Susan: I really believe in a basic anarchism in all women, because of their experiences.

Women activists in the UK discuss anarchism, feminism and the relationship between the personal and the political in extracts from interviews carried out by myself and Lynn Alderson in 1977. The whereabouts of the original tapes, or longer transcripts,  is unknown, though we still have hopes of recovering them. For now, these partial transcripts are all there is. See  Anarchism and  Feminism:  Voices from the Seventies for the other interviews and further information.

Note on Text: In line with the original intention that  the interviewees would remain anonymous,  I  have given them pseudonyms, and made one or two minor alterations. Editorial amendments are indicated in square brackets [1977 edits] or square brackets and italics [2014 edits]. Ellipses appear in the original transcriptions, indicating cuts.  In a couple of instances I have made additional small cuts, indicated with […], to remove repetition or obscurity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Key Words: anarchism, anarchafeminism, feminism, gender, politics, women’s liberation, 1970s

Notes →




I really believe in a basic anarchism in all women, because of their experiences.

I liked the libertarians [*] I met because they were more sympathetic to sexual politics and against hierarchical political groups. I began to tie this up with the way I’d preferred to work in the past and the idea of community-based politics. I was in Southampton at the time … I was a bit isolated. …

The anarchist men I’ve met — some have been very unsympathetic to sexual politics, and some I find it hard to communicate with. …

At the [Anarchist Feminist] Conference it was the first time I’d put the two things together, though for a long time I’d already come to that position in my mind. Since then I’ve joined a group — I’ve met a lot of women who felt very similar. Really one of the best things about [anarchist feminism] for me is the women I’ve met … since I put the two together I’ve thought of all sorts of things I want to do and work on, while in the past I’ve always been very confused as to how to work politically. I often thought of joining a Marxist group … the people I met put me off. I was always sort of on the outside … there are loads of arguments against Marxism [but] in one sense it was just the whole way they related to the world and the way they related to the women I knew. I think it says an awful lot about the kinds of things they believe in.

At one time I thought I was going insane and I started reading [R.D.] Laing and started to realise that social conditions were causing me to feel the way I did. …

I see anarchism as having more imaginative alternatives than Marxism. … A friend of mine said if you can remain an anarchist in spite of anarchists you must have quite a strong belief in anarchism. … I think that anarchists are very very necessary at this moment. I know the dangers of utopianism and I don’t actually believe in the anarchist revolution in a few years or even a hundred years. I do think anarchists are more hopeful to work with than Marxists because they do think of revolution more in cultural terms and in terms of sexual politics. …

I think one has to act, and work out a theoretical position in conjunction with the action … one should not look back to nineteenth century theories and try and copy them, but try and relate them to the way things are happening now.

[Feminism] has given me a lot of support. You feel not quite so alone. I think if you feel that you’re not the only person who believes certain things … your beliefs aren’t actually a sign that you’re going crazy. …

I don’t think there is an anarchist movement in this country. There are lots of separate anarchists. The only group I feel I could work with is the women’s group and maybe a few men in the street theatre. I work with anarchists in squatting and so on but I don’t think of myself as part of an anarchist movement … I relate to the women’s movement as a whole more than I do anarchism …

Squatting is a personal and political choice… I want to live communally with people politically similar to me and there aren’t many situations where I could live like that… the thing about squatting is it brings up the whole question of ownership and possession… we’re learning how we want to live at least, and that’s very important. …

[Future aims?] I’d like to start a street theatre group, bridge the dichotomy between personal relationships and working relationships. …

Judy: What is the point [of activism] if you don’t see the possibility of anarchist or feminist revolution?

Susan: I don’t have any choice. Part of living is the process of struggle. I think you always have to be striving towards something which maybe is utopian. After all Marx didn’t produce any blueprint for the future, and I think there are dangers trying to produce blueprints. They don’t take account of the fact that things are changing all the time.

I can’t really see a revolution without women being completely free … I think men and women have got to be free together.

Judy: Perhaps they have got to be free separately before they can be free together.

Susan: I don’t really know what that would mean. I don’t think we can ignore the existence of men … they do exist. Most of us have to interact with them every day unless we really do shut ourselves away. …

If there’s a law against abortion, then we should just set up our own abortion clinics, illegally. You’ve got to be brave enough to say ‘ Fuck the law ‘ . If enough women take that attitude it’s going to be very hard for the state to come down on them.

We are all frightened of the freedom to be able to choose things for ourselves, although we’re living in a society where the choices are false choices. I’d love to have a child if I could live in the way I’d really like to live, which I don’t think is possible in this society. It’s hard to learn how to cope with freedom in a society that doesn’t allow you very much.

Judy: It would probably be hard in a society that did allow you freedom. We are so structured…

Susan: Yes, given our conditioning. That’s why I don’t think there’s really a coherent anarchist movement, because anarchists believe in the kinds of things they find it really hard to put into practice …

Judy: I think it’s very important to try and live up to some kind of political ideals — I think that’s what’s important about anarchism, that it has these principles that affect every aspect of your life — but I think it’s romanticising to pretend that you can be there now, that it’s a political failure on your part if you feel jealousy, or you’re angry with your kids, spend money on frivolities — that’s ridiculous I think having ideals can move you into a position where you make it easier for yourself to move towards them.

Susan: I think politics and ethics are obviously connected. Material change takes place with human interaction. …

I think when the WLM [Women’s Liberation Movement] becomes more broad-based, it will inevitably take on a much more anarchist structure, because I don’t think the majority of women will allow themselves to be led. I really believe in a basic anarchism in all women, because of their experiences. Women being more at home, more in small groups, more tradition of gossip and small political intrigue — I think that’s something that excludes hierarchical structure.

Judy: I think a lot of women have an underlying contempt for political power.

Susan: The more feminists set up examples for women to live alternatively, the more other women are going to be able to develop themselves and get away from their oppression. I think that’s part of the function of the WLM at the moment. And to learn how to live ourselves. To talk to and support all women. I think we can influence people. We’ve all been influenced by people we’ve met, more than books and pamphlets.

Judy: I think the excitement of discovering women’s liberation and realising you’re not alone, and that there are things that could be different, can be so much that you do get very impatient.

Susan: Because we want to live now.

Judy: We are living now!

Susan: We don’t want to sacrifice our lives just to struggle, but we’re almost condemned to that.

Judy: Almost you can’t choose not to. When you recognise things, you can’t turn your back. Well, you can, but you really are killing part of yourself. But I get very resentful about it sometimes …

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*Notes

[Libertarians: in Britain, ‘libertarian’  does not  usually have the right-wing connotations that it has in the USA. ‘Susan’ is referring here to left wing libertarians/ anti authoritarian socialists.]