Marie : I think we have to change what anarchism is.

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 think we have to change what anarchism is.

[At age 15*, I volunteered for Task Force, a local social welfare organisation visiting elderly people living in isolation and poverty] — which really did make me decide that [we] needed a revolution.

[Then I went to [meetings of environmental groups] Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace ]. It was a completely alienating thing to do, really, because I was being a schoolgirl most of the time, and living at home being lonely, and then I’d go and sit in meetings and be terribly impressed with everyone and then go home again … It was partly because of that kind of background that it took me a long time to get into the Women’s Movement, because that world where the men were seemed interesting and exciting, and women were all at school and being boring and awful … finally, I went to a women’s group for the last year I was at school. …

It was because of the logic of pacifism that I first thought about anarchism.

Judy: How much did being involved in feminist ideas change what you were thinking about the other things you were doing?

Marie: Only quite slowly. For a long time I separated them completely. It became clearer, it all clicked together, because seeing your own oppression does make it clearer what the other situations you’re talking about are about, and I think I understood more what was going on, and became more clearly a revolutionary and less a liberal.

Situationism in general, I think is quite close [to feminism, as are the sort of] anarchists that go in for alternatives, links with things like self-help health groups, that sort of thing. …

I think we have to change what anarchism is.

[On National Abortion Campaign:] It was easier when I lived in London and there were other people [campaigning], I could say let them do it, and I don’t need to, but when it’s a choice between me doing it and nobody doing it at times, I’ll do it. It does so immediately affect your life. …

Judy: Do you work mostly in women’s things now?

Marie: Mostly, but basically you haven’t the choice here [in York] because there isn’t enough. You could just refuse to have anything to do with male politics but I think that would be a cop-out in general … I put a priority on working with women, but I think if I couldn’t find women that want to do work that I want to do — I don’t really feel that I’ve got the choices. …

I do think it’s very important, [to look at] at the role of women in fascism, the appeal of fascism to women, quite apart from what it does to women, which is fairly clear, but why it gets the enormous support of women, which it does when it grows. …

You can’t think of issues in York the way you can in London […] because you basically have to work on things other people will, and you basically look at what you think people will be bothered about. …

I think the whole thing about class and race that has been coming up in the [women’s] movement over the last year or two is an issue for the movement, that we have to work on. …

Judy: Do you think theory is important?

Marie: Yes, but not theory out of books. I think what’s important is people just realising we haven’t got enough idea of what we’re doing, it’s more strategy than theory I suppose… I don’t think things like theories of origins of oppression are particularly important … but just a theory of revolution which we simply haven’t got at all — of how to get there and what it would be, which I think is all the same thing … I think we must get, if only the right terminology of how to talk about women’s revolution.

Judy: I think one should try and be very open, but total lack of strategy doesn’t seem the same as being open. …

Judy: A lot of people have no idea what the word ‘anarchist’ means except as it’s used by the press; they don’t know that there are alternative theories. But then I think part of the problem is that people are looking for a [ready-]made structure — we’re almost looking to be told what to do… I think that’s something to fight against, though some structure is necessary … and the unhappiness with it is part of being an anarchist. …

Marie: I think I am a revolutionary more because I see that as a moral position in a way, rather than a realistic thing … Basically I just can’t tolerate not to do anything… I suppose I do think there will be some kind of revolution in lots and lots of years — I don’t think feminism will be stopped this time. …

What I don’t think there’ll be is a traditional socialist revolution – I still find it difficult to believe that they all think that it will …

Judy: I think I’m happier now than I was not thinking about my life as a woman. I get very angry and miserable about that still, but it’s nothing like the misery of when I was just isolated and didn’t fit in and didn’t understand what was going on. So I always think that political activity for me is a way of making me feel better … it’s because you’re doing something that seems to be worthwhile. It’s worthwhile in terms of relationships which are very different from the ones I’d been able to form [at] work, and other […] ways of meeting people … I don’t mean the kind of philosophy that you only do what you like — It’s a consequence [of getting involved] rather than a reason …

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*Note

[‘Marie’ was 20 at the time of the interview.]