Well before Proudhon, proto-anarchist thinkers such as Gerrard Winstanley (1609–76) laid down some notable precedents for anarchist feminism. Joseph Déjacque went further, admonishing Proudhon either to “speak out against man’s exploitation of woman” or “do not describe yourself as an anarchist” (1857/2005: 71) he went on to denounce the patriarchal family, “a pyramid with the boss at its head and children, woman and servants at its base.” The inference made by both – that the egalitarian and anti-authoritarian principles which Proudhon opposed to the domination of church, state, and capital must also be consistently applied to relations between men and women – did, in fact, become the preeminent interpretation of anarchism vis-à-vis gender, in theory if not always in practice, from the late nineteenth century on. These arguments led feminist radical Jenny d’Héricourt (1809–75) to reply not only that his accounts of women were contradicted by historical and scientific fact, but that “you contradict your own principles” (1864: 117). Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–65), the first to write the words “I am an anarchist” in 1840, was at the same time a convinced anti-feminist, regarding women as intellectual and moral inferiors and dedicating an entire book to attacking feminism as a form of modern decadence or “pornocracy” (1858, 1875).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |