*This review is forthcoming in Human Geography, 7(3), 2014

Quiet Rumors: An Anarcha-feminist Reader, Dark Star Collective, Oakland, AK Press, 2012.

“One might go as far as to claim feminists are the only existing protest groups that can honestly

be called practicing Anarchists.” -Lynne Farrow in Quiet Rumors (19)

A persistent point of contention within anarchist circles is the unintentional replication of

social hierarchies, often along lines of class, race, and gender. Many anarchist groups are

dedicated to overcoming the socialized dominance of particular bodies and identities over others.

However, those in privileged positions are quite often unaware of the fact they have been trained

to dominate, while others have been taught to acquiesce. Despite widespread awareness within

anarchist circles of the performative nature of the gender binary, it persists. For some, the

solution lies in working with groups comprised of people who are predominantly female, queer,

or trans. For many however, particularly those outside major urban centers with large radical

populations, participation in anarchist projects necessitates interaction with groups comprised of

cismen who are quite often unaware of the ways their behavior perpetuates social hierarchies,

alienating and marginalizing people who are not like themselves.

Anarcha-feminism connects the anti-authoritarian horizontalism of anarchy to a critique

of patriarchal society. Weaving together anarchism with feminism in this way serves not only to

dissect the gendered nature of patriarchal society, but also turns the focus inward, calling

attention to the ways that anarchist projects are just as capable as anyone else of replicating

gendered patterns of domination. Historically, anarcha-feminism has been the outcome of

female anarchists working to articulate the concerns of women in the context of larger anarchist

struggles such as the early 20th

century labor movement in the United States (Goldman, 1917)

and the Mujeres Libres of the Spanish Civil War era (Ruiz and Berenguer, 2011). Later,

women’s rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s found common ground with anarchist ideals

and organizing strategies. More recently, anarcha-feminism has evolved to encompass a broader

discussion of sexuality, challenging the binary altogether with the inclusion of queer and trans

concerns.

Originally circulated in pamphlet form throughout the 1970s by the UK based anarcha-

feminist group Black Bear, Quiet Rumors was first published as a book in 1984 by the

booksellers’ collective, Dark Star. For the 2002 AK Press edition, a number of essays were

added to the original six, including Jo Freeman’s piece on “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,”

and Cathy Levine’s response, “The Tyranny of Tyranny.” In its most recent incarnation, Quiet

Rumors addresses more contemporary questions oriented around the validity of the gender binary

as well as incorporating Latin American feminist views, through inclusion of such pieces as

“Anarcha-feminism and the newer ‘woman question’” by Stacy/Sally Darity and “An Interview

with Mujeres Creando,” by Katherine Ainger.

Quiet Rumors is an important resource for anyone interested in anarchist thought,

particularly for academics who may be more familiar with anarchy and feminism in the abstract

than in the practical. Many of the essays are refreshingly polemical, written from by people

invested in social change and mindful of the immediacy of bringing feminist concerns into the

larger paradigm of anarchist politics. Comprised of 21 essays overall, the volume highlights

moments throughout the history of anarcha-feminist thought, including works by early anarchist

female writers, Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre, essays emerging out of 1970s feminist

discussions by such figures as Peggy Kornegger and Jo Freeman, and Cathy Levine, as well as

by insurrectionaries, Rote Zora, and Bolivian street artists, Mujeres Creando. Not only is Quiet

Rumors one of very few anthologies of anarchist thought to bring feminist concerns to the

forefront, but the editors have clearly tried to incorporate voices from the Global South, moving

the discussion of anarchist theory and practice beyond the usual litany of male historical figures

from Western Europe and the United States.

The book begins with a brief preface by the AK Press Collective and forward by the Dark

Star Collective, providing some publishing history for Quiet Rumors and background into the

motivations behind various iterations of the text. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz introduces the volume,

with a nod to the significance of remembering our predecessors and the fact that, while

oppression is certainly a social phenomenon, it is also something experienced by individuals, in

ways shaped by our unique identities. Indeed, this is a common theme throughout the volume

and something that should be of particular interest to feminist geographers: the emphasis on

difference. While not stated explicitly so, the essays in Quiet Rumors are about the fact that

differently bodied, gendered, and identified people experience space in personal and nuanced

ways. As such, one cannot speak for the experience of another. More importantly, within the

anarchist movement, there are people who have been socialized to behave differently: some to

speak authoritatively, others to listen. Anarcha-feminism encourages awareness of difference to

better equip anarchists with the awareness to overcome their hierarchical instruction by capitalist

patriarchal society.

