guidelines for effective meeting facilitation by berit lakey provided by anthony kelly from the change agency. available as pdf download here

http://non-specialist.net/pdf/meeting-facilitation.pdf

Going To Places That Scare Me:
Personal Reflections On Challenging Male Supremacy

by Chris Crass
Part I: “How can I be sexist? I’m an anarchist!”

"What do you mean I'm sexist?" I was shocked. I wasn't a jock, I didn’t hate women, I wasn't an evil person. "But how can I be a sexist, I'm an anarchist?" I was anxious, nervous, and my defenses were up. I believed in liberation, for fighting against capitalism and the state. There were those who defended and benefited from injustice and then there’s us, right? I was 19 and it was 1993, four year after I got into politics.

Nilou, holding my hand, patiently explained, “I'm not saying you're an evil person, I'm saying that you're sexist and sexism happens in a lot of subtle and blatant ways. You cut me off when I'm talking. You pay more attention to what men say. The other day when I was sitting at the coffee shop with you and Mike, it was like the two of you were having a conversation and I was just there to watch. I tried to jump in and say something, but you both just looked at me and then went back to your conversation. Men in the group make eye contact with each other and act like women aren’t even there. The study group has become a forum for men in the group to go on and on about this book and that book, like they know everything and just need to teach the rest of us. For a long time I thought maybe it was just me, maybe what I had to say wasn't as useful or exciting. Maybe I needed to change my approach, maybe I was just overreacting, maybe it's just in my head and I need to get over it. But then I saw how the same thing was happening to other women in the group, over and over again. I'm not blaming you for all of this, but you're a big part of this group and you're part of this dynamic.” This conversation changed my life and it’s challenge is one I continue to struggle with in this essay.

This is an essay for other white, middle class, raised male who identify themselves as male, left/anarchist organizers struggling to build movements for liberation. I want to focus on my own experience of dealing with issues of sexism and anti-sexism from an emotional and psychological centered perspective. I’m choosing this focus because it is personally challenging, it has proved effective in working with men against sexism and because of consistent feedback from women who I organize with not to ignore these aspects of the work. Rona Fernandez of the Youth Empowerment Center in Oakland writes, “Encourage men/gender privileged folks to examine the role of emotions (or lack thereof) in their experience of privilege. I’m saying this because I think men/gender privileged folks also suffer under the system of patriarchy and one of the most dehumanizing ways they suffer is in their inability/difficulty in expressing feelings.” Clare Bayard of Anti-Racism for Global Justice puts it pointedly in addressing gender privileged activist men, "It took years of study and hard work to develop your political analysis, why do you think emotional understanding should just come to you, it requires work as well."

This essay looks to the leadership of women, women of color in particular, who write about and organize against patriarchy in society and sexism in the movement. The work of Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzaldua, Ella Baker, Patricia Hill Collins, Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez, bell hooks and so many others who provide the political foundations, visions and strategies for the work gender privileged white men need to do. Additionally, there are more and more gender privileged men in the movement working to challenge male supremacy. There are thousands of us who recognize that patriarchy exists, that we have privileges as a result, that sexism undermines movement , that women, transgendered folks and genderqueer people have explained it over and over again and said “you all need to talk with each other, challenge each other and figure out what you’re all going to do.” And yet there are far more white men in the movement who agree sexism exists in society, perhaps in the movement, but deny their personal involvement in it.

Lisa Sousa, who is part of the San Francisco Independent Media Center and AK Press, told me that in recent discussions she’s had in groups about sexism and gender, she’s heard the following responses from men: "we are all oppressed", "we should be talking about class", "you are just using gender as a way to attack such and such". When she raised the issue that women leave the majority male group soon after joining, the responses included: "men leave our group too, women are not leaving more, people leave its a fact in volunteer organizations", "we just need to recruit more women, if women leave, there's more where they came from".

These comments are so familiar and while it is tempting to distance myself from the men who made them, it’s important that I remember when I made those comments. As a person who believes in movement building and collective liberation, it’s important for me to connect with the people I’m organizing with. As a person with privilege organizing others with privilege, that means learning to love myself enough to be able to see myself in people who I would much rather denounce and distance myself from. It also means being honest about my own experiences.

When I think back to that conversation with Nilou and her explaining how sexism operated. I remember trying not to shutdown and I tried to listen.

The word "But" repeated over and over again in my mind, followed by “it was a misunderstanding, I didn't mean it that way, I didn’t know you felt like that, I wasn't trying to do that, I would love to see you participate more, I don't understand, no one said they didn't want to hear what you have to say, we all believe in equality, I love you and would never do anything to hurt you, it was circumstances not sexism, I don't know what to do.” Looking back ten years later, it’s amazing to me how often that same list of “buts” comes running to mind. I’m more like those ‘other’ men that I’d like to admit.

