t something they choose. It is how their responsibilities are dictated by that system. But men don’t even “apply” for the job of patriarch; it is thrust upon them, and they often enjoy its benefits before they know what is going on, by the simple virtue of being “men.” Furthermore, most men don’t have the option to “quit” being men, strictly speaking -- as a manager might quit being a manager once he grasps the moral implications of class struggle.

If we think about men under patriarchy as being like managers who are forever condemned to be bosses until that system is destroyed, then the responsibilities appropriate for feminist men are easier to discern. Namely, it is incumbent upon us to actively resist our assigned role as “boss.” We can’t be neutral on this moving train -- and identifying as “feminist” is only the first step. Active resistance means anticipating what patriarchy is trying to accomplish and directing our actions accordingly -- namely, in solidarity with its intended victims. If patriarchy wants us to actively or passively endorse our boss-like authority or privileges, we need to identify what these are and reject them.

Much of the practical work of feminism for working class men begins at the individual level; it means examining our relationships with women in order to identify the ways in which our behavior might impact them like the behavior of a boss. For example, do we tell them what to do, enjoy privileges they don’t, or escape responsibilities that they bear alone? Once we start asking ourselves these questions in our relationships with women, we create the practical possibilities for modifying our behavior: we can reject the role patriarchy has assigned us as “men,” and create our own as individuals. But this takes quite a bit of work and introspection, as well as a readiness to hear the critical concerns of women as they are addressed to us.

In future installments, this column will address the relationship between feminism and the class struggle for men from a variety of perspectives; underscoring how this can contribute to the work of women feminists, and ultimately inform the feminist and class struggles at large. Specific strategies, including workplace organizing as a feminist activity, will receive special attention.

This initiative wants you to write for it so that the benefit of your direct experiences can be shared with others as they relate to the interwoven struggles of all of us within the working class.

The Wages for Housework Campaign

2010-12-20T11:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Nate for the links in the past post. One of the ones I really enjoyed was Dorothy Sue Cobble, “‘A Spontaneous Loss of Enthusiasm’: Workplace Feminism and the Transformation of Women’s Service Jobs in the 1970s” which touches on an important feminist workplace campaign that was fought for in the 1970s: The Wages for Housework Campaign. This campign spelling out how housework and other caring work women do outside of the market produces the whole working class, thus the market economy, based on those workers, is built on women’s unwaged work.

American feminist Pat Mainardi pointed out in The Politics of Housework that even if it takes only one hour's work per day to attend to a person's domestic needs (a very low estimate), men who offload this work onto women gain seven hours per week, almost a whole working day. And women lose those hours. Working fathers gain leisure, earning-power, authority, status and choices, while stay-at-home mother had housework. This unfairness was no coincidence: the analysis of the "WfH Campaign", men's privileges existed because women d0 housework.

I think that this is an important campign to study, especially for the IWW. As far as I know, the IWW is one of the only union confederations that have a section for unwaged home-makers (antiquated term, sorry): The Household Service Workers I.U. 680. Of course, this section is inactive at the moment, but would be a amazing base point in developing a feminist unionism. "Wages for Housework" would be key to this union.

Back To The Future: Feminist Struggles Against Waged Work

2010-12-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

I want to point out three suggested readings. Two are articles at the excellent Caring Labor blog, an article about the Canadian feminist union SORWUC, and an article by the historian Dorothy Sue Cobble about feminism and service-sector work. The third suggestion is the set of material in the "work" section of the online archive of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. Much of these articles deals with underappreciated and understudied aspects of the past. Specifically, these articles describe attempts at building powerful fighting organizations that confronted power in waged workplaces and which were informed by feminist values and women's concerns.

Ths material is worth reading for its own sake, for the way it speaks to current concerns with workplace organizing and with feminism. I've been writing a series of pieces on workplace organizing and feminism (the most recent piece is here and contains links to the rest of the pieces so far). Past experiences of this sort of struggle have lessons to teach us that we can and should use in the present.

It's also worth reading this material because we need a past. That is, we could use a sense of past feminist struggles on the job, as part of present feminist struggles on the job. I think many of us have inherited a limited understanding of feminism, of the possibilities of feminism. As part of this we've also inherited a partial understanding of the activities of actually existing feminists. This can shape our impulses in the present when it comes to activity. It's easy to feel like being a feminist means doing a few things and it's easy not to associate feminism with other activities - like workplace organizing and other attempts to build organizations of working class people who seek to exert power. This can lead feminists to neglect workplace organizing and lead workplace organizers to overlook the feminist components of their activity. A better grasp of the history of feminist struggles on the job and against waged work would help enrich our activities in the present and help us see various ways our organizing fits into a broader feminist agenda.

Social freedom

2010-12-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

Ramblings of a Feminist:

Questions have arisen regarding the roles men should play in eliminating women’s oppression. Patriarchy is not solely a female problem. Patriarchy negatively affects both men and women in society. As a system of domination, patriarchy limits human potential -- advancement based on the subjugation of others is not progression at all; it’s simply a process that allows certain inequities to be addressed while ignoring others. With that said, men have a duty to address patriarchy in their personal lives and communities.

I would go on to say that men have a stake in creating free relationships with other people, if for no other reason than to finally experience freedom themselves. What happens between people should only be limited by what they choose, not by what society demands.

Much of my own motivation in this area comes from drawing a connection between how impoverished my life can sometimes feel, on one hand; and the arbitrary limitations placed on women, on the other. Those limitations affect me directly -- if differently than how they impact women.

Tim Wise>>> The Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility

2010-12-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

Tim Wise is probably one of the best speakers on white male privilege (and how to combat it as a white male) in America. The following is a clip from an October 6 speech in Detroit, for the Michigan Roundtable, in response to a question from the audience about so-called "white guilt" (Which I would argue is a right-wing talking point used to justify there own privilege and doing nothing about it):

The Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility – Video Clip 10/6/10

Recognize and record

2010-12-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday one colleague approached another: "Come here, [colleague's name]. Let this white man violate you!" He threw his arms around her and they laughed as though a good time were had by all.

Except by me. Afterward the woman asked, "Are you okay, [my name]?"

Anarchism vs. feminism?

2010-12-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

reposted from ladypoverty

BroadSnark:

Cindy Milstein, at a recent event in Baltimore, described [feminism] in less negative terms. She said that the anarcho-adjectives symbolized not preference, but passion. That’s fine. If you are extra passionate about injustice related to gender oppression, more power to you. But I am not. I may identify more when I hear about the injustices and abuses faced by women, but I am not more passionate about doing something about those injustices than I am about injustices due to race or class or disability or anything else.

I would take it one step further than Cindy Milstein and suggest that "passions" are best informed by people's individual experiences; and, moreover, our circumstances are to a considerable extent not what we "choose."

People can be passionate about wanting to address every conceivable kind of oppression, and identify themselves in these terms; but in practice they will only have the kind of direct experience to speak, or act, in a leadership capacity on a few. As soon as we step out of what we experience on a daily basis and get drawn into circumstances which primarily affect others, we have to defer on some level to how they understand their own experiences.

We've certainly seen how the tendency to preference our own struggles can assume many illegitimate forms. But that doesn't mean it's inappropriate for middle-class white feminists, for example, to be committed to addressing the problems that they know best. It's inappropriate for them to be completely self-consumed; but it's also inappropriate for them to pretend to be something they're not.

In my view, the harmony between anarchism and feminism is implied insofar as anarchism concerns itself with authority, and feminism is aimed at authority in a particular form (that which subjugates women). People will use whatever terms or labels they like; particular women will distinguish their circumstances from others, etc.; but the principle remains the same.

Renewing the industrial union

2010-12-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

This blog is fortunate to have several contributors who approach the issue of feminism from different perspectives. My co-contributors are seasoned Wobblies whose presence is felt within the larger organization in a variety of ways. In comparison, I am a newcomer with very little Wobbly "cred." And that's actually an awesome thing to be, because lots of people are in the same situation -- or else we want them to be as soon as possible!

There's a real advantage to be able to look at an organization like the IWW, which appeals to so many on the basis of its history, practices, and ideals; and give an unsloganed opinion about how well it functions in practice, at least for us. Newer members, who still haven't found their place in the organization, or who still haven't overcome the hurdle of making the sort of lasting commitment which defines veteran Wobs, can provide us with vital information about what the union looks like from their perspective. And that's important, because these people are the most important within the organization if we want it to grow.

If the IWW is going to grow as a popular organization it will have to defer in some ways to popular preferences. In many ways, it already does -- in its vision for a world without bosses, for example. What could be more popular than that? But in other ways, a sister Wob said it best when she recounted the description that other, non-Wob women organizers conveyed to her: to them, the IWW was male-dominated and "anachronistic."

If I'm honest with myself, almost nobody I know who isn't already well-versed in radical left history is going to understand the possible relevance of the IWW in their life -- not even with the benefit of someone like me as a family member, laying it out in 10-minute tutorials every time I see them; hammering the points in a blog everyday of my life; or otherwise attempting to patiently make the case. Of course, I'm open to the possibility that I am not the most effective salesperson, or that workers who self-identify as "professionals" and who never quite learned what a "union" is will require extra effort. The problem is that this is the situation that so many of us find ourselves in: if we don't have the skills to make the case to the average person, we need to develop them quick.

We need to turn to newcomers and outsiders for what they can teach us. If we aren't appealing to people effectively enough then we should be thinking about what we can do to change that. This has nothing to do with questioning our fundamental principles: our principles are among the few things that have consistently seen us through. But if our language or our practices or our general presentation to those who are more likely to identify as "consumers" than "workers" isn't viable, we have to think more about how a revolutionary industrial unionism can thrive in a culturally "post-industrial" age. To this end, feminism is an essential practice.

Many hands lighten the load

2010-12-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

Ramblings of a Feminist:

I have been politically active for nearly a decade. Over the course of the years, I’ve been a member of several leftist organizations -- ranging from Leninist parties to groups structured around anarchist principles. Despite some fundamental differences in political ideology and strategy, the roles of women in these organizations remain eerily similar: women are reduced to tokenism. Women are largely underrepresented in leftist organizations -- a problem seldom addressed by male comrades. Even more problematic is that women who choose to participate in leftist groups often find themselves channeled into designated roles as “caretakers” or “poster girls.”

