When anarchists are portrayed, the images are usually of white males jumping on cars, smashing windows or yelling into a bullhorn in front of a crowd. That leads to the obvious question: Are there female participants in this movement, and if so, what role do they play within Eugene’s anarchist community?
Just as there have been anarchists in the United States for a long time, there have also been females throughout history in the anarchy movement. Emma Goldman, one of the most famous anarchists in history, advocated issues such as free speech, women’s equality, union organization and independence.
With her friend and fellow anarchist Alexander Berkman, Goldman published a paper called Mother Earth.
Between 1893 and 1917, Goldman was imprisoned several times on charges such as inciting riot, publicly advocating birth control and obstructing the draft, and she was even arrested once in Portland.
While the times and the issues may have changed, there are still many local female anarchists standing up for what they believe in, saying they have been inspired by Goldman’s work.
However, they rarely stand in front of a camera or get quoted in the newspaper. There seems to be a reluctance, even refusal, on the part of female anarchists to interact with the media.
“I’ll have a conversation with somebody [in the media] and spend at least three quarters of my time talking about what I envision to replace the structures that don’t work,” Shelley Cater said. “And the one quote that they’ll use is how I feel about property destruction.”
Cater is a 35-year-old anarchist, forest activist and mother of two, and when she recognized that the female perspective was missing from media coverage, she began speaking on behalf of female anarchists.
Eventually she stopped speaking with the mainstream media, feeling unable to control the negative spin that seemed to distort everything she said. However, Cater doesn’t want the voice of the anarchy movement to be completely dominated by men.
“The reason I was talking to the media often was because there were so few women that were willing to do it, and I felt like I didn’t want this movement to be represented by only men,” she said. “I think that a lot of the images in the media of anarchists as being about individualism and personal beliefs and personal desires defines something that I would relate to a sort of machismo. That alienates me and many of the women that I know.”
While it is difficult to define the “female perspective” within the anarchy movement when there seems to be no unified perspective, that seems to be the case with male anarchists as well. The beliefs of both the male and female anarchists are as diverse and varied as its members.
“A little secret about the [anarchist] community here is that there’s an infrastructure that’s been going on for years,” Lucy Humus said. “There’s houses that are being maintained and things like Food Not Bombs and free school and Jawbreaker Gallery and places where people can stay when they come into town. That infrastructure is almost entirely maintained by women and has been for years.”
Humus is a member of the local anarchist community but said she chooses not to participate in the protests and rioting, typically more male-dominated activities. Instead, Humus is involved in planting and maintaining the community garden at Scobert Park. She knows the name of practically every plant growing there and spends a lot of time reading horticulture books.
Humus said her dream is to start a library where people could come learn about self-sustainable gardening, drink teas from herbs that grow in the garden, check out horticulture books and get seeds from the garden’s seed bank.
“As far as subversion goes, get them in the garden,” Humus said. “To me, that’s a really cool way to unite the community, because people who eat together get to know each other.”
Cater focuses more of her time on communicating the anarchist message than gardening. She helps to produce Cascadia Alive!, the anarchist public access show, which airs live Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on cable channel 97.
She said that she would really like more women to get involved with the show and she is committed to communicating the anarchist message in other ways, as well.
“I take it on as my personal revolution to boldly go and engage people in conversations and answer their questions,” she said. “I’ve gone so far as to give steelworkers my home phone number, if they want to ask me questions about anarchism and they have. That’s the real work that we need to do is with individuals.”
Male anarchists recognize the contributions that women such as Cater make to the cause.
“Women play a strong part in the anarchist movement in what is considered behind the scenes type work,” Steve Heslin said. “We do have a problem right now with men doing a lot of the public relations work, which portrays the movement as more male-oriented.”
Cater said that from talking to women she senses a frustration that gender issues often get pushed aside and are not seen as important.
“It’s very frustrating to most women that I know that the connection between domination of the planet and domination of women, the domination of indigenous people and the domination of everything that’s free and wild and alive isn’t connected.”
There’s a sense that until more women are willing to speak out publicly, the feminist perspective within the anarchy movement will remain unheard. Cater said she thinks this contributes to the perception that there are more men than women in the anarchy movement.
“I see the women playing really strong roles, but it tends to not be in the sun,” she said. “Women are the great organizers in this community. When the media shows up, the men are the ones that stand in front of the cameras and speak.
“The women tend to be slower to jump on to the rhetoric wagon, more willing to question the viability of strategies and tactics, more able to see the long run.”