Nilou spent hours and hours talking with me about sexism. It was tremendously difficult. My politics were shaped by a clearly defined dualistic framework of good and bad. If it was true that I was sexist, then my previous sense of self was in question and my framework needed to shift. Looking back, this was a profoundly important moment in my growth, at the time it felt like shit.

Two weeks later, at our anarchist study group meeting, Nilou raised her hand. "Sexism is happening in this group." She listed the examples she had told me. The defensive reaction that I experienced was now amplified by the 5 other men in the room. Other women started speaking up. They too had experienced these dynamics and they were tired of taking it. The men were shocked and defensive; we began listing all the reasons why claims of sexism were simply misunderstandings, misperceptions. With genuine sincerity we said, “But we all want revolution.”

After the meeting, the woman who had been in the group the longest sat me down. April had been part of the United Anarchist Front for well over a year and she too gave me example after example of sexist behavior. Men in the group didn't trust her to handle responsibilities, even if they were newer. She wasn't looked to for information about the group, nor were her opinions asked for on political questions. Others joined our conversation and men continued to challenge the assertion of sexism. April put forward an example that she had just clearly explained to me and men denied it as a misunderstanding. A few minutes later, I restated the exact same example given by April and this time it was met with begrudging agreement from other men that perhaps in this case it was sexist. April called it out immediately, I hadn’t even fully realized what happened. I looked at April as she broke it down. April's words coming from my mouth were heard and taken seriously. There it is. I didn’t really want to believe that sexism was happening, but now I saw it. I felt horrible, like a kick to the stomach. Nilou and April desperately trying to get us to agree that there was a problem. How could this be happening when I hadn’t intended it to? I was scared to say anything.

Two months later, I was sitting in a men's caucus silently. We didn't know what to talk about. More specifically, we were scared, nervous, dismissive and didn't put energy into creating a useful discussion about sexism. Nilou and April had suggested we spend a day talking about sexism and we'd start with caucuses. "What are the women talking about", we asked ourselves. When the group re-united the discussion quickly turned into women defending themselves, defending their understandings of their own experiences. I felt horrible and struggled to believe what I was hearing. I felt completely clueless about how to move in a useful way.

Several people of all genders left early in tears, disillusioned and overwhelmed by powerlessness. My Mom had observed part of our discussion and asked to speak. "You're all taking on enormous issues and these issues are hard. It makes me happy to see you all at such young ages seriously talk about it. It shows that you really believe in what you're fighting for and it's a conversation that doesn't happen in one day." I could feel the heaviness in the room as we looked at each other, many with tears in their eyes. It was clear that challenging sexism was far more then learning how to make eye contact with women in group discussions, it was challenging a system of power that operates on the political, economic, social, cultural, psychological level and my internalized superiority was but the tip of an iceberg built on exploitation and oppression.

Part II: “What historical class am I in?”

"Do you know what class you're in?" Being a white, middle class, male taking Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies classes for all seven years that I was in school, I was asked that question a lot. In a Black Women's history class, someone offered to help me figure out where I needed to go.

I understood why people asked me and I understood that the question wasn't just about class as in a room, but class as in a social category in a white supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, capitalist society hell bent on maintaining control. I knew what class I was coming from and I knew that my relationship to Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies was complicated. I knew some people didn't want me in those classes and I knew that my very presence made others feel uncomfortable. And many of the teachers and some of the students told me that they were glad I was there. It helped me see how complex these struggles are and that there aren’t easy answers.

I went to community college for four years and then San Francisco State for three. The majority of my teachers were women and people of color. I had grown up in a generally segregated community and had few role models, authority figures, mentors or teachers who were people of color.

What I read and studied in college - women of color feminism, Black liberation struggle, Chicano/a history, colonialism from the perspective of American Indian history, labor history and organizing, queer theory, anti-racism from the perspective of immigrant and refugee women - had a profound impact on me. However, having people of color and women of color in particular grade me, instruct me and guide me was incredibly important to my development on psychological levels that I wasn't necessarily aware of at the time. Having people of color and women with progressive/left/radical politics leading my educational development was a subversive shifting of the power relationships that wasn't mentioned on the syllabus but was central to my studies.

Learning in majority women and people of color settings also had a deep impact, because it was the first time that I had ever been in situations where I was a numerical minority on the basis of race or gender. Suddenly race and gender weren’t just issues amongst many, they were central aspects of how others experienced, viewed and understood the world. The question I sometimes thougtht silently to myself, “why do you always have to talk about race and gender”, was flipped on it’s head; “how can you not think about race and gender all the time?”