Because people tend to become preoccupied with their own struggles, it's not surprising that people with greater privilege also tend to shape collective action in their own image.

It's probably appropriate that straight white dudes like myself have always been preoccupied with a relation like class, for example, since the workplace is the one realm where we experience subjugation in a direct way. We experience this for ourselves, so we get very good at focusing on it as a result. It's not hard to see why we might even come to regard it as the prevailing relation which governs everything else: we don't experience "everything else" in a primary way.

In some ways, anarchism has given North American dudes like me the theoretical room to at least acknowledge the primacy of other struggles for other people, without taking away from what we know best. Subsequently, there is a lot of energy spent on acknowledging every conceivable category of oppression, or name-dropping a few big ones -- race! class! gender! -- as if to demonstrate that none are neglected.

And yet in practice we get a lot of the same outcomes, with progressive organizations reflecting the concerns of wonderful people like myself, while alienating our closest allies -- people who are in perfect agreement on problems of capitalism, the state, war, etc.; but who can't find a place to be honest with us about how our behavior impacts them. In consequence, they leave.

There are a few things that each of us can do well. Insofar as we find ways of working together, we can do many things well. It's not appropriate for anyone in particular to speak with theoretical authority on every kind of oppression, or for individuals to compete for this role. It's appropriate for people to think and act in response to the kinds of oppressions that face them, or that they are enjoined to perform. Our organizations would be a lot healthier if everyone focused on the relations that they know, let others do the same, and became comfortable moving between teacher/student roles rather than assigning these to a permanent hierarchy.

As men, we need to let go of the compulsion to be pedantic uber-activists, and let women bring to our organizations the kind of energy, perspective, and commitment that, by working together, might transform them from marginal entities into vibrant social groups that more people want to be a part of.

Lessons of the patriarch

2010-11-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

Older men, on the other hand, often serve as a reminder of what we are left with when we choose patriarchy instead of working towards a solidarity with women. Just to look at them is to break my heart. I usually get a good dose of this around the holidays.

One of the elder patriarchs in my extended family could be a very impressive person, all the more so in the twilight of his life. Why don't men understand that they will grow old, get sick, and die? This bastard hasn't lifted a finger in preparation. But his advancing years won't accommodate him like his partner always has. Now he feels cheated, having done everything he was "supposed" to do as a man; namely, to assert himself as such, and reap the benefits thereof!

I'm desperate for any male mentor who speaks from the advantage of a life lived in close proximity to death. What do I need to be doing now, while I can still choose? But most of these older men are stuck as if they still want to be boys. They can't even acknowledge where they are, except to complain.

It saddens me to say that many male elders exist for me as brilliant examples of what I must avoid at all costs! Of course, this is helpful in its own way; tragedies often are. Where some men bicker with others over petty, prideful things, I will have to practice simple humility. Where they are self-consumed, I'll have to be outwardly-engaged. And where they are estranged from their partners and loved ones, to say nothing of women in general, I know that I will want closeness.

Private lives

2010-11-29T12:33:00.000-08:00

Many of the most interesting women I know are in their 80s and 90s, and I'm often comforted by the idea that in spite of all that was put on them as younger women they managed to keep what was necessary for themselves while discarding much of the rest. I hope this option will remain available for younger women today, who can seem profoundly insecure in comparison, no thanks I am sure to the degree of scrutiny attached to them at all times.

When Diversity Is Power

2010-11-23T23:12:00.000-08:00

When Diversity Is Power

I've been writing about workplace organizing, arguing that not all workplace organizing is not always a feminist and anti-racist activity but that it can be. So far I've been talking about this from the perspective of feminist and anti-racist values, talking about some things that we as feminists and anti-racists can and should think about with regard to workplace organizing. I have sometimes heard people say basically “if we don’t have a clear anti-racist and feminist agenda, we will not be able to organize!” I don’t think that’s actually true. There are racist and sexist organizations in the world and some of them are flourishing. We don’t hold our values primarily because they help us win campaigns. We’re committed to our feminist and anti-racist values because they are our values, because they’re right. In some cases, these values are in tension with building our organizations – sometimes it might be easier to pander to existing racism and sexism among people, not that we are willing to do that.

All of that said, I want to think about this in another direction. Some of the time, a feminist and anti-racist agenda really is a pressing need in order to win an organizing drive. Even if some people we're working with are not feminists or anti-racists, they still have short term interests that fit with an anti-racist and feminist agenda. This allows us greater opportunities to move that agenda. I’ve talked a bit about this before in relation to my experiences with a multi-racial group of hospital janitors. The janitors moved from being divided along racial and gender lines to having relationships of solidarity across those lines.

Those ties between people are a good thing, as I argued. They were also immediately important in that organizing - they weren't just morally good, if we hadn't prioritized building those relationships the boss would have stomped all over us.

What I mean is, in workplaces with diverse workplaces, we have only two options: find ways to build solidarity across divisions and be stronger, or be divided and weaker. In concrete terms, this means that in workplace organizing we need to have representative committees of workers. Whatever the demographics of the workplace, the committee has to represent that. If the committee doesn’t look like the workplace, the boss will use this.

Bosses tend to be very aware of divisions among workers, and often help maintain those divides. The boss will say – or get spies to say - “the union is just for white people” or some other group. If the organization is not representative – that is, if there’s some element of truth to what the boss says – then we will have a hard time countering this.

The need to build a representative committee can sometimes conflict with two impulses we might have. For one thing, people sometimes feel like white people can’t organize people of color, or men can’t organize women, and so on. I’ve talked about this before in earlier columns. There are important dynamics that we do want to be aware of, but we also have to organize our co-workers. Some of the time people hang back because of ideas about who can organize whom. That’s a problem and can lead to less representative committee. Aside from that, we often have an impulse to trust workers. Of course we should do that, but at the same time we have push them and we can’t just take what they say at face value. As we all know, the working class is divided. People often don’t have strong relationships beyond their social circles. People may not realize this clearly, but once organizing starts many people are hesitant to reach beyond their immediate social circles. We have to push people to do this, and we have to be systematic about it. Otherwise, the committee risks looking like (or worse, actually being) a clique.

The more diverse a workplace is, the more pressing it is that we build organizations that bridge the various groups in that workplace. In these instances, feminist and anti-racist values are often build directly into workplace organizing. We have to overcome divisions or the organizing is doomed.

Countering sexism in the workplace

2010-11-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

There are several women at my job who are regularly subjected to what I would call sexual harassment; one of whom has complained to me in the same terms. In none of these cases do the women involved appear prepared to pursue any legal, or even administrative recourse (e.g. physical separation from offending individuals, which could be accomplished routinely), and maintain their working relationships as normal.

I don't want to tolerate sexual harassment or sexism in general in my workplace, so I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to call my coworkers on it without precipitating administrative action that my female colleagues aren't prepared for; but even this means intervening in relationships that aren't strictly mine to address. There's certainly justification in addressing that portion of the behavior which affects me now, but a long-term strategy might be better served by a coordinated approach between mutually concerned colleagues.

Anyone with any insights or advice into these kinds of problems is encouraged to share them below.

Speak Gently, Speak Firmly, Speak to be Heard

2010-11-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

It's Not Enough to be Right: Speak Gently, Speak Firmly, Speak to be Heard

I've been writing a pieces on workplace organizing as a feminist and anti-racist activity. It's not always this kind of activity, but it can be. Feminists and anti-racists should think about ways in which organizing on the job is a part of struggling against oppression. All of these pieces are rough drafts; this piece is even less finished than the others. Comments are definitely welcome, especially comments that help me extend and flesh out the main points. In this piece I talk about another way that workplace organizing speaks to the feminist and anti-racist values that many of us hold. This in particular is connected with dealing with problematic behaviors among people we are organizing with -- the working class is full of contradictions and working class people often have problematic behavior. In our organizing we have to be ready to deal with these problems in ways that are constructive. Otherwise we don't actually address those contradictions.

As I’ve discussed before, one of the formative experiences I had early on was involvement in Take Back The Night. The group I was part of had many women and queer leaders. Growing up where, when, and how I did I had some baggage – some attitudes and behaviors and some ignorance – that I’m not proud of. Through my involvement in Take Back The Night I met some amazing people who impressed me very much. I’m lucky that these people responded to my baggage the way they did. They didn’t let me off the hook for anything, but they also didn’t attack me. I don’t know what they thought but I’d like to think that they called me out while also keeping me involved, because they saw me as having some potential.

The reason I raise all this is that I want to talk about calling people out. I’ve often heard people say things like “We have no tolerance for this sort of thing!” and so on when it comes to problem behavior. In my experience this kind of thing comes up a lot in particular with feminist men and anti-racist white people. I’m for this – people should be called out for their problematic behavior, we should not find racist and sexist behavior acceptable. At the same time, I think the way we call people out and the reason why we do so matters very much.
Sometimes people call others out for problem behavior in a self-righteous way. Some of the time we call people out in front of others in a way that embarrasses them, and/or provokes a fairly public confrontation. That can be important sometimes – particularly if a person has repeatedly done something and a group needs to communicate its disapproval to a person, or if one person is encouraging problematic behavior in others. In my opinion, we should have a series of escalating steps in how we talk with people about problem behaviors, just as we have escalation steps in the actions we take in organizing. In any case, when we act in response to problematic behavior, we should be deliberate – at least ideally so, sometimes we just can’t take it and have to say something.

Along with that, there are conditions that are more conducive to being effective in calling people out. People listen better to people they trust and respect and who trust and respect them. In my view, unless we’re already a leader in some environment (and even if we are), we build this respect and trust over time by organizing with people. My point here is that some of the time we can be right about an issue but communicate our rightness in ineffective or even counter-productive ways. It’s not enough to just say something, to absolve ourselves of responsibility for a messy situation by raising our voices. We should try to say something in a way that people will actually hear and respond to.

