Women and Anarchism: The Anarcha-Feminism Movement in Europe and the United States

Abstract

As an ideology, anarchism has many currents formed through its symbiosis with various socio-political philosophies, including feminism. In the modern world, due to the growing support for feminism in Western countries, the study of anarcha-feminism as one of the most active anarchist movements seems to be useful for understanding the socio-political situation in Europe and the United States. The article examines the position of women in the anarchism ideology upon the development of the anarcha-feminist movement from the 19th century to the present day. Based on the works of the classics of anarcha-feminism (E. Goldman, W. De Claire) and modern research (D. Koval, M. Rachmaninova), the author conducted a comparative retrospective analysis of the relationship between anarchism and feminism within a single socio-political trend. The study revealed that despite the ideological similarity of anarchism and feminism in matters of equality and attitude to power, in classical anarchism women were assigned a rather insignificant, and even deprived, role. The fusion of feminism and anarchism, which came as a response to the unfair position of women in society, led to a change in the status of women in the understanding of anarchists, and also gave impetus to the development of modern anarcha-feminism (La Rivolta!, Eskalera Karakola, Wemoons Army, Radical cheerleading) including more and more men in the movement.

Keywords

• anarchism
• feminism
• anarcha-feminism
• queer-anarchism
• ecofeminism
• lgbt