Over time I developed a strategy for school. I'd stay pretty quiet for the first month or so of class, pushing myself to really listen. In the first week of class I’d say something to clearly identify myself as opposed to white supremacy and patriarchy (sometimes capitalism) as systems of oppressions that I benefit from, so people knew where I was coming from. This was generally met with shock, excitement and a sign of relief. I participated in dialogue more as I tried to develop trust through listening and being open to the information, histories and stories. While this strategy incorporated anti-sexist goals, it was also about presenting myself in a certain way.

The other part of the strategy was to participate and raise questions and other perspectives in my Western Civics, Political Science and other white, male dominated classes. People of color and women I worked with were clear that this was something they felt I had a responsibility to do. "They expect it from us and dismiss us as angry, emotional, stuck in victim mode. You need to use your privilege to get heard by white people and men." The goal wasn't to necessarily change the perspective of the Professor but to open up space for critical dialogue about race, class and gender with the other students who were mostly white and often mostly male. This was extremely useful learning as well, because frequently I came across as cold, angry, self-righteous or unsure of myself, none of which were particularly helpful. If my goal is to yell at men and white people to alleviate my own guilt and shame for being white and male, then perhaps that's a useful tactic. If my goal is to actually work with folks to embrace anti-racism and feminism, then I needed to be more complex and real with myself.

I grew up believing that I was a lone individual on a linear path of progression with no past. History was a set of dates and events that, while interesting to learn, had little or no relationship to my life. I was just a person, doing my own thing. Then I started to learn that being white, male, middle class, able-bodied, mostly heterosexual and a citizen of the United States meant that not only did I have privileges, but that I was rooted in history. I was a part of social categories - white, male, hetero, middle class. These are all groups that have history and are shaped by history. Part of being in those groups means being deemed normal, the standard which all others are judged. My images of just being “my own person” were now joined by images of slave ships, indigenous communities burned to the ground, families destroyed, violence against women, white ruling class men using white poor men to colonize white women, peoples of color and the Earth.

I remember sitting in an African American women's history class, one of two white people, one of two men, the other 15 people Black women and I'm the only white man. We were studying slavery, Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign and the systematic raping of enslaved African women by white male slave owners - millions of rapes, sanctioned and protected by law. Simultaneously hundreds of Black men were lynched by white men who claimed to be protecting white women from Black male rapists. I sat there with my head down and I could feel history in my nauseated stomach and in my eyes filling with tears. Who were those white men and how did they feel about themselves? I was scared to look into the faces of the Black women in that room. "While there is mixing of races because of love," the Professor said, "our people are so many shades of Black because of generation after generation of institutionalized rape." Who am I and how do I feel about myself?

Part III: “this struggle is my struggle”

“I haven’t the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power.” - Robin Morgan from the introduction of Sisterhood is Powerful

"Face your fear/ the fear is you/ you cannot run/ you cannot hide/ the fear is you/ in the end, what have you done/ can it be true that the damage you bring is greater then the good you make/ face your fear/ embrace your fear/ the pain inside is the truth inside/ let it out/ let it out/ when the socialization is gone/ what is left/ the fear is more real then the hope you create/ where will you go/ what will you do/ let it all go cuz it's already you/ can I move forward/ can I move forward/ open it all up/ you know it's all true/ the hope is you" -white boy emo-hardcore

I have and do go through periods of hating myself, feeling guilty, afraid. I know in my heart that I had a role in liberation struggle and I know through practice that there was useful work that I could do, but still the question haunts me, "Am I just fooling myself?" That is, am I fooling myself to believe that I am more useful then problematic. To be clear, I think Robin Morgan’s quote is useful to struggle with, but not to get stuck on. I grew up believing that I was entitled to everything. I could go anywhere and do anything and wherever I went I would be wanted/needed.

Patriarchy and heterosexism also taught me, in subtle and blatant ways, that I was entitled to women's bodies, that I was entitled to take up space and put my ideas and thoughts out there whenever I wanted to, without consideration for others. This is a very different process of socialization than most other people in this society who are told to shut up, keep it to themselves, hide who they really are, get out of the way and to never forget how lucky they are to be allowed here to begin with. I think it’s healthy to not assume you're always needed, to learn to share space and power and to work with others to realize the role that you in fact can and should play. What is unhealthy is how rare it is for gender privileged men to talk with each other about these issues and support each other through the process.