I am in part arguing for a level of patience here. I mentioned earlier that sometimes people take an attitude of “we don’t tolerate this behavior!” It is important that problematic behaviors are unacceptable, but we should also make decisions about certain behaviors. We can let some things slide temporarily in some circumstances if doing so sets us to more effectively address these things later. That said, with some behaviors we have to respond quickly and our responses stop being about the good of person doing the behavior (or that becomes a much lower priority compared to all our other priorities). In all of this again it’s key to be deliberate and to be clear: are we trying to move someone? Are we trying/willing to remove someone from our networks? There’s a place for both. If we’ve tried to talk to someone – really tried, by trying to say things in away that they can actually hear – and their behavior persists and become destructive, then sometimes a person just has to go. That should always and only be a last resort. Short of that, and in order to be sure that our stronger actions are warranted, we have to always work so that when we talk to someone a problem we talk in a way that they have the best chance to really hear us.

Confidence for feminist men

2010-11-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

S.R., an Iraqi living in the United States; Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology:

[M]y yearning for freedom is my own instinct. I do not need to be rescued by anyone, whether their underlying motive is driven by oil or feminism. As such, I have only one unequivocal demand of all "liberators": Leave me alone. The only solidarity I am interested in seeing is the kind that throws a wrench in the war machine which occupies my homeland. That is the most I expect of an American or British citizen. Otherwise, please spare me your lectures on how oppressive you think my hijab is, or how I should follow your lead in fighting patriarchy, or how I should work for achieving democracy in my country. And for your own horizon's sake, do read the history of Iraqi women's contributions to civilization. You may end up finding yourself inspired to follow our example.

What men understand best about patriarchy is what comes out of their own experience of it. That's not the same thing as what comes out of women's experience of it. These are two different things, and we have to focus on the one that we experience directly if we want to be effective as feminists.

Feminism isn't about having any special insight into women's experiences, or knowing lots of theory as it has been articulated by women. Men have their own experiences, and so need their own theory, and their own language to communicate it. Men and women have to do their own work, in some ways independently, at the same time that they are trying to work together.

If there is one criticism women have about male feminists, it is probably that they busy themselves too much with women's affairs, while busying themselves too little with their own. We need to busy ourselves with our own affairs, referencing the ways in which they relate to the struggles of others.

As the solidarity principle shows, the struggles of others can be our struggles, too. As a modality of power, patriarchy affords men a very narrow script by which they are permitted to dominate and subordinate women. But to accept that script is to be immediately confined by it. Even if you are "into" domination and subordination, a consensual model would offer a lot more possibilities!

My experience of patriarchy feels like something imposed on me in exchange for a predictable set of relations, ostensibly for my benefit. Culturally, women seem to be in a perpetual state of undress, for example. Patriarchy presumes I want this, or tells me I should. But does patriarchy let me set the terms by which this occurs? No: it beats me over the head with it constantly, to the point where I can't watch TV or have much commercial exposure to anything. It doesn't respect my relationships with my partner, my friends, or my family. As a man, I want the freedom to determine what my relations with women will be, but patriarchy doesn't allow this.

It is the stupidity of the patriarchal mindset not to see that what patriarchy can't permit, free individuals can. Whatever men think they get out of patriarchy, they are blind to how much more they could get out of feminism. This is one of the reasons why I have confidence in my efforts to promote feminism as a man.

Membership drive

2010-11-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hey, dude!

Wouldn't you like to:

a) become a Wobbly

and

b) contribute to this blog?

Just think: you'll be able to talk all you want about girls. OMG!

Notes on movement

2010-11-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

bell hooks, via Anarcho-feminist:

A collective door-to-door effort to spread the message of feminism is needed for the movement to begin anew, to start again with the basic premise that feminist politics is necessarily radical. And since that which is radical is often pushed underground in our setting then we must do everything we can to bring feminism above ground to spread the word. Because feminism is a movement to end sexism and sexist domination and oppression, a struggle that includes efforts to end gender discrimination and create equality, it is fundamentally a radical movement.

If feminism as a movement is going to advance in step with all women, whatever exclusionary tendencies exist shouldn't be accepted as feminist. A solidarity with women will embrace the concerns of women, whatever they may be. Middle-class concerns aren't illegitimate insofar as they can be reconciled with the needs of poor people, for example. Only in the event of an irreconcilable conflict should we ever have to "choose" between competing advocacies for women, and justification for it should be shown.

Because I believe it is important to articulate what is persuasive about feminism with as little a priori baggage as possible, I don't take from hooks the idea that feminists should present themselves to society as radicals. "Radicalism" usually begins with limited appeal amongst parts of the left, and too often concludes by becoming more insulated from society than engaged with it. I believe she is saying: the content will be radical, as compared with that content which presently prevails. But the point is, we have to engage society, and to do that effectively we have to communicate in ways that announce our similarities, not catalog our differences.

Courtship for Wobblies

2010-11-09T12:29:00.000-08:00

New York Times:

France crystallizes the paradox facing many women across the developed world in the early 21st century: They have more say over their sexuality (in France birth control and abortion are legal and subsidized), they have overtaken men in education and are catching up in the labor market, but few make it to the top of business or politics.

We have to ask the same thing about those organizations we call our own. There should be a meaningful difference between what "business and politics" has to offer women and what a practice of solidarity does. If what women experience as patriarchy is more or less the same everywhere they go, this is a terrible indictment of what we are doing -- or not doing -- within nominally "progressive" organizations. Unless working women want to associate with us, we aren't doing nearly enough.

One of the reasons I feel so adamant about this is because social advocacy inevitably fails without women. In fact, nothing "social" succeeds without them, for the simple reason that they comprise the majority of the world's peoples. To the degree that our organizations are marginal or ineffective, I believe a large part of this owes to a failure to make them at all attractive to women. Without women, social advocacy too often turns into some dudes arguing over dumb stuff nobody but those particular dudes care about.

Making our organizations attractive to women doesn't necessarily mean trying to impress them with dudely accomplishments or dudely intelligence. The whole point is to tone down all these dudely impulses -- big time. Even if men have the technical know-how and women are newcomers, as men we really need to make things about how we can welcome people into an unfamiliar setting, not broadcast the fact that we have the advantage.

Most of us at some point learned how to engage the women who interest us, if only on an interpersonal level. And yet somehow this is completely lost on us at an organizational level. It must be one of the identifying traits of patriarchy that we learn to extend a level of consideration to certain women, but not to every woman. By the standards of patriarchy, this amounts to showing a modicum of decency to the women we really like, and not much to anyone else.

So let us review some of the basics of going on a first date, and consider how they can be applied within our organizations. First, don't talk about yourself all the time, or only the things you care about all the time; in fact, try not to talk so much. Let other people speak, and actually take an interest in what they are telling you. Just because they haven't read Marx or Proudhon doesn't mean they can't communicate the fact that they don't want to talk about Marx or Proudhon. If all we take from somebody is that they haven't read Marx or Proudhon, we may miss out on the fact that they don't particularly care that they haven't. If we want to appeal to people, we have to respect their preferences, not immediately insist on our own.

Liberal feminism vs. independence for women

2010-11-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

bell hooks, via caring labor:

Masses of women feel angry because they were encouraged by feminist thinking to believe they would find liberation in the workforce. Mostly they have found that they work long hours at home and long hours at the job. Even before feminist movement encouraged women to feel positive about working outside the home, the needs of a depressed economy were already sanctioning this shift. If contemporary feminist movement had never taken place masses of women would still have entered the workforce, but it is unlikely that we would have the rights we have, had feminists not challenged gender discrimination. Women are wrong to “blame” feminism for making it so they have to work, which is what many women think. The truth remains that consumer capitalism was the force leading more women into the workforce. Given the depressed economy white middle-class families would be unable to sustain their class status and their lifestyles if women who had once dreamed solely of working as housewives had not chosen to work outside the home.

Here hooks offers an account of liberal feminism, in which women's rights are pronounced to be "equal" to men's.

Two problems arise from the liberal formula. One is that women aren't the same as men; for example, men don't require any "rights" relating to pregnancy. For a woman to have the same rights as a man, in this regard, is not to have any rights at all: such rights aren't relevant for men. Women are subsequently penalized in the workplace for being people who carry and deliver children, because men are the employees that don't.

The second problem in asserting "equal rights" with men is that men themselves don't enjoy equal rights! If being dependent on a husband for her economic security was the plight of the domestic housewife, being dependent on an employer for his economic security has been the plight of most men. As hooks suggests, liberal values are those values arising out of the direct subordination of human beings to capital, taking for granted its "progressive" effects. It is little wonder that US women are angry about its feminist pretensions.

Feminism might be better defined simply as "independence for women," not "equality with men." Independence for women implies a personal right to economic security as the basis for free association with others, rather than limiting itself only to that which is deemed suitable for men.

See also ladypoverty

Organizing to Break Down Divisions and Build Up Leaders

2010-11-05T19:23:00.001-07:00

Organizing to Break Down Divisions and Build Up Leaders

I've been discussing workplace organizing in relationship to feminism and
anti-racism, laying out some ways that we can see workplace organizing as a feminist and anti-racist activity.

One of my first organizing experiences was with a group of janitors at a hospital. This was a diverse group of workers, and they were divided every which way. The black janitors didn't like or trust the Latino janitors, they often had racist views about them and many the Latinos had the same about the blacks. Many of the black janitors also had bad ideas about immigration. They also all thought the Latinos were too scared to organize. Here too the Latinos had the same views about the black janitors. The men tended to be sexist and they all thought the women were too scared to stand up.

Ultimately we built a strong committee of janitors who became a leading force in the hospital organizing, we broke down the divisions between racial groups. The janitors became the most militant unit in the hospital, driving out abusive supervisors, gathering information on other units, and beginning to talk to other low-waged hospital workers (like the cafeteria workers, the transporter,s and the CNAs) who they knew because the janitors worked all over the hospital and so had contact across hospital floors and job classes. I don't know that we eliminated racist views, I can't say either way. It's not like everyone became best friends but we definitely eroded them enough that people worked together and started to build relationships of solidarity. When people fight alongside each other, they often develop bonds of trust and respect. When workers organize beyond divisions in the working class, those divisions are weakened.

