Revisiting “Nonviolence is Patriarchal” In: How Nonviolence Protects the State related tags: #HNvPtS

This part, in particular, is not sitting well with me because I feel like it overlooks the very obvious things that Peter doesn't want to really deal with (and it feels very much like bell hooks's supposed “I support victims” victim blaming:

Likewise, whose notion of freedom does not include women’s being able to defend themselves? Responding to the presumption that women can only be protected by larger social structures, activist Sue Daniels reminds us, “A woman can fight off a male attacker by herself....It is absolutely not a question of who is physically stronger — it is a question of training.”

I think Peter is conflating critiques of violence-first and violence-only strategies (things that are inherently manarchist) with the above. No one has ever said that women cannot defend themselves (ironically, for his entire time in the spotlight, he has done nothing except speak over anarchafeminists who have repeatedly championed KYLR—if KYLR isn't self-defense, I don't know what it is).

Very few (actually... none?) of the things that he misreads state that “women must rely upon larger social structures.” If they support nonviolence, that nonviolence is universal (which means it applies to everyone); if they critique violence, it's a specific kind of violence.

This Sue Daniels quote comes from a personal email and is, as a result, unverifiable. It also means that we can't know what the full context of that quote is and what aspects she was being prompted to respond to. Since we know how Peter behaves, we have to wonder what he was discussing with her. (Also, according to the footnote that comes with it, she recommends that we read Martha McCaughey's Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense... which I'd go out on a limb and say that Peter hasn't read. I might add it to my reading list, but I'm so exhausted of his bullshit rhetorical flourishes and ignorance of the things he refers to that I wish I could burn at least one copy of this book out of frustration.)

“The Will to Win! Women and Self-Defense,” an anonymously authored pamphlet, adds the following:

“It is ridiculous that there are so many counseling and support organizations for women who have been raped, attacked, and abused but hardly any that work to prepare and prevent these things from happening. We must refuse to be victims and reject the idea that we should submit to our assailants to keep from arousing further violence. In reality, submitting to our assailants will only contribute to future violence against others.”

This is a pamphlet put out by the Jacksonville Anarchist Black Cross, but I cannot find it. It'd be interesting to read it, though. However, I can only guess the full context of this quote. (Searching for it only leads me back to Peter's book.)

I think it's a fair quote in that it is absurd that we have some (not “so many” because they aren't as easy to access as this sentence would insinuate, and they often ignore queer victims). There really aren't that many counselling or support organisations for abused women; there aren't even ones that support immigrant women when they want to escape their abusers, since they often try to coerce a desired outcome on them.

There are a lot of critiques of these counselling services and support organisations, but the fact remains that we need more of them along with being able to engage in supported self-defense. However, we know that even anarchists are loath to support women and people of marginalised genders who fight back, so maybe it'd be nice to also see these attitudes shift... But considering the number of sources I've managed to link back to a notorious anti-feminist “anarchist” in Peter's own work? It's interesting to say the least.

The entire idea that violence is masculine, or that revolutionary activism necessarily excludes women, queers, and trans people is, like other premises of nonviolence, based on historical whitewashing. Ignored are the Nigerian women occupying and sabotaging petroleum facilities; the women martyrs of the Palestinian intifada; the queer and transgender warriors of the Stonewall Rebellion; the innumerable thousands of women who fought for the Vietcong; women leaders of Native resistance to European and US genocide; Mujeres Creando (Women Creating), a group of anarcha-feminists in Bolivia; and British suffragettes who rioted and fought against cops. Forgotten are the women from the rank and file to the highest levels of leadership among the Black Panther Party, the Zapatistas, the Weather Underground, and other militant groups. The idea that fighting back somehow excludes women is absurd. Not even the history of the pacified white “First World” bears it up because even the most effective patriarchy imaginable could never prevent all transgender people and all women from militantly fighting against oppression.

This is flattening a critique. All violence is not inherently masculine. However, some ways of engaging in and utilising violence are. A lot of white manarchists do not like to engage in communication with the people around them and will often make decisions and expect people follow them. Why? Why should we? Why should we take risks that we weren't even consulted on, even in the spur of the moment? For someone who wanted to, as it usually happens, start shit?

And I don't have a problem with people antagonising oppressors, but I do think they need to be more considerate of who is around them and that they should have strategies that acknowledge other people.

That's largely what all of those groups that Peter brings up do, but this book is him getting mad at people because either they're made into strawmen or are people who he failed reading. Most of those groups? They actually engaged in strategic violence with an understanding of who was around them. Some failed miserably, but most of them knew the risks they were taking and made it known to the people around them what those risks were and that they were doing it.

This meant that people could decide if they also wanted to take those risks or provide support in another way. I'm so tired of him conflating strategic violence with violence-as-default.