Laura Close, an organizer with Students for Unity in Portland, discussed this in her essay, "Men in the Movement". She writes, "Every day young men wake up and decide to get involved in activism. Often they encounter language and discussions about their male privilege that alienate and silence them without anyone actually supporting them to decolonize their minds. Consider what it would be like for ally men to take our younger/newer guys out to coffee and talk about his own experiences as a guy in the movement. Talk about what you've learned! Consider what it would mean for men to cheer on other men who are making progress towards becoming allies." She put out a challenge for men to mentor other men engaging in anti-sexist work.

I knew she was right, but the idea of really doing it made me nervous. Sure, I had plenty of close gender privileged friends, but to make a political commitment to develop relationships with other men and open up with them about my own struggles with sexism seemed terrifying. Terrifying because I could handle denouncing patriarchy and calling out other men from time to time, but to be honest about my own sexism, to connect political analysis/practice to my own emotional/psychological process, to be vulnerable?

Pause. Vulnerable to what? Remember when I said that in Women’s Studies classes I would identify myself as opposed to patriarchy, white supremacy and sometimes capitalism? The level of consciousness of feminism, let alone political commitment to it amongst most gender privileged men in college was so low that just reading one feminist book and saying “I recognize that sexism exists” meant I was way advanced. While the level of consciousness and commitment is generally higher in activist circles, it’s not that much higher. I have had two major struggles going on most of my political life - genuinely wanting to be down for the cause and feeling a deep level of fear that I wasn’t coming anywhere close to that commitment. It’s far easier for me to make declarations against patriarchy in classrooms, political meetings and in writing then it is to practice feminist politics in my personal relationships with friends, family and partners. This is particularly difficult when political men, like myself, make so little time to talk with each other about this.

What am I afraid to admit? That I struggle everyday to really listen to voices I identify as women’s. I know my mind wanders quicker. I know that my instant reaction is take men’s opinions more seriously. I know that when I walk into rooms full of activists I instantly scan the room and divide people into hierarchies of status (how long they’ve been active, what groups they’ve been part of, what they’ve written and where it’s been published, who are their friends). I position myself against them and feel the most competitive with men. With those I identify as women, the same status hierarchies are tallied, but sexual desirabilty enters my hetero mindset. What is healthy sexual attraction and desire and how does it relate to and survive my training to systematically sexualize women around me? This gets amplified by the day-to-day reality that this society presents women as voiceless bodies to serve hetero-male desire, we know that. But what does it mean for how I communicate with my partners who are women and who I organize with? How does it translate into how I make love, want love, express love, conceptualize love? I’m not talking about whether or not I go down on my partner or say I love you, I’m talking about whether or not I truly value equality in our relationships over getting off on a regular basis.

The fact that my partners have provided far more emotional and financial support then I have for them. I’m talking about having almost never zoned out on what a gender privileged man is saying because I thought about him sexually.

I’ve repeatedly found myself zoned out thinking about sex while listening to women speak who are organizers, leaders, visionaries, my friends, my comrades. I’m all about crushes, healthy sexual desire and pro-sex politics, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about power, entitlement and women’s leadership marginalized by hetero male desire. I wish I didn’t get defensive on a regular basis, but I do. I get frustrated and shut down conversations about how power operates between my partner and I. I get defensive about how the world interacts with us and how that influences our dynamics. I know that there are times when I say, “ok, I’ll think more about it” when really I’m thinking, “leave me alone”.

This isn’t a confessional so that I will be forgiven. This is an on-going struggle to be honest about how deeply shaped I am by patriarchy and these systems of oppression. Patriarchy tears me up. I have so many fears about whether or not I’m capable of being in healthy loving relationships. Fears about whether or not I can be genuinely honest and connected with myself so that I can then open up and share with others. Fears about organizing to genuinely build and share power with others The scars of patriarchy are on every single person I interact with and when I push myself to see it, to really look and take the time to think about it, I’m filled with sadness and rage. bell hooks, in her book All About Love, writes that love is impossible where the will to dominate exists. Can I genuinely love? I want to believe. I want to believe in a political practice for gendered privileged men forged in opposition to patriarchy.

I do believe that as we struggle against oppression, as we practice our commitments, we actualize and express our humanity. There are moments, experiences and events when I see patriarchy challenged by all genders and it shows what we can do. I believe that this is our lives’ work and that at its core it’s a fight for our lives. And in this fight we realize that even in the face of these systems of oppression, our love, beauty, creativity, passion, dignity and power grows. We can do this.

post script: “we must walk to make the struggle real”

While it’s necessary to get into the hard emotional and psychological issues, there is also an endless supply of conrete steps we can take to challenge male supremacy.