From there we had to deal with how to help the janitor unit work with the more highly paid and whiter units - the nurses are the key to hospitals and to hospital organizing. That also meant getting the nurses to treat the janitors with more respect and set aside some baggage. None of this was easy but I think we were successful in easing those divisions among the workers. I think this offers examples of another way we can see workplace organizing as a feminist and anti-racist activity.

We also helped build up some women and people of color into serious, capable leaders who men and white people took seriously (as in, the white workers were led by them). Leadership development is another way that workplace organizing can be very powerful as a feminist and anti-racist activity, in two wagys. First, women and people of color who become skilled leaders and organizers have the potential to organize to further put sexism and racism away, so activating people like this has important possibilities. Second, building up women and people of color as leaders in multi-racial and mixed gender environments is good for making more feminist men and anti-racist white people. It's good for white people and men to have people of color and women as their leaders. I mean their real leaders, leadership in a social sense, people who are respected and capable who set the agenda. I can say for myself, at a young age I was part of a Take Back The Night group for several years, led by some smart, serious, capable women. Having women leaders and mentors at a young age really forced me to deal with some major baggage. Those women's skillled leadership made me a more capable radical, a feminist, and a better person.

As I argued before, workplace organizing is a feminist and anti-racist activity when women and people of color organize at work against the power structures they face. Two other ways organizing can be a feminist and anti-racist activity is by breaking down gender and racial divisions among workers and through leadership development. Developing and mentoring women and people of colors as leaders and organizers creates a larger pool of people to organize. Having women and people of color as leaders also helps men and white people to unlearn baggage from our sexist and racist society.

Class consciousness

2010-11-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Noel Ignatiev, A New Notion:

The task of revolutionaries is not to organize the workers but to organize themselves -- to discover those patterns of activity and forms of organization that have sprung up out of the struggle and that embody the new society, and to help them grow stronger, more confident, and more conscious of their direction.

In his excellent discussion, Nate has a specific conception of "organizing" which is common to all Wobs. I believe the spirit of it is captured above.

Of course, if somebody starts with the idea that "organizing" means presuming some authority to tell others what to do, then arriving at the conclusion that "men shouldn't organize women" is very appropriate! I imagine many people unfamiliar with the mission of the Industrial Workers of the World could reasonably take this view.

For me, organizers are people who are able to plug the daily concerns of the people they know into a bigger picture, helping to bring clarity to their choices. Many of us feel overwhelmed with obligations, particularly at work, but don't know what to do. IWW organizers bring with them a sympathetic perspective -- you shouldn't feel overwhelmed, or under compensated, at work -- and a commitment to support worker preferences that are tied to shared goals.

Who can organize?

2010-11-03T23:29:00.001-07:00

Who can organize?

I wrote before about workplace organizing as a way to oppose sexism and racism (not the only way, but one important way which should not be discounted). I want to talk about something related to this. I’ve often been in or overheard conversations about organizing where people start to talk about who can organize whom, or who can organize with whom. This doesn’t just apply to organizing waged workplaces. (Just so we’re clear, I don’t think all workplaces are waged, but I use “workplace” as a shorthand for “waged workplace.)

Many times I’ve heard people say things like “white people can’t organize people of color” and “men can’t organize women.” This is false. White people can and do organize people of color, and men can and do organize women. Paid organizers for various unions and other organizations regularly demonstrate this. In a sense, the growth of churches demonstrates this. We could also look to the role of white organizers in the civil rights movement in the United States.

Someone might respond, “sure, but the point is not really that white people can’t organize people of color and men can’t organize women. The point is that they shouldn’t, at least not if the goal is to oppose racism and sexism.” That’s also false. Consider John Brown, the famous abolitionist. He and his compatriots organized a group of white people and people of color in a blow against white supremacy. John Brown being white does not mean that the actions of his group did not undermine racism.

I’ll use medicine as an example to put this another way. A white man who needs medical care would have an interest in seeing a female doctor of color. Similarly, a woman of color may well have a genuine interest in seeing a white male doctor. As a parallel, a woman could organize a group of male workers. A person of color could organize a
group of white workers. In both cases, there may be difficulties that arise due to sexist and racist attitudes on the part of the workers. On the other hand, if the organizer is successful these workers would recognize why it was in their interests to listen to the organizer. Likewise, a group of women workers might recognize that they have an interest in listening to a male organizer. Workers of color might recognize that they have an interest in listening to a white organizer.
My point is that we should not assume that a male organizer interacting with women workers will always and only replicate male dominance, or that a white organizer interacting with workers of color will always and only replicate white supremacy. To say otherwise means that the women and people of color who interact with male and white organizers are dupes or fools who don’t know their own interests. As long as the white or male organizer is playing a useful role in women workers and workers of color coming together to have more control over their lives, the organizer is doing the right thing.

All of that said, there’s an important element to the view that white people and men can’t organize people of color and women. I imagine (I hope!) that the parallel I drew to doctors a moment ago set off some alarm bells in some people’s heads. If men and white people are calling the shots, then there’s an aspect of liberation which is not being accomplished. This does not mean that whatever a woman or a person of color thinks is right. To say that would be patronizing. Often the most experienced organizer is likely to have the best sense of how to proceed. (Often, but not always.) Imagine a white male organizer who helped a group of women workers of color get fired because he wanted to listen to everyone’s views and did not push the workers to organize in the best way he could think of. That is not at all a useful example of feminist and anti-racist activity. My point here is that in our organizing we have to prioritize turning workers into organizers. The organizer’s role is to make him- or herself unnecessary. (On this point, let me recommend the column “Replace Yourself” by J. Pierce, which appeared in the Workers Power column of the Industrial Worker newspaper.)

The need for organizers to replace themselves by turning workers into organizers is a key piece of organizing in a feminist and anti-racist fashion, not only in terms of the role of men and white people in relation to women and of people of color, but also among women organizers and organizers of color. History is full of examples of people from oppressed groups who rise to a leadership position then use that position in a way which benefits the leaders more than everyone else. (This is part of how colonialism works: a local elite helps the outside power maintain dominance, in exchange for privileges and benefits.)

A man who organizes women workers in such a way that develops as many of those workers as possible into organizers is not a problem. The same goes for a white person who does the same with workers of color. I’m not saying that there can’t be any problems. Problems may well arise due to our socialization in a sexist and racist society. My point is that a man organizing women workers or a white person organizing workers of color does not always have to be a problem or to only be a problem.

There is one other important element to this issue of who can or should organize whom. As I said before, the key point is that the organizing is about the workers coming together to improve their lives. This means having more control on the job. It also means having more control in the organization. They need to be developed as full participants and leaders within a democratic union. Organizers should primarily focus on winning fights against the boss and cultivating workers into becoming organizers. At the same time, organizers need to cultivate workers into having full ownership of the larger organization, to the degree that all members should have that.

After the initial fights are won on the job, the workers need to be oriented and trained into the larger organization so they can understand and navigate its formal structures and procedures. The organizer should be deliberate about helping the workers build more relationships with people around the organization, so the workers can understand and navigate the informal structures and networks of relationships which are a key part of the organization. All organizers should do this with all workers but this is especially important with women workers and workers of color when they are not already in the majority within the larger organization.

In my opinion, people with organizing skills and experience have a moral duty to organize with others to help them improve their lives collectively. Even more so, experienced and skilled organizers have a duty to cultivate other organizers and pass on their skills and experiences so that more organizing and struggle takes place. With that in mind, the idea that whites should only organize whites or men should only organize men could boil down to the suggestion that white organizers and male organizers should keep the skills their organizing skills and experiences to themselves. That is clearly a bad idea.

The idea that white people and men can’t or shouldn’t organize people of color and women is false. The anti-racist and feminist values behind it as well as are values everyone should take seriously and the suspicions it expresses are healthy ones. These values and suspicions should make us organize more and make us careful to organize well.

Boys chasing girls

2010-11-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

If only you were a male-identified Wobbly, you could write admiringly about women in these pages, too!

Where else do men have the opportunity to speak honestly about their relationships with women; and, moreover, to do so in revolutionary terms?

Consider my topic for today: Older men chasing younger women.

You see, the older man knows very well one way to relate to women, but has never taken the time to develop others. If he is retired and meets a college student, he wants to relate to her as when he was a college student. While his body has advanced with time, the rest remains stationary.

Our friend the older man has accepted certain social norms without ever asking himself if he deserves more.

Whatever his money, the richest man will have more than one thing to give another person, and more roles to play than the expected. The patriarchal ideal is bankrupt to him: the perennial skirt-chaser is cliché for a reason.

Any of us can end up like this older man if we don't build on our relations with women right now. We already know how to be one way; the way that is endorsed by power -- to take women seriously insofar as the social benefits accrue to us, as with status through sex. Within an organization, this is sometimes seen in the pairing of individuals romantically until the relationship ends -- and with it a woman's connection to both. How many women do we know who are no longer active in our work because they broke up with a boyfriend? We should be talking to them.

Down with dudes

2010-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've always avoided large groups of dudes. One of the problems with entering into a state of divine dudely isolation, however, is that you never really pick up the art of talking to dudes. This is great when you don't want to talk to them; for example, I never felt bad about not talking to a dude. I've gone years without talking to them, in fact, even within my own family. But it's bad when you need to talk to them; when you want to appeal to their better dude. I don't know how to do this -- certainly not with some random dude.

For most of my life this was ideal: I could bypass the problem of dudes. Now it kind of sucks, because I bear responsibility for that which is "dude." I really don't want to learn the language of sports if I don't have to. But dudes are too fast and loose with the things they say about women; they ambush you in the middle of an aboveboard chat. If I could draw a sports analogy right quick maybe I could make some salient point about the ladies to an audience of dudes.

