Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism generally posits that patriarchy and traditional gender roles as manifestations of involuntary coercive hierarchy should be replaced by decentralized free association.
[5] It was only after Mikhail Bakunin made the abolition of gender inequality one of the aims of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy that women's rights became a primary concern for the anarchist movement.
Through Errico Malatesta's La Questione Sociale, Teresa Mañé's pamphlets on female education and gender inequality received widespread publication.
[18] As a way to counter the Culture of Domesticity, which upheld the private property of the nuclear family, anarchist women like Charlotte Wilson opened their homes into "quasi-public spaces" for political meetings and communal meals.
[25] Anarcha-feminists generally concluded that male hostility to feminism proved them unreliable to the cause for women's rights, and began to organise their own movement to address their own needs.
[31] Sánchez Saornil herself wrote poetry that called for women to take action against their oppression, which attracted Emma Goldman to visit Spain and participate in the work of the Mujeres Libres as an advocate.
[32] But the anarchist feminism of the time, focused more on developing small activist groups than creating a mass movement, lacked a precise strategy for achieving women's rights, so little action in that way was taken.
[34] By the late 1960s, second-wave feminism had emerged from the New Left, as part of a broad wave of anti-oppression activism that included the civil rights movement and culminated with the protests of 1968.
[38] Many second-wave feminists came to consider anarchism to be the "logically consistent expression of feminism", due to its synthesis of the struggle for individual liberty with that for social equality.
[40] The anarcha-feminist drive to reckon with these hierarchical forms of organisation was particularly influenced by Jo Freeman's 1972 essay The Tyranny of Structurelessness, which encouraged an organized egalitarian tendency within the movement.
[43] Anarcha-feminists such as Ann Hansen participated in the bombing attacks by the urban guerrilla group Direct Action, which targeted companies that produced parts for weapons of war and a chain video store that was distributing snuff films and paedophilic pornography.
[48] With the turn of the 21st century, there was a concerted effort to rethink approaches to anarcha-feminist histories, placing value in collective, open and non-hierarchical methods of gathering and exchanging knowledge.
[51] The fourth wave of feminism emerged through the development of postfeminism, taking concern with the objectification of women by market forces and characterised by its use of social networking.
[57] Anarcha-feminism expanded on the traditional anarchist principles of anti-statism, anti-clericalism and anti-capitalism, demonstrating their role in institutional discrimination such as sexism, racism and homophobia.
[63] Anarchist feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman fiercely criticised the institution of marriage, as they considered it to be inherently oppressive towards women due to its lack of consent.
[68] On the other hand, free love was opposed by Lucy Parsons, who criticised it as being inconsistent with anarchism and for its increased risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, instead arguing for a form of "monogamy without marriage".
[15] From the inception of anarcha-feminism as a current, anarchist feminists have engaged with other struggles that intersect with women's issues, participating in a number of different anti-racist and anti-colonial movements.
[43] Groups within the activist network No one is illegal (NOII) have since engaged in an anti-racist anarcha-feminism as part of their anti-border advocacy, which was itself rooted in an anti-statist critique of institutional sexism and racism within state immigration regimes.
[74] Although the institution of private property was roundly critiqued by anarcho-communists such as Emma Goldman, it was upheld as a means of women's economic emancipation by Voltairine de Cleyre.
Louise Michel blamed capitalism for creating the economic conditions that drove women towards sex work, which she claimed could only be brought to an end by means of a social revolution.
[85] Emma Goldman also publicly criticised sex work abolitionists for using male legal systems to criminalise women, which she held to be a form of class discrimination.