To give a sampling of what readers will find in this text, I highlight here two articles of

particular interest, “The Tyranny of Sturcturelessness” by Jo Freeman, originally published in

1972 and “the Tyranny of Tyranny” by Cathy Levine, first published in 1979. The first appeared

initially as a talk given at the Southern Female Rights Union conference in Beulah, Mississippi

in 1970 and from there was widely circulated in various feminist publications. Freeman argues

that the women’s rights movement suffered from a lack of direction and political potency

because of its reluctance to engage in any form of hierarchical organizing structure. She points

first to the problem of elite power within the movement, facilitated simply because there was no

system to keep it in check. Women of privilege, who tended to have easier access to resources

and did not need to dedicate time to earning money were able to participate in decision making

processes to a greater degree than women who had to spend their time working. A second

problem pointed out by Freeman is that of the “star” system. Because structureless organizing

does not designate leaders or spokespeople, she argues, there is a tendency for particular women

of privilege to emerge as leaders in the eyes of the press and public. Lastly, Freeman explains

that the structurelessness of the women’s movement has contributed to political impotence, as

such groups tended to define their role as providing a space to talk about the experience of being

women in patriarchal society, rather than for mobilizing political action.

Several years later, Cathy Levine published “The Tyranny of Tyranny”, out of concern

that Freeman’s piece was “destructive in its distortion and maligning of a valid, conscious

strategy for building a revolutionary movement” (77). In Levine’s view, there are two ways a

revolutionary movement can develop: either as an organized hierarchical structure in which

people are merely cogs in a larger system, or as autonomous groups who voluntarily associate

and are capable of coming together as a much larger entity. She points out the importance of

time spent developing oneself, in contrast to the “male” movement of the 1960s in which

political radicals were expected to dedicate all of their time and energy completely to a cause.

Ultimately, Levine calls on Emma Goldman to support her contention that structureless

movements are a thing of power and potential, concluding that the contemporary exhaustion of

the movement was due, not to a lack of structure, but to the difficulties inherent in living day-to-

day in patriarchal capitalist society.

Taken together the two essays present an interesting false dichotomy between, one the

one hand, the authors’ perception of a necessarily structureless anarchist movement and, on the

other, a movement that is hierarchically organized and akin to a conventional political party. In

fact, many anarchist groups are today oriented around some loose system or structure that allows

them to address the very things critiqued in both of these essays. Quite often this takes the form

of a consensus process and a procedural approach to meetings. Nevertheless, “The Tyranny of

Structurelessness” and “The Tyranny of Tyranny” are two essays that get at the heart of many of

the anarcha-feminist concerns found in Quiet Rumors. They address the need to link the

theoretical ideals of anarcha-feminism to an effective and efficient practice, while still

maintaining enough order and accountability to get things done. They also speak to a prevalent

tension in anarchist circles between the need to care for oneself, to spend time processing the

trauma of patriarchal capitalist society in an effort to overcome it, and the drive to get out there

and do something concrete. These two essays, like much of Quiet Rumors, are historical pieces,

but hold undeniable relevance for anarchist movements today, which are still wrestling with

many of the same questions.

This is not an academic text, and elements of its organization might cause some

frustration for readers accustomed to particular formatting styles. For example, some of the

essays are preceded by an explanation of their relevance and publication history, however many

are not. Only rarely are publication years included, and the text is not indexed. For readers who

are unfamiliar with the works in this collection, it may be difficult to situate the essays and

authors in their historical context, something that could, in future editions, be alleviated by

prefacing each essay with a paragraph introducing it. A second, and perhaps unavoidable

shortcoming of the volume is that, while the editors certainly tried to extend the collection to

include works from the Global South, it remains heavily dominated by voices from Western

Europe and the United States, something that is understandable given the usual systemic

problems inherent in trying to draw on diverse authorship: issues of linguistic availability and

translation, as well as the simple fact that many people in other parts of the world may be doing

and writing about things that resonate with anarcha-feminism, but are rooted in different

intellectual paradigms and using different terminology to describe themselves.

As a pedagogical tool, Quiet Rumors would be an excellent resource for any course that

addresses anarchism, particularly in light of recent scholarship aimed at teaching radical politics

through practice (Rouhani 2012). The volume is a blend of essays that touch on the historical

development of anarcha-feminism, well articulated rants about patriarchy, and thoughts about

how to mobilize the egalitarian and horizontal principles of anarcha-feminism in a practical

sense. The book would be accessible to the undergraduate reader, and, when coupled with

broader historical context, would effectively convey to students a breadth of anarcha-feminist

thought generally left out of anthologies comprised of the Great Men of anarchist history.

Taken as a collection, Quiet Rumors is both a historical artifact and a relevant piece for

political radicals today. The inclusion of Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre points to the

fact that women were an important part of the historical development of anarchism. Essays from

the 1970s show the diversity of the second wave feminist movement and the ways women were

trying to mobilize some alternative to patriarchal capitalism. More recent pieces speak to on-

going anarcha-feminist discussions and projects, revealing that it is a movement that is still very

much alive, vibrant, evolving, and learning from the past.

References

Dark Star Collective. 2012. Quiet Rumors: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader. Oakland: AK Press.

Goldman, E. 1917. Anarchism and Other Essays. New York: Mother Earth Publishing

Association.

Rouhani, F. (2012) Practice What You Teach: Facilitating Anarchism In and Out of the

Classroom. Antipode 44(5): 1726–1741. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.01030.x.

Ruiz, L. and S. Berenguer. 2011. Free women (Mujeres Libres): voices and memories for a

libertarian future. Rotterdam; Boston: Sense.