The only role model I have when it comes to negotiating with dudes is As'ad AbuKhalil -- the Angry Arab. His solution is to yell at dudes whenever they act unbecoming of a dude. I'll be honest: I don't know if I am that brave of a dude. It turns out that dudes can be your colleagues; a dude can be your boss. A dude could be just some swivel-headed dude on the street, slack-jawed after every passing non-dude. Yelling doesn't really work for me; I'd rather not announce myself, and prefer to plot and scheme.

The best thing about confronting patriarchy is the hope that someday you'll know how to be just one dude, not a different dude suited to each occasion. I know someone who must be literally 15 different dudes; whether he says something to your face or behind your back, or remembers from one day to the next are among the deciding criteria. What he says about women while flirting with every one he sees is a wonder to behold. Don't be this dude.

Autonomy

2010-10-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Mr. Slim provides an example of a need that exists everyday, in supporting the choices women arrive at for themselves, often in the face of hostility and intimidation.

The abortion issue is never as much about abortion as it is about being with someone through an important moment in their lives, versus opposing them by force. If abortion is only about abortion, then a woman is nothing more than contested terrain. The difference in approach is stark, with the result being that few women are likely persuaded by those who only attack and harass them.

Solidarity with women does not prescribe any particular politics or belief system other than support for women's independent choices. Because women's independent choices are often less valued than particular politics or belief systems, we must be prepared to extend solidarity in the face of what are often popular or mainstream preferences, not only easily identifiable authoritarian groups.

Effective Support and Counter Tactics of the Pro-Choice Movement in Pittsburgh

2010-10-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

originally posted here. could have some lessons to learn from.

Effective Support and Counter Tactics of the Pro-Choice Movement in Pittsburgh

One of the first things that seemed to cause issue was the dismissal by some of concerns raised by women, clinic workers/volunteers, and other vagina-bearers on the issue. There were problems with manarchy, stubbornness, and other things on the part of both participators and organizers. Perhaps most importantly, there was disagreement on where to place the majority of the actions' focus - countering the antis or supporting the patients - as if the two were mutually exclusive (which we believe are not).

To give a quick overview for those who have not experienced the varied tactics of the "pro-life" movement, the scene is one that can make even the calmest of people's blood boil. Keep in mind that patients in Pittsburgh often come from other states without clinics, are sometimes survivors of sexual assault, and may be experiencing increased levels of emotion and stress. We've seen patients yell and cry as a result of persistent harassment by antis.

At the clinic we've been at the past few weeks, the antis are broken into groups which carry out different tasks. Prayers and singers often crowd sidewalks, blocking the paths of patients and other people passing by. The police do nothing to change this (despite their willingness to tell an anti-authoritarian action to move at the drop of a hat). There is also a group that call themselves "sidewalk counselors" though we feel that more accurate terms to describe them include harassers, vultures, assailants, etc. The "counselors" rush patients as they walk towards the clinic, shoving pamphlets and images of aborted fetuses in their faces. Not only are patients stalked as they arrive, but even when temporarily leaving the clinic to grab a snack at a convenience store - yes, they were actually followed inside - and as they're walking back to their cars. Clinic workers are also periodically followed to their cars and bus stops. It's also worth noting that the harassers are often men (who will never know what it's like to be pregnant). Additionally within the group, there are a few individuals that put themselves up as "leaders" of the various activities. These people are usually priests or other men. They often have video cameras and will videotape women walking into clinics or will ask them to get into cars with them. At another clinic, we experienced the worst of the antis - the vocal harassers - who aim to intimidate and insult both patients and pro-choicers as well as clinic workers and volunteers. They yell things like "Women come out of there in body bags!" and give excuses such as "Pregnancy because of rape is God's way of letting you know your purpose". Many men and other antis will put themselves uncomfortably close to pro-choice people in order to try to intimidate them. So far, they've failed to do so with us.

In our first attempts at countering the anti's, many pro-choicers reacted by getting into verbal confrontations with them. We often positioned ourselves amongst and within close proximity to them, causing a more confusing and sometimes hostile environment for the patients we wanted to support. Some pro-choice passersby even yelled at us, assuming we were with the antis because of the conflicted jumble of people. Some of the pro-choicers attended the event masked and with signs targeting religion, which was viewed by others as creating an intimidating, scary environment for the patients. As a result, disagreements as to where individuals were placing their priorities and goals for the protest reached their peak and some people decided to step away from the organizing. Some groups divided from others until each group of people found their niche. Ours was on Saturday mornings from 7:30 a.m. to around 11:00 a.m.

The remaining organizers decided to approach the planning of future counter-protests in a way that we felt kept patients safety and comfort at the forefront. Future attempts attracted the attention of clinic escorts and security guards, some of whom were opposed to us showing up at clinics for the aforementioned reasons while others felt that a pro-choice presence at clinics was desperately needed. Despite our sometimes differing opinions, we all listened and communicated, allowing us to hear their concerns and implemented a majority of them. The next Saturday to come would end up being very rewarding as a result.

We made positive signs that focused strictly on a pro-women, pro-choice, and a light-hearted anti-antis stance including "Abortion is OK!", "I trust a woman's choice," "We support your choices," "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries," "Ignore the preyers," and others. We assembled across the street from the clinic which gave us a significant separation from the antis, making an obvious distinction between us and them. Despite our love of masked actions, we requested that people come to our event unmasked in order to create an environment that was as unintimidating for patients as possible. We decided to be as non-confrontational as we could with the antis, especially when patients were entering the clinic. This was perhaps the most difficult part of the action. Misogynistic men said harassing and abusive things to us and we struggled to keep our cool - though we did much of the time. We danced, laughed, smiled, and enjoyed our comrades standing with us in the damaging environment we found ourselves in. And, it worked.

The antis were frustrated by our presence and that we took over some of their usual praying grounds. While there were now more antis on the sidewalk next to the clinic entrance, we still saw the space takeover victorious as the only thing patients could see was us and our positive signs through the clinic windows. We were approached by several staff members who were excited about our presence and positivity. Escorts, including our detractors, came over to thank us and some told us they changed their minds about us being there (in our favor). Most importantly to us, patients expressed to clinic workers the comfort they felt knowing they had supporters on the outside during this often difficult time. We finally figured it out. But, as always, things evolve and change and we had to as well.

The antis attempted to step up their game on a recent Saturday. Little did they know, they played right into our hands. They showed up an hour late and moved all of their people en masse to our side of the street. They now shifted a majority of their focus on trying to minimize our impact which left only a few harassers on the sidewalk next to the clinic entrance. They brought a large religious banner and began praying loudly. It was about 100 of them to 5 of us. But, we acted quickly. We immediately moved our banner and signs to be directly in front of theirs. They tried desperately to stand on their tip-toes and stretch their arms up high but our messages still covered theirs. While our initial attempts resulted in many of us being mistaken as antis, people driving were now mistaking antis for pro-choicers!

Antis were now in close proximity which allowed us to counter them both verbally and visually with minimal impact on patients entering the clinic. Each time they pushed their banner towards us, we pushed it back, until they had little space to hold it. The "pro-choice" and "friendly" cop who often seemed to be an ally at the clinic allowed herself to be duped by one of the harassers (we refer to him as K-Fed, if you saw him you'd know why). She tried to ask us to move and so forth but we worked it out so we did not. She did not ask the 100 praying antis behind us to move, even though they blocked the entire sidewalk. We held our ground, sang "row your boat" over top of the sing songing of the antis, and finally got the chance to verbally and physically fight back a little. While unfortunately the antis could now be seen from the clinic windows, our messages of love and support still dominated. We laughed and sang over their prayers and harassment. We got to tell them how we felt for once without creating a scene of conflict for patients. We thanked the antis for failing miserably and expressed desires for them to continue to do so. We know they will.

There are a lot of actions in which the reward is not immediate. We have to hope that we're creating change and that we or at least others down the line will get to see results someday. When fighting an oppression it's important to keep in mind that one victorious demonstration does not negate the need for further actions, opposition, and solidarity. However, we've agreed that that pro-choice clinic actions are by far one of the most rewarding events that we've ever participated in. We've been extremely pleased with the effectiveness in supporting patients, volunteers, and clinic workers and the feedback received - despite the lack of sleep, harassment, and misogynistic comments from military men driving by. While it’ s unfortunate that our numbers have dwindled as a result of disagreements on tactics, we believe that the pro-patient focus has been vital to our success.

Our struggle for liberation is an ongoing one, with two assailants (of many) being Patriarchy and State Repression. Being that these are both multifaceted institutions within our society, it's sometimes difficult to pin down a physical, cognizant manifestation of these ideologies that we can directly confront and attack. People who hold the misogynistic belief that they should control the reproductive rights of women are an excellent example of both of these oppressions at work. They are right out in the open to be targeted and countered at your neighborhood clinic. There are patients there every day who are being actively attacked and oppressed, who need our support and solidarity. We hope this essay will help more people share in the joy that is a pro- female, pro-reproductive freedom, anti-hierarchy, and pro-support and choice environment.

The Pittsburgh Pro-Choice Welcoming Committee

Doing the right thing

2010-10-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

Steeling ourselves to act in solidarity with someone like Christine O'Donnell is a useful exercise because patriarchy is often exercised by popular and influential persons within a group. While the victims of patriarchy aren't necessarily unpopular, exposing such behavior puts their reputation at risk. It can make them unpopular very quickly, as when the perpetrator enjoys good standing within the group, or is dominant by some social criteria.

We do well to recognize this as a likely scenario in which patriarchy will impact our lives. It implies that standing up for someone who deserves it is very often a decision that carries a real social cost, and will not be universally praised or rewarded amongst those who are otherwise like-minded.

A lesson in solidarity

2010-10-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

I thought this was really great. See what you think. (Warning: this includes adult content that may not be suitable for all audiences.)

Power and preferences

2010-10-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

I want to thank Mr. Slim for writing the post that 100% of the people who know me wish I had written! I know they appreciate it.