An organizer working on Palestinian Liberation wrote me saying, “some things gender privileged people can do: offer to take notes in meetings, make phone calls, find meeting locations, do childcare, make copies and other less glamorous work. Encourage women and gender oppressed people in the group to take on roles men often dominate (e.g. tactical, mc-ing and event, media spokespeople). Ask specific women if they want to do it and explain why you think they would be good (don’t tokenize). Pay attention to who you listen to and check yourself on power-tripping.”

She is one of hundreds of thousands of women and gender oppressed people who has outlined clear, concrete action steps that people with gender privilege can take to challenge sexism and work for liberation. There is an abundant supply of work to be done. The larger issue for me has been, “what will it take for me to actually do that work, to actually prioritize it and follow through on it?” In additional to men talking with each other as discussed above, we also need to hold each other accountable to follow through. There are a lot of heavy emotional issues that come up in doing this work and it’s critical that we help keep each other from getting lost and help each other take concrete steps forward. Asking ourselves, “how does our work support the leadership of women?” “How am I working to share power in my organizing?” “How am I making myself open to hearing feedback from gender oppressed people about my work?” Each of these questions generates next steps to make it happen. Examining and challenging privilege is a necessary aspect of our work, but it’s not enough. Men working with other men to challenge male supremacy is just one of many, many strategies needed to develop women-led, multiracial, anti-racist, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, working class based, anti-capitalist movements for collective liberation. We know that sexism will work to undermine movement building. The question is, what work will we do to help build movement and in the process expand our ability to love ourselves and others.

Much love to the editorial crew on this essay: Clare Bayard, Rachel Luft, J.C . Callender, Nilou Mostoufi, April Sullivan, Michelle O’Brien, Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez, Sharon Martinas, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Rahula Janowski and Chris Dixon.

Further Reading

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment
bell hooks, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center
Paul Kivel, Men’s Work: How to Stop the Violence that Tears Our Lives Apart
Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: women in the international division of labour
Barbara Smith, The Truth that Never Hurts: writings on race, gender and freedom

UNTYING THE KNOT

We reproduce two important texts on libertarian organisation from the 1970's & 80's, The Tyranny of Structurlessness by Jo Freeman and a reply to it The Tyranny of Tyranny by Cathy Levine (previously published together as Untying the Knot: Feminism, Anarchism and Organisation, Rebel Press 1984).

Introduction

Politically we seem to be at a watershed. On the one hand organisations and institutions once tightly organised and disciplined seem to be withering away. Ideologies are unravelling, lines are becoming blurred. Old notions of organisation seem no longer to be so effective while the certainties of life - whether ideas, relationships, alliances or structures - are disintegrating. On the other hand, less formal ways of organising and structuring life and managing change are arising but seem so far to have no firm foundation or ability to transcend the self-chosen but limited fronts and environments in which people act.

If true this raises many questions. Is there something intrinsically wrong with ‘organisation’ ? Are the failures of the ‘Old Left’, the splintering of the feminist movement and mistrust of revolutionary ideology amongst environmentalists inevitable because of the way they organise or a product of specific times and cultures ? Is there any science of relating, organising or deciding on which a libertarian society can be built ? Is it possible to bring about revolutionary change without organisation ?

It is our belief that current movements for change, including the anarchist, libertarian and environmental can learn from the recent histories of other groups in struggle. This pamphlet consists of two articles re-published in the 1980s, followed by some thoughts on organisation from the Anarchist Federation.

The articles are statement and response by two people deeply engaged in the women’s liberation movement, displaying many of the features of an intellectually-led movement for radical change. Initially it spreads, unnoticed; there is a gradual upwelling of thought and sentiment. Ideas begin to be articulated, challenges made. Coalescing and cross-fertilising ideas create a movement. Groups cluster and spin off, going towards different destinations. Action brings reaction and confrontation; the movement adapts. Divisions open as strategy and tactics are debated. The debate spreads ideas but dissipates energy; the movement becomes distracted. Confusion sets in and groups splinter and re-splinter. Distorted by struggle it is gradually drained by histories and dogmas that cripple and restrict. Struggle becomes ritualised, channelled, contained.

In the “Tyranny of Structurelessness”, Jo Freeman argues that de-structuring restricts the range of activities mutual and affinity groups can perform to simple “consciousness-raising”. Since liberation movements are intent on radical change they need different forms. She argues that the basis of such groups (friendship, affinity, mutual experience) are insufficient to prevent elitism and build mass organisations. The end of consciousness-raising leaves people with no place to go and the lack of structure leaves them with no way of getting there. This statement has a familiar ring. Unless a movement for change can overcome this problem it will not develop but become inward-looking, trapped in sterile rituals, dominated by elites. To break the authority of structurelessness she attempts to show that, in fact, all groups have structure, no less real for being informal. These structures based on knowledge, association and experience create in-groups that confer power and out-groups who are disempowered. To protect status and authority, in-groups create criteria by which people are judged: they are ‘allowed’ to join, they participate but only in prescribed roles or channels.

