Anarcha, feminism, autonomy and every day liberation

Workshop Notes for Subplot (28 August 2005)

Unpaid Labour

  • What kinds of unpaid labour do we engage in (or are meant to engage in)?
    • Cleaning
    • Having kids, taking care of them, educating them, etc.
    • Psychological services
    • Being pleasant
    • Pretending that menstruation doesn’t affect us (part of being pleasant)
    • Being beautiful (shopping, consuming beauty products and fashion, ,
    • Sexual services - includes the provision of sex, being available, being attractive, courtship and mating games
    • Provision of comfort and reassurance
  • Why do we do unpaid labour? (its easier, its gratifying, no-one else will do it / it needs to be done)
  • How does it affect our autonomy?
  • Can we have autonomy when we can’t access free time and/or can’t access the right to refuse to work in our “free” time
  • Are there ways that we could stop or avoid doing unpaid labour
    • Is simply refusing possible?
  • What are the traditional/ perceived consequences of refusing to engage in unpaid labour?
    • Being a ‘bad’ woman / mother / wife
  • How does the struggle for equality affect us in doing unpaid labour?
  • (Do we even struggle for equality? How about a struggle for autonomy and self-definition?)
  • How does unpaid labour interact with class? Is it a class phenomenon, or simply more damaging to the working class? How does capitalism benefit from all this unpaid labour that we do?
  • How do roles direct us toward doing unpaid labour, and who benefits?
  • Do you get stuck working in your role, but outside your ‘area of responsibility’ (e.g. Playing mother to your boss)?

Autonomy

  • What is autonomy?
  • How do we “get” autonomy?
  • Is autonomy the same as anarchism? What’s the difference?
  • What, if anything, does anarchism hold for women (as women)?
  • Is (political and personal) autonomy (from capitalism, from patriarchy, from hierarchy) possible?
  • What roles are we engaged in? How do roles constrain us and prevent our autonomy? Are there roles that women especially play?

Anarcha / anarchism

  • Can we define anarcha-feminism? (is it a ‘movement’, a philosophy, an attitude, or a resort to banding together against hostile elements?)
  • At what point do we cease to engage in “the broader movement” which never really included or represented us in the first place?