And how about that Christine O'Donnell? She sounds like she might benefit by sticking to subjects that impact her, not other people, directly. Anytime you're going to take a position counter to that held by most of the people it affects -- like, "AIDS funding is misused" -- you'd better have a pretty good argument if you hope to be persuasive. Otherwise you look somewhat like an authoritarian -- aka not a nice person.

Personally, I think it's useful to distinguish between someone who holds authoritarian (or otherwise objectionable) views and the kind of power infrastructure which makes their imposition possible. As a culture I worry that we spend more time hating one another for a difference in views than we do in challenging the infrastructure which can put violence behind them. Without violence, people can think whatever they want. But when the infrastructure is assumed, what people think takes on heightened importance. This explains the quality of political discourse enjoyed by US inhabitants today.

Whenever our views, on some level, are being imposed, we may not notice because that seems "normal" to us. This is an important way in which people within a particular category of power are set against one another; as when working class men are blind to what working class women experience as patriarchy.

Defend Christine O'Donnell against sexism, Attack Christine O'Donnell for Sexism

2010-10-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

First, before I get into the meat of it, I have to thank Brother Boyd for most of the "heavy lifting" when it comes to this blog. As a collaborative project, I don't think I've really been holding my end of the collaborative process. We owe him a big debt of graduate.

Now, own with the post...

Although I am Canadian, I have been following the twists and turns of the recent elections, especially the "extremist" GOP candidates who have been nominated, chief among them is Christine O'Donnell.

I think that J.R. is 100% right when he says that defending people who are victimized deserve support, for whatever reason. This should be a principle for action for all progressive people in struggle for a more just world. That being said, it's important that in defending peoples against oppression, that does not mean support for that person. Our defence needs to be as critical as it is resolute.

In Christine O'Donnells case, we have to fight against the people who think that she is unfit to be political because she is a women, at the same time, we must attack her for her positions that actively dis-empower women, LBGT* peoples, working people and immigrants.

In 1997, O'Donnell took to C-SPAN to complain that the government was spending too much money combating AIDS. She voiced concerns that a drag queen ball "celebrates the type of lifestyle which leads to the disease." She also objected to calling those with AIDS "victims" and said the disease was a consequence of a certain "lifestyle." She opposes abortion rights, even in the event of rape, incest or the health of the mother. She wants troops on the nation's northern and southern borders, walls and no amnesty for illegal workers.

O'Donnell and Palin like to portray themselves as "feminists". The problem is that they are women who are directly opposed to women's rights and the steps forward women have made the last 100 years. Their brand of feminism is one that women play a very specific role in society counter to the wider goals of mainstream feminism and completely alien to the radical, revolutionary syndicalist feminism we hope to help develop.

So yes, feminists should defend Christine O'Donnell, and at the same time attack her for sexism, homophobia and hate.

Yes, feminists should defend Christine O'Donnell

2010-10-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

Jezebel:

[H]ave the attacks on O'Donnell been "sexist and misogynistic"? Sure, they have been glib and mocking — par for the course when there's so much video evidence of her insouciant wingnuttery. And they have involved sex, but only because that was O'Donnell's topic of choice until she discovered a vague and sudden passion for tax cuts.

It's fair to say that within a patriarchal society, any woman that is being scrutinized and attacked by mainstream opinion is going to encounter the same kind of hostility that women with much lower profiles experience all the time, solely on the basis that they are women.

Because a solidarity with women finds its roots in the recognition that patriarchy works actively to harm and subjugate women, feminists should work actively in anticipating that this will be as much the case with specific, well-known women as we already understand it to be the case with every woman -- if not more.

Defending someone on the basis that they are a victim of patriarchy is no different than advocating for someone on the basis that they are working class: it is a position that is maintained on specific grounds; namely, that people who are being victimized, for whatever reason, deserve support.

For example, there are plenty of working class people who are racist, misogynistic, or homophobic who at the same time are victims of globalized capital (and by "working class" I do not merely mean "blue collar"; I mean all workers). Wobblies understand that all workers deserve solidarity in their struggle against employers and other bosses. They should also know that the best way to confront racism, sexism, and homophobia (among other violences) is by organizing along these lines: to extend solidarity to the victimized, and to confront the victimizers in all relations.

Practicing solidarity with women is no different. Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin deserve to be confronted for the various ways they advance authority by illegitimate means. But they have also been attacked by illegitimate means, on the grounds that they are women. And while I haven't followed the O'Donnell case closely, unless we convince ourselves that mainstream liberal culture is not patriarchal, we can expect that the same anti-woman sentiments will find their expression in the course of a heated Senate campaign.

The point is not that Clinton or Palin or O'Donnell deserve special attention in this regard, but that nobody ever deserves to be attacked on the basis of any illegitimate criteria. Wobblies know very well: An injury to one is an injury to all.

Conversations

2010-10-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with trying to write everyday is that very often you end up writing everyday, and in a collaborative setting that can lead to a lot of you and somewhat less of everybody else. So I want to reaffirm the collaborative nature of this blog in hopes of scoring yet more Wobbly contributors.

For the last few years, writing "working class propaganda" has been my primary activity -- not organizing or administrating or even collaborating with anyone very much on anything. So it's very likely that any Wobbly has more experience to draw on in these areas than I do, even if you manage to attend branch meetings regularly or semi-regularly, which I haven't.

So while part of my confidence in writing in this area comes from reading and thinking a lot about these issues, part of it also comes from the fact that writing is literally where all of my energy has gone in the past few years; it is something I just force myself to do on subjects that are important to me.

For me, this can lead to a lot of theoretical declarations which hopefully have their place, but shouldn't set the tone for this blog overall. People should really post anything and everything they want around the subject of women, women's struggles and men's relationship to the two.

I work part-time and write part-time while plenty of other people work full-time and organize (or raise kids, run their branch, etc.) full-time; and because my contributions to femenins come with relative ease and a commitment to try to write between two blogs everyday, the likelihood is that there will be a lot of me, for better or worse. But it's not my blog: I can only contribute a perspective based on my own experiences, in many ways limited. We need experienced organizers and other active Wobbly men to draw our attention to everything else, and to begin to sustain a dialogue.

Practicing feminism

2010-10-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

Feminism must be a daily practice because patriarchy is a daily affair. If the purpose of patriarchy is to break each of us into fragments, then feminism is the struggle to remain whole. We have to be whole people before we can give the best of ourselves to any purpose.

The best feminism comes out of an affection for the women in our lives. Once we orient ourselves toward our sisters and moms and friends and colleagues, we are not far from discerning the obstacle all women confront in the form known as patriarchy.

If patriarchy subjugates all women as a class, then it can only be challenged by advocating for all women as a class. This is the step we must take as men: to regard all women with the same concern we are taught to reserve for certain women.

Feminism is important for men because it teaches us to listen to women who have thought deeply about their own struggles, but also to provide encouragement to women who haven't. The influence men exert in many women's lives is constant, but the content of such influence is variable. If men aren't active in their fight against patriarchy, their influence does little to assist women who might be active in theirs.

Fear and loathing

2010-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Bernstein, Wall Street Journal:

[T]he men I spoke with agreed that women are too sensitive, though most of them were reluctant to talk on the record. I promised anonymity, though, and they piped up:

"Apologize? What language is that?"

"Women care too much."

"One of the first requirements of getting into relationships with women is to rehearse saying 'I'm sorry' as many times as possible."

"If a husband speaks in the forest and no one hears him, is he still wrong?"

I pressed on, and asked men to explain exactly why they apologize -- when they do:

"To move on."

"To end the drama." (Hmm. This from a man who's apologized recently to me.)

"To be honest, men never -- well, almost never -- have any idea what we are apologizing for," says Mark Stevens, 63, chief executive of MSCO, a Rye Brook, N.Y., marketing consulting firm.

Mr. Stevens says during his 35-year marriage he has sincerely apologized to his wife, Carol, just five times -- but has said he's sorry an additional 3,500 times. He calls these mea culpas "fraudulent apologies."

These men argue that women are "too sensitive" -- yet they lack the courage to say this openly. If they think there is merit to this idea that the lion's share of the interpersonal conflict in their life stems from this source, why not make the case? The fact that they maintain one face toward their partner and another under conditions of anonymity suggests that they are afraid to be themselves.

I think one of the effects of patriarchy, the authority of men imposed on women, is to deny both men and women the opportunity to be whole persons. This is plainly evident in how our society chooses to see women -- as fragments of who they in fact are. But men also experience fragmentation in their own way, by surrendering who they could become: people who aren't afraid to be themselves in any context.

Feminist organizing

2010-10-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

Halloween approaches and we see via Womanist Musings some prime examples of commercial patriarchy at work.

Far be it from me to say there is no place in the world for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of whatever stripe you like. But what we communicate by pursuing the same theme into every corner of human relations is unambiguous: we value some things about women and not others.

Now, as men, we should reflect on the scale at which this transpires every day. Certain things are communicated to the women in our lives with perfect clarity. Other things probably aren't communicated at all, except at the individual level, between persons. So we are talking about mass manufacturing vs. what may or may not happen within romantic or familial relations, between friends, etc.

Industrial production always has an advantage over what people can produce at an individual level; the production of culture is no different. Wobblies already understand that the solution to the industrial problem is organization. Accordingly, revolutionary unionist men must organize around the principles they want to communicate to women within their organization, their communities, and their lives; as well as to society at large.

What we are up against is plain to see! Join us in making our principles known. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Good news

2010-10-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

reposted from ladypoverty

bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love:

Unlike happiness, joy is a lasting state that can be sustained even when everything is not the way we want it to be.

If we look at the world long enough, we may find that everything is not the way we want it to be. As a result, many of us don't look.

If we look in a comprehensive way, what can be seen is deeply troubling. Many of us arrive at the point of seeing particular problems with clarity, only to be left with the task of communicating their relevance to others.

At this point most of us experience real frustration. This can play itself out as anger, at the world and at each other; but because anger is a difficult emotion to sustain, it often leads to apathy: it becomes too painful to try, and we withdraw from our attempts to do so.