A key dilemma she poses is the question of power: If the movement continues deliberately not to select who shall exercise power, it does not thereby abolish power. All it does is abdicate the right to demand that those who do exercise power and influence be responsible for it. Without formal structure, hierarchies develop in which some people are free to act without reference to the group while others find themselves blocked at every turn. Close observation show which are the effective people, the leaders who always get their way and who are the ‘spear-carriers’, the legitimisers. She suggests a series of ‘solutions’ to the processes of inclusion, participation, sharing, decision-making, endorsing. Her main concern is that without the means to make progress, organisation or structure, the women’s liberation movement will fragment, become absorbed by other struggles and movements.

In reply Cathy Levine takes a class position. “The Tyranny of Tyranny” defends the voluntary association model of organising and emphasises the need for the development of a ‘culture’ in the radical milieu which offers respect, is inclusive and participatory, nurtures and sustains people and avoids the competitiveness that seems to characterise large organisations and divided movements. As well as organising ourselves we must develop personally. The tyranny of tyranny has prevented us from relating to individuals or from creating organisations in ways that do not obliterate individuality with prescribed roles. We must continue to raise consciousness and create cultures of exploration and development that are themselves liberating. If we only adopt the forms necessary to create a movement, we run the risk of replicating the conditions and processes capitalism uses to control us.

This is certainly an analysis the Anarchist Federation would endorse as well as her statement that the reason for building a movement on a foundation of collectives is that we want to create a revolutionary culture consistent with our view of the new society. The strength of her argument is primarily based in the historical experiences of the working class. In particular, though anarchists have not yet created an enduring libertarian society, the organisational ideas of anarchism, applied in certain places and at certain times, have provided the best examples of an empowered, liberated and progressive working class defining itself and determining its own future.

As ideologies and organisational forms among libertarians converge, questions of power, participation, organisation, responsibility, accountability and delegation become more important. The vital task of spreading consciousness remains: voluntary association, affinity groups and open networks must continue to play a big part. Without progress we run the risk of being absorbed, decaying gradually over time unless they can develop a broad culture of resistance. These articles raise our consciousness by giving us insights we ignore at our peril.

2. THE TYRANNY OF STRUCTURELESNESS.

Jo Freeman

During the years in which the women’s liberation movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless, structureless groups as the main form of the movement. The source of this idea was a natural reaction against the overstructured society in which most of us found ourselves, the inevitable control this gave others over our lives, and the continual elitism of the Left and similar groups among those who were supposedly fighting this over-structuredness.

The idea of ‘structurelessness’, however, has moved from a healthy counter to these tendencies to becoming a goddess in its own right. The idea is as little examined as the term is much used, but it has become an intrinsic and unquestioned part of women’s liberation ideology. For the early development of the movement this did not much matter. It early defined its main method as consciousness-raising, and the ‘structureless rap group’ was an excellent means to this end. Its looseness and informality encouraged participation in discussion and the often supportive atmosphere 1elicited personal insight. If nothing more concrete than personal insight ever resulted from these groups, that did not much matter, because their purpose did not really extend beyond this. The basic problems didn’t appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do some- thing more specific. At this point they usually floundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their task. Women had thoroughly accepted the idea of ‘structurelessness’ with-out realising the limitations of its uses. People would try to use the ‘structureless’ group and the informal conference for purposes for which they were unsuitable out of a blind belief that no other means could possibly be anything but oppressive.

If the movement is to move beyond these elementary stages of development, it will have to disabuse itself of some of its prejudices about organisation and structure. There is nothing inherently bad about either of these. They can be and often are misused, but to reject them out of hand because they are misused is to deny ourselves the necessary tools to further development. We need to understand why ‘structurelessness’ does not work.

Formal and Informal Structures

Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a ‘structureless’ group. Any group of people of whatever nature coming together for any length of time, for any purpose, will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible, it may vary over time, it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the

members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities and intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals with different talents, predispositions and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate ‘structurelessness’ and that is not the nature of a human group. This means that to strive for a ‘structureless’ group is as useful and as deceptive, as to aim at an ‘objective’ news story, ‘value-free’ social science or a ‘free’ economy. A ‘laissez-faire’ group is about as realistic as a ‘laissez-faire’ society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others.

This hegemony can easily be established because the idea of ‘structurelessness’ does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones. Similarly, ‘laissez-faire’ philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus ‘structurelessness’ becomes a way of masking power, and within the women’s movement it is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). The rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is curtailed by those who know the rules, as long as the structure of the group is informal. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.

For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to every-one, and this can only happen if they are formalised. This is not to say that normalisation of a group structure will destroy the informal structure. It usually doesn’t. But it does hinder the informal structure from having predominant control and makes available some means of attacking it. ‘Structurelessness’ is organisationally impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or structureless group; only whether or not to have a formally structured one. Therefore, the word will not be used an longer except to refer to the idea which it represents. Unstructured will refer to those groups which have not been deliberately structured in a particular manner. Structured will refer to those which have. A structured group always has a formal structure, and may also have an informal one. An unstructured group always has an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites.

The Nature of Elitism

‘Elitist’ is probably the most abused word in the women’s liberation movement. It is used as frequently, and for the same reasons, as ‘pinko’ was in the ’50s. It is never used correctly. Within the movement it commonly refers to individuals though the personal characteristics and activities of those to whom it is directed may differ widely. An individual, as an individual, can never be an ‘elite’ because the only proper application of the term ‘elite’ is to groups. Any individual, regardless of how well-known that person is, can never be an elite. Correctly, an elite refers to a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part, usually without direct responsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge or consent. A person becomes an elitist by being part of, or advocating, the rule by such a small group, whether or not that individual is well-known or not known at all. Notoriety is not a definition of an elitist.

The most insidious elites are usually run by people not known to the larger public at all. Intelligent elitists are usually smart enough not to allow themselves to become well-known. When they become known, they are watched, and the mask over their power is no longer firmly lodged. Because elites are informal does not mean they are invisible. At any small group meeting anyone with a sharp eye and an acute ear can tell who is influencing whom. The member of a friendship group will relate more to each other than to other people. They listen more attentively and interrupt less. They repeat each other’s points and give in amiably. The ‘outs’ they tend to ignore or grapple with. The ‘outs’ approval is not necessary for making a decision; however it is necessary for the ‘outs’ to stay on good terms with the ‘ins’. Of course, the lines are not as sharp as I have drawn them. They are nuances of interaction, not pre-written scripts.

But they are discernible, and they do have their effect. Once one knows with whom it is important to check before a decision is made, and whose approval is the stamp of acceptance, one knows who is running things. Elites are not conspiracies. Seldom does a small group of people get together and try to take over a larger group for its own ends.

Elites are nothing more and nothing less than a group of friends who also happen to participate in the same political activities. They would probably maintain their friendship whether or not they were involved in political activities; they would probably be involved in political activities whether or not they maintained their friendships. It is the coincidence of these two phenomena which creates elites in any groups and makes them so difficult to break. These friendship groups function as networks of communication outside any regular channels for such communication that may have been set up by a group. If no channels are set up, they function as the only networks of communication. Because people are friends, usually sharing the same values and orientations, because they talk to each other socially and consult with each other when common decisions have to be made, the people involved in these networks have more power in the group than those who don’t. And it is a rare group that does not establish some informal networks of communication through the friends that are made in it.

Some groups, depending on their size, may have more than one such informal communication network. Networks may even overlap. When only one such network exists, it is the elite of an otherwise unstructured group, whether the participants in it want to be elitists or not. If it is the only such network in a structured group it may or may not be an elite depending on its composition and the nature of the formal structure. If there are two or more such networks of friends, they may compete for power within the group thus forming factions, or one may deliberately opt out of the competition leaving the other as the elite. In a structured group, two or more such friendship networks usually compete with each other for formal power. This is often the healthiest situation. The other members are in a position to arbitrate between the two competitors for power and thus are able to make demands of the group to whom they give their temporary allegiance.

Since movement groups have made no concrete decisions about who shall exercise power within them, many different criteria are used around the country. As the movement has changed through time, marriage has become a less universal criterion for effective participation, although all informal elites still establish standards by which only women who possess

certain material or personal characteristics may join. The standards frequently include: middle-class background (despite all the rhetoric about relating to the working-class), being married, not being married but living with someone, being or pretending to be a lesbian, being between the age of 20 and 30, being college-educated or at least having some college back-ground, being ‘hip’, not being too ‘hip’, holding a certain political line or identification as a ‘radical’, having certain ‘feminine’ personality characteristics such as being ‘nice’, dressing right (whether in the traditional style or the anti-traditional style), etc. There are also some characteristics which will almost always tag one as a ‘deviant’ who should not be related to. They include: being too old, working full-time (particularly if one is actively committed to a ‘career’), not being ‘nice’, and being avowedly single (i.e. neither heterosexual nor homosexual). Other criteria could be included, but they all have common themes.

