by Laura Vicente at https://pensarenelmargen and http://acracia.org/anarchism today 5 April, 2022 translation thefreeonline Telegram t.me/thefreeonline illustrations added
Reading this Manifesto by Chiara Bottici [1], at the end of 2021, was a breath of fresh air in the panorama of anarchist feminism which is lacking in ideas, let alone building a social movement, in this country.
Not to underestimate, far from it, all the efforts that are made to build a feminist proposal from anarchism, everything is useful and, especially, in these times.
However, we have to recognize how difficult and slow it is to start it: sometimes due to a lack of ideas, also because activism in other fields leaves little time for the creation of solid anarcho(a)feminist groups with continuity over time. and, finally, often because confrontations dominate the feminist and anarchist space and time and energy are wasted on them.
In addition to reading the Manifesto, I attended the conference in Barcelona (March 7, 2022) in which the author synthesized her ideas, which she explains in a book [2] that has just come out and which I am immersed in reading these days. .
Why a Manifesto? The need for a Manifesto here and now is given by the existence of gendered bodies that are exploited and dominated throughout the world, not because it is presented as a plan that can be given once and for all and applied in all contexts.
The latter would be in flagrant contradiction to the anarchism that impregnates this Manifesto that must be open and in constant development, as the author proposes.
Why Anarchafeminist? Anarchism means that there is no arché (that there is no law, that there is no single principle that explains the oppression of women) and the anarcho concept is feminized to give visibility to the specifically feminist facet within anarchist theory and practice.
Content of the Manifesto (following the idea that the Manifesto is open and in constant development, it should be clear that this is not a summary of the Manifesto, I have made it my own and have chopped it up to my liking).
The author starts from the existence of a global androcracy (political and social supremacy of men). Although patriarchy, which means the law of the male head of the family, has been overthrown in many contexts, the power of men over the “second sex” (a term borrowed from Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’) [3]) continues through death, the state, capital and the imaginal. Bottici dedicates seven of the nine chapters that make up her Manifesto to these four instruments of androcracy.
Death, the State, Capital and the Imaginal.
Regarding death (chapter 1), the author points out the existence of an authentic global gendercide against people perceived as women.
The second instrument of androcracy is the State (chapters 2 and 3) and its gender dimension. The State has always been a tool of a minority (where there are hardly any women) that governs the majority.
El Estado Opresor Es un Macho Violador/The Oppressive State is a macho rapist…-Chile Uprising
Capital (chapter 4) is the third instrument of androcracy, it needs the gender division of labor, in this way it can achieve the extraction of surplus value from productive salaried work and also from unpaid reproductive work.
The author points out that “women” is not an eternal essence or a pre-given object. Women are not objects but processes (the place of a becoming); they are not things but social relations.
Continue reading ““Anarchafeminist Manifesto” by Chiara Bottici (from Laura Vicente: my personal reading).. Eng/Esp. * REPOST 25N-2024*”
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