Anger is often justified, but because it can't be sustained, it can't form the basis for moving past frustration into fulfillment -- a fulfillment that is honest about what is wrong in the world, and the work that must be undertaken in response.

bell hooks points to something that must be cultivated in spite of what we very well know to be true about the world. This is what we must be prepared to offer others, if we ever want them to fall in love with our work despite its inherent difficulty.

Propaganda by the deed

2010-10-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

I mention beauty because we should be thinking about what our organizations look like. We should be thinking about what our practices look like. Are they appealing? To whom do they appeal? Do they even appeal to us personally?

If we aren't in love with what we do, we can't expect anybody else to fall in love either. This is why there is so much cynicism within employer organizations. If the work we undertake in response feels half as lifeless, we'll never sustain a membership, and we'll certainly never take it to the next level; people will float in and then drift away. We compete against a consumer-driven culture that demands a lot less and entertains a lot more. For many Americans, "doing nothing" is exactly what we'd prefer after a long day at work.

Our best hope is to build organizations so stunningly beautiful that people want to be a part of them, because there is no alternative. There is no alternative to being part of the struggle to affirm human preferences at their core. "Doing nothing" resolves nothing, even if it feels good. We have to demonstrate that this true, and offer an appealing alternative.

Women contribute to the beauty of our organizations, especially when they are welcomed and supported in becoming themselves. This is the alternative we have to pose to the world, which has yet to get on board. If women look at our organizations and see nothing appealing about them, we lose. So there is a necessity for men to pay close attention to what they are communicating to women, and to work towards the kind of organization that women can identify as their own.

What men want

2010-10-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

If we acknowledge what is beautiful about women, then we want them with us; we don't want this phony separation which robs us of their companionship. Corporate patriarchy sets up a very narrow idea of what "beauty" is, a fixed principle that best complements exchange -- beauty as commodity. Commodities are taken for granted; we pick and choose among them; and when what women bring to us is reduced to something we can "take or leave" according to the context, we have become alienated from our natural allies.

Fighting for equality, not presuming it

2010-10-07T15:49:00.001-07:00

I've been doing a little reading about the historical anarchist feminist womans group The Mujeres Libres (Free Women) of Spain, in the hopes of writing something larger about the cross sections of womens autonomous organizing, feminism and revolutionary unionism. In doing so, I found this really great blog post on Property is Theft! about women and class struggle. The following is something that I thought was really important:

But one thing that is needed is a realisation, perhaps even acceptance. Of the fact that equality is only a given in a genuinely free society. Before that, and even within the structures of those groups struggling for that society, it needs to be fought for. Without compromise.

I think that in the IWW we've come to assume that because we are a revolutionary industrial union organization, that because our constitution says "IWW therefore actively opposes bigotry and discrimination on and off the job", that our organizing will be "feminist" and "progressive". It's become routine, banal.

Sadly, that's simply not the case, and by assuming that we have "equality" is a factor that adds to patriarchal inequality. One of the tasks of a group of revolutionary Syndicalist Feminist men is to recognize that even in our own supposedly revolutionary union that the society we live in, this patriarchal capitalist society, effects the power relations.

The Question for us then is what is the best way to fight for equaitly, the best way for men to "actively opposes bigotry and discrimination on and off the job" as well inside our union. Personally, it's something I'm still struggling to figure out, but I'm glad that I have righteous rebel men and woman by my side to walk with me down the path.

An exercise in Marxist feminism

2010-10-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

How patriarchy functions within a particular society often corresponds with its economic form: a society based on large-scale commodity production produces the commodities men want; a society that lives by religious mandate enforces the virtues men desire.

In the former, men with money dictate the terms by which women are seen; in the latter, men of virtue do the same. Women's bodies are commodified and censored, respectively; they are perpetually exposed in one case, and made to vanish in the other. That which suits the man of means thus suits society.

The script that patriarchy has authored for men and women in the advanced capitalist societies was no doubt inspired by the needs of lonely men with lots of money. Like wealthy window shoppers, they want to see the commodity and then possess it by the one means at their disposal: money. So women are commodified in their sexualized form, and this is reproduced everywhere. It is very hard to navigate, let alone escape, for many men; this in turn impacts the genuine intimacy men can experience in their overall relations with women.

For more on this subject, see ladypoverty.

Intercourse

2010-10-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

We do very well to listen to women.

This blog began out of the expressed concerns of women, specific concerns that could be directly addressed, but only insofar as we acknowledge them in the first place.

The unequal relations between men and women has inspired a tendency where men forget it is happening, and women are hesitant to remind them. In consequence, what women have to share can too frequently go unsaid. Frank honesty between partners must be among the first casualties of patriarchy.

As is often the case, what women tolerate reaches a limit; but what they reveal to us, momentarily as equals, can only be sustained by remembering as men. Does that make sense? Some weeks ago women made it very clear what they asked of us: talk about your experiences, talk about this organization, talk about your fight to be equals with women.

It's not easy, and that is a large part of the point. If it's not easy, you are doing something right! But just as we do very well to listen to women, we do equally well to remember what we always want to be communicating in return.

Knowing the authority that works through us

2010-10-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open:

"[W]e have to admit that SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] was extraordinary precisely because of those brilliant men. Many of us were seduced by their great minds and ambitious visions. And yet that very same talent was what intimidated us." A brief period of silence followed. "We are angry at ourselves," one former SDSer said quietly. "How could those men be so smart and still so sexist?" wondered another woman, half-laughing and half-crying.

Men can be "so smart" and still so sexist because we can see very clearly that authority which is imposed on us without seeing that authority which, through us, is imposed on others. It often follows that our noble intentions will be pointed in one direction and not the other.

I recognize this in myself: I can see what the boss does to me very well, and I will read every volume of Capital in pursuit of an understanding as to why this is so. I fall into every stereotype of what you would expect from a straight white dude middle class anarchist: I can talk to other men of that type at length before I realize that my partner and everyone else in the room are having a separate conversation elsewhere.

One of the reasons why I like the above quote is because in spite of how SDS men behaved, women never questioned the legitimacy of their concerns. And this is a very consistent theme among women within activist circles -- that raising their own concerns isn't designed to exclude anybody else's: it's the only way to include their own. But as men I think we have a hard time hearing criticism from others if we haven't already done the work of self-criticism ourselves.

Men in crisis

2010-09-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

For the men of my generation, it's nearly impossible to be a "company man" even if you want to be: the company won't commit! Many of us long for the kind of relationships our fathers and grandfathers had with their employers, which, through unionization, was often long-standing and remunerative.

Within the schema of US patriarchy, however, such ties were also bound to a prescribed manhood. Although the US economic picture has changed dramatically since the 1970s, this "prescription for manhood" still weighs on younger men today; after all, we learned it from our elders!

The fact that many men can no longer simply be "an engineer," "a truck driver," or "a scientist" and look forward to a future full of promotions, raises, and a pension means that our assigned role as "provider" is in jeopardy.

This is significant because the model of manhood that we know basically tells us that as long as the "provider" role is fulfilled, the rest of our lives will fall into place. As long as we can announce our significance by identifying who we work for, and plausibly argue that we benefit by it, then the rest of our lives can be "boys will be boys." We don't need to be interrupted during the big game, we can retreat to our "man cave," and we can expect that women will more or less take care of everything else.

What I observe among many of my peers is an aching desire to plug into any external authority that will let them sustain this pretense about who they are supposed to be. But Wall Street is not having any of it; the men it wants come from the global South. Jobs follow the money and men follow the jobs. But US men can't become associated with desperate immigrants and ever believe themselves worthy of the rewards of patriarchy. This informs a growing conflict between them.

Men increasingly view themselves as failures, or as oscillating between successive modes of failure. This is an extremely dangerous scenario, which plays itself out in all kinds of ways, though usually as violence towards those with whom men are most intimate.

If young men are a mess, acting out in self-destructive ways, we should think about the promises of patriarchy that are made in exchange for subservience in the workplace, and how US men are being frustrated along these lines in both their opportunities and rewards.

Company men

2010-09-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

That men are ultimately betrayed by patriarchy is evident anytime we turn our attention to the elder patriarch in his final days. The power he once wielded as a man is gone; his appeal no longer comes from good looks or vitality -- merely "being male."

Under capitalism, the identity assigned to him as "king of the family" is usually earned in servitude to an employer, where men's experience of subjugation is explained to them as the good fortune of a career. Subsequently, the patriarch invests himself in subjugation as a point of pride while remaining estranged from those most eager to love him.

When he retires, the relation he cared for most is absent, while his natural bonds are alien. The deceit performed on men that their power is derived by forfeiting who they are for what they are assigned to be always finds expression in a man's last days, when he can no longer sustain the pretense of fulfilling his assignment.

When is workplace organizing a feminist activity?

2010-09-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to talk about workplace organizing as a tool to oppose sexism and racism. (I'm going to sometimes just say "organizing" in the rest of this, but I mean specifically workplace organizing). Before I get to that, I want to say this clearly first: workplace organizing is not the answer to sexism and racism - or, if you prefer, to male dominance and white supremacy. That is, organizing does not always undermine racism and sexism. <--more-->

Some organizing may have no effect, at least no visible effect, on sexism or racism at all. This does not mean this organizing is not valuable, but we should be clear about what it does and does not accomplish. In some cases, organizing could very well prop up sexism and/or racism. The same goes for other forms of discrimination. This has happened in the past.

Not only is organizing not always a feminist and anti-racist activity, some aspects of sexism and racism are not likely to be solved by workplace organizing. Sexism and racism don't just exist on the job or due to our jobs, so workplace organizing alone is not going to end sexism or racism. For the foreseeable future, workplace organizing alone is not going to end sexual assault, domestic violence, discrimination in housing, police harassment, incarceration, or many other ills.

If workplace organizing alone is not the answer to sexism and racism, does this mean that workplace organizing is not useful at all for challenging sexism and racism? I don't think so. It seems to me that just as organizing can sometimes prop up sexism and racism, it can
also sometimes undermine them. That's what I want to address here: when is workplace organizing a feminist and an anti-racist practice?

What Makes Organizing Feminist?

The answer depends on where we're organizing. Organizing is a feminist and an anti-racist practice when it means women and people of color coming together to have more control over their lives and to have more collective power. If a group of women of color fix some issues they
face, that's a small victory against sexism and racism, whether it's workplace organizing or tenant organizing or organizing the unemployed or organizing welfare recipients. So, workplace organizing is a feminist and an anti-racist practice when women and people of color organize around issue they have on the job.

I know some people have doubts about workplace organizing as a feminist and anti-racist activity. These doubts may come from the bad parts of the history of workplace organizing and problems in organizations that do workplace organizing. It's very reasonable to react badly to all of that, but the baby of organizing should not be thrown out with the bath-water of organizing put to bad use.

Doubts about workplace organizing may also come in response to a reductive definition of what we organize around, like so-called "bread and butter" issues such as wages and benefits. People who push for more workplace organizing, can sometimes sound like all people care about is bread, when we all know people want both bread and roses. Some workplace issues are not economic in the narrow "bread and butter" sense.

Mabel

One of my first organizing experiences was with janitors at a hospital. The janitors were all African Americans or immigrant Latinos and many of them were women. One of the key people among the janitors was a women I'll call Mabel. Mabel worked full time night shift. Mable's main reason for being part of the organizing drive was that she wanted more control over scheduling. She had repeatedly asked management to put her on day shift. There were other workers on day shift who wanted to work nights because the night shift got paid a bit more.

Mabel wanted to work days so she could be at home with her five children when they were not at school. She was a single mother who relied a lot on her older two children to help with the younger children. Mabel was particularly concerned because there had been a lot of shootings and gang activity close to her house. She was afraid that her thirteen year old son would get mixed up in gang activity or would get hurt if he was unsupervised five nights a week.

Mabel's demand to work days is not a narrowly "bread and butter" economic issue. In the short term, Mabel was willing to take a small pay cut in order to work days, because she was willing to give up the shift premium she got for working nights. Mabel's issue, like all or almost all workplace issues, boiled down to who had power. Power on the job is not only about "bread and butter."

Doubts about organizing may also come from a sense that oppression is not just a workplace issue, that some pieces of oppression can't be fixed on the job. Some of the doubts or hesitation about workplace organizing may come from a feeling that people who push for more workplace organizing don't care about oppression outside of work. These are important concerns but this doesn't mean that oppression can't be fought in the workplace at all.

Benefits to Women

I think that workplace organizing is a key piece of opposing sexism and racism. Like I said before, not all power is about "bread and butter." On the other hand, "bread and butter" issues are crucial parts of sexism and racism. Women and people of color generally make less money in their jobs. A 2008 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, entitled "Unions and Upward Mobility for Women Workers" found that women in union jobs earn about 11% more and are more likely to have insurance. Because women tend to be in jobs that pay less, unionization especially benefits women workers.

Lower pay results in part from the history of women and people of color having less power in our society. Since money is a type of power, women and people of color having less money also reinforces the trend of women and people of color having less power in our society. "Bread and
butter" for women and people of color is connected to women and people of color having power or not having power in society and over their own lives.

Ultimately, it's up to all women workers and workers of color to decide in their own situations what their issues are. That may be "bread and butter" or an issue more like Mable's, or both or something else. The point is that when workplace organizing means women and people of color having more control over their lives and more power in society, then workplace organizing is a feminist and an anti-racist activity.

Organizing for Childcare

2010-09-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

the Winnipeg IWW General Membership Branch we've really been discussing how to remove barriers to participation, especially for women workers, and we've identified childcare as a significant barrier to participation in our branch and union work. So, I was tasked with coming up with some Assessment stamps in order to raise money and track the donations.

This way, we can build a fund in our branch to hopefully take a couple chips out of that wall. We've had these pretty nice childcare assessments going to a while now, and from them we have raised something like 100-200 dollars to be stashed away for when we need to take care of childcare arrangements. Attached at the end of the message I'll put a PDF of the sheets for people to help disseminate and use in there branches.

That being said, We've still hit walls when it comes to providing space for Brother and Sister workers with children. Having a person available once a month is often difficult to arrange, making our childcare fund most used when there are larger events rather then business meetings. There is still allot of work to do on that front.

Click Here for Childcare Assessment sheet

Feminist solidarity

2010-09-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

Within the anti-authoritarian tradition, we can understand feminism as concerning itself with a particular form of authority -- that which imposes itself on women. If we too are concerned with that authority which imposes itself on women, we may be counted within the feminist community. This is true regardless of whether, amongst those who are concerned with authority imposed on women, there are some who are not consistently anti-authoritarian. To be concerned is to gain entry into feminism; from there we must choose whether to be concerned about other forms of authority. If we are anti-authoritarians, we will be concerned with every form of authority.

Nevertheless, to be concerned with all forms of authority is to inevitably direct our practical efforts toward certain forms of authority, not every form of authority in equal measure. Because authority is expressed through relationships, proximity to a relationship is helpful when we focus on a particular form of authority.

For example, as a straight white dude, I understand the authority imposed by capital by working for an employer in an entry-level capacity. Subsequently, I can speak from this perspective -- of someone subjugated within a relationship.

But being straight, white, and a dude, I can also speak from the perspective of someone solicited by authority in other relationships; namely, those relationships in which these attributes confer a power advantage.

The tendency for straight white dudes such as myself to become preoccupied with class struggle is understandable insofar as this is the one realm where we experience subjugation. And the fact that we are enjoined to participate in the exercise of authority within other relationships -- to be seen as oppressors -- can also make us reluctant to take up other concerns.

But our asset in either case is proximity to the relationship.

Men can't play the same role within feminism as women, but the reverse is also true: women can't see patriarchy "from the top." In this way, men make their own contribution within feminism as a complement to women's -- to reveal how patriarchy works from their own perspective. Men have their own perspective within patriarchy, but it is only by working with women that the picture of what both endure becomes complete.

True colors

2010-09-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

You might note the new color scheme.

One of my first experiences with patriarchy happened in kindergarten. To this day I remember it very distinctly, in much the same way I remember the first time I was exposed to anti-Semitism as a 6th-grader, newly admitted to Catholic school.

I don't remember much about kindergarten, 6th-grade, or school in general, except that I regarded it as a very long prison sentence from which I would eventually emerge as a much older person. And I couldn't freakin' wait!

These moments must stand out to me because they succeeded in rising above the normal level of absurdity I was accustomed to in school.

In 6th-grade it was delivered by new friends who expressed an unexplained prejudice against Jews, owing to the fact that they "ate bagels" and "picked up pennies." I didn't know what a bagel was, and I was hardly prepared to formulate an opinion about somebody based on their relationship to small change. I'd always lived in mixed communities comprised of Christians and Jews; I'd had many Jewish friends in public school. As a 12-year-old I could tell you the whole line of argument was unpersuasive, and this contributed to a general skepticism toward my peers.

As a 5-year-old, I was also left deeply unimpressed by society, which, through its public system of education, had solicited from me an opinion about my "favorite color." I told everybody: Pink! As I say, to this day, the reaction this opinion elicited from every figure of authority in my life remains crystal clear: Pink couldn't be my favorite color, they told me, because it was a girl's color. It's instructive to think that human beings can, at 5 years of age, have a brain in their head which doesn't give a damn, which sees no division between the natural interests of girls and boys.

There are times in my adult life when I regret not taking a firmer stand on preferences I arrived at intuitively as a child. Eventually, I capitulated and chose a different color as my favorite. Like everything else in school that was dictated to me as all-important, all-necessary, lest I ruin my development and forfeit my chances for a happy life, I can't tell you what that color was. It was never a part of who I was in the first place.

I.W.W. Women in History

2010-09-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

What is feminism?

2010-09-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Like any social impulse, feminism is not so much one thing as it is an expression of competing trends which relate to women's aspirations as free individuals. What kind of feminism we identify with -- or whether we identify at all -- contributes to the broader picture of feminism which prevails within society.

For example, I know many people who don't identify with feminism because the model they acknowledge doesn't reflect their concerns. By choosing to disassociate, however, these friends yield what should be contested terrain to their rivals. Feminism then grows in stature as a movement which does not address the concerns of all women. The practical consequence of rejecting "feminism" as inadequate is to preserve its inadequacy.

To the extent that there has been an organized attempt to understand power relations from the perspectives of women, it has come under the banner of feminism. Either we don't care about this particular course of study and action, or we propose some viable alternative. Short of this, we must advocate for the kind of feminism which reflects our values and concerns.

In the same way that the Industrial Workers of the World seeks to establish the "one big union for all workers," a Wobbly feminism must truly be a "feminism for all women." A feminism for all women will always be an anti-capitalist feminism, because the needs and aspirations of all women cannot be reconciled with capitalism. For this reason, a consistent feminism will always be a socialist feminism; a free feminism will be a libertarian feminism.

Feminist men in struggle

2010-09-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Men have a vital role to play in feminism, but it is a role that regularly goes unfulfilled. In consequence, feminism suffers.

Feminism suffers without men because many men won't listen to women. If men won't listen to women, the only hope for advancing women's concerns is either to secede from men altogether, or to promote these concerns through feminist men. Most women aren't interested in abstaining from men, but they do want allies in their struggles.

Male culture desperately needs to change. At present, it is two-faced: it acts one way around women, another way around men, in the same way the racist acts one way around white friends and another around blacks. But women can't confront the face they do not see. This is the responsibility of feminist men -- men who care for and respect the women in their lives, and share in their concerns -- to confront a patriarchal culture with a different way of being men.

Feminist men can ally themselves with women by discussing their own struggles with patriarchy with women and with other men. This blog has been created out of the desire for revolutionary unionist men to honestly discuss the tactical project of taking on patriarchy, both in our personal and professional lives. It should demonstrate to women and to other unionist men the commitment that the men of the Industrial Workers of the World have in building a new society in the shell of the old -- one that assumes women as equal partners in achieving this goal.