The characteristic prerequisite for participating in all the informal elites of the movement, and thus for exercising power, concern one’s background, personality or allocation of time. They do not include one’s competence, dedication to feminism, talents or potential contribution to the movement. The former are the criteria one usually uses in determining one’s friends. The latter are what any movement or organisation has to use if it is going to be politically effective. Although this dissection of the process of elite formation within small groups has been critical in its perspectives, it is not made in the belief that these informal structures are inevitably bad merely that they are inevitable.

All groups create informal structures as a result of the interaction patterns among the members. Such informal structures can do very useful things. But only unstructured groups are totally governed by them. When informal elites are combined with a myth of ‘structurelessness’, there can be no attempt to put limits on the use of power. It becomes capricious. This has two potentially negative consequences of which we should be aware. The first is that the informal structure of decision-making will be like a sorority: one in which people listen to others because they like them, not because they say significant things. As long as the movement does not do significant things this does not much matter. But if its development is not to be arrested at this preliminary stage, it will have to alter this trend. The second is that informal structures have no obligation to be responsible to the group at large. Their power was not given to them; it cannot be taken away. Their influence is not based on what they do for the group; therefore they cannot be directly influenced by the group. This does not necessarily make informal structures irresponsible. Those who are concerned with maintaining their influence will usually try to be responsible.The group simply cannot compel such responsibility; it is dependent on the interests of the elite.

The ‘Star’ System

The ‘idea’ of ‘structurelessness’ has created the ‘star’ system. We live in a society which expects political groups to make decisions and to select people to articulate those decisions to the public at large. The press and the public do not know how to listen seriously to individual women as women; they want to know how the group feels. Only three techniques have ever been developed for establishing mass group opinion: the vote or referendum, the public opinion survey questionnaire and the selection of group spokespeople at an appropriate meeting. The women’s liberation movement has used none of these to communicate with the public. Neither the movement as a whole nor most of the multitudinous groups within it

have established a means of explaining their position on various issues. But the public is conditioned to look for spokespeople. While it has consciously not chosen spokespeople, the movement has thrown up many women who have caught the public eye for varying reasons-sons. These women represent no particular group or established opinion; they know this and usually say so. But because there are no official spokespeople nor any decision-making body the press can interview when it wants to know the movement’s position on a subject, these women are perceived as the spokespeople. Thus, whether they want to or not, whether the movement likes it or not, women of public note are put in the role of spokespeople by default.

This is one source of the tie that is often felt towards the women who are labelled ‘stars’. Because they were not selected by the women in the movement to represent the movement’s views, they are resented when the press presumes they speak for the movement...Thus the backlash of the ‘star’ system, in effect, encourages the very kind of individual non responsibility that the movement condemns. By purging a sister as a ‘star’, the movement loses whatever control it may have had over the person, who becomes free to commit all of the individualistic sins of which she had been accused.

Political Impotence

Unstructured groups may be very effective in getting women to talk about their lives; they aren’t very good for getting things done. Unless their mode of operation changes, groups flounder at the point where people tire of ‘just talking’ and want to do something more. Because the larger movement

in most cities is as unstructured as individual rap groups, it is not much more effective than the separate groups at specific tasks. The informal structure is rarely together enough or in touch enough with the people to be able to operate effectively. So the movement generates much emotion and few results. Unfortunately, the consequences of all this motion are not as innocuous as the results, and their victim is the movement itself.

Some groups have turned themselves into local action projects, if they do not involve too many people, and work on a small scale. But this form restricts movement activity to the local level. Also, to function well the groups must usually pare themselves down to that informal group of friends who were running things in the first place. This excludes many women from participating. As long as the only way women can participate in the movement is through membership of a small group, the non-gregarious are at a distinct disadvantage. As long as friendship groups are the main means of organisational activity, elitism becomes institutionalised.

For those groups which cannot find a local project to devote themselves to, the mere act of staying together becomes the reason for their staying together. When a group has no specific task (and consciousness-raising is a task), the people in it turn their energies to controlling others in the group. This is not done so much out of a malicious desire to manipulate others (though sometimes it is) as out of lack of anything better to do with their talents. Able people with time on their hands and a need to justify their coming together put their efforts into personal control, and spend their time criticising the personalities of the other members in the group.Infighting and personal power games rule the day. When a group is involved in a task, people learn to get along with others as they are and to subsume dislikes for the sake of the larger goals. There are limits placed on the compulsion to remold every person into our image of what they should be. The end of consciousness-raising leaves people with no place to go and the lack of structure leaves them with no way of getting there. The women in the movement either turn in on themselves and their sisters or seek other alternatives of action.

There are few alternatives available. