Quotes taken from here:
Men who claim to be anarchists or feminists should do their own cooking, cleaning, and childcare. That, for me, is rule #1. Any man who claims to be an anarchist or feminist, while he has women making his food regularly, is a joke.
Yes and no. My 'yes' is that: any person who is capable should learn basic domestic actions, especially as it helps everyone else out. It helps to share the responsibilities for things like sewing, cooking, cleaning, childcare, and so on.
My 'no' is that these ideas are inherently ableist because they fail to recognise that there are people for whom these activities are difficult. Though they should engage them to the ability that they can and want, they shouldn't struggle on their own without support.
Sometimes, when I read feminist literature, I often find that it lacks a lot of nuance and focuses on a strict gender binary. It's amusing because it often neglects a few things: disability (not all people are capable of performing the same actions), the understanding that gender is not (and never has been) a binary, and the failure to recognise that there are plenty of people of all genders who were not taught basic domestic skills because our world denigrates them.
So while I agree with the sentiment, I do wish there was more recognition of these concepts.
It occurred to me that her dilemma really was not that she had not done anything or thought anything controversial in 20 years, it was that she had been beaten down to a point where she had no independence and confidence anymore. That, to me, seemed to be the issue. She was trying to learn how to think independently and that came BEFORE the speech, but the speech triggered the independent thinking. The woman finally did a speech on the controversial subject of flossing teeth. She made an argument that people did not take flossing seriously, and gave out little floss samples, and I just loved her for it. She was very brave and I say that with the utmost sincerity.
This is both incredibly sweet and quite sad. But yes: Our ability and freedom to think comes before making the speeches.
I feel when men say things like women want to clean up after them or do their dishes and cooking and childcare, that they are just oppressing the woman further, even if it is subtle, and that type of behavior does not empower her, but further beat her down, reinforcing servitude as her most prominent and useful talent.
Since our society rewards women for becoming a wife and mother more than for independent careers, my mom chose wife and mother. But as she was locked up on a cul-de-sac in a suburb in Los Angeles, cooking, cleaning, doing endless childcare, chained to the house, with no intellectual stimulation, she literally went nuts. She complained that the other moms on the block wanted to talk about the latest TV show or a new store in town, when my mom wanted to talk politics and art. My dad was flying off to his exciting jobs in the aerospace program, all over the world, as a well-paid engineer, but my mom could fly no more. She had to sit at home with me getting more and more dark and depressed, dependent on my dad, who was gone a lot. My dad was still out in the world, participating in the world, yet had a home and wife and child waiting anytime he came home, to serve him. My mom was relegated to servitude and it killed a part of her soul most certainly.
I think even in 2011, it wasn't quite true that society rewards becoming a wife and mother. It appears to me that there was a shift in the 1990s that really pushed white women to achieve both the career (knowing that they'd constantly get knocked down a few pegs for even trying) and the wifely motherhood. It was, by that time, no longer "one or the other." It was a huge push to badly do both so that there could be some area of blame, particularly for poor women.
This kind of discussion also fails to recognise the ways in which white motherhood usurped the motherhood of women of colour (especially Indigenous and Black women who... really have had less access to parenting their own children, even today).
Emma Goldman, an anarchist that male anarchists recognize and give props to, says this issue of domestic servitude by women is a serious matter that directly affects anarchy.
Males need to PROVE they are not using women for servitude as second class citizens by, um, NOT ALLOWING WOMEN TO SERVE THEM.
Again, this bit really comes across as... strange. The hyperuse of gender binary here is a bit unsettling. For something published in the late 2000s or early 2010s, it feels very lacking in its criticism.
It needs to focus far more on cisheteronormativity and what that might look like. This has a feeling of "white cis woman from the suburbs." This isn't to look down upon or invalidate the feelings of such people, but their connection to feminism and patriarchy is different. They need to acknowledge how they both are impacted by and maintain oppressive systems.
Pro-active anarchist men clean up dishes they dirty BEFORE they are asked and BEFORE A WOMAN CAN DO IT FOR THEM.
While I understand the sentiment, I very much feel that we need to be more cognizant of gender binaries. We should be teaching all people to be proactive and to ask for help when they need it. More people need to be proactive in keeping environments happy and healthy for other people.
But we also need more people of the hegemonic culture to recognise their own actions and to call others out for them. That's still lacking.
And I have become a pro-active poverty and feminist activist, which means I do not silently sit by while sexism and classism occurs just because the men have power and to confront them is scary. Women who confront anarchist men about the issues of male elitism meet all kinds of comical defensive behavior from Manarchists.
As a victim of abuse, I'm going to say that I find this incredibly dishonest and of poor reflection. It's scary because the behaviours of the hegemonic culture when confronted with their harms are scary. It's scary because some people, including those claiming to be anarchists, are abusive.
Yet this author is treating that fear as if people are just simply afraid to upset someone, when many of us are afraid of losing ourselves. Many of us are still confronting a reality where we've had to really learn what battles to fight and from what position because we might die, even by the hands of our supposed comrades.
This also applies to all trans people. And we did exist when this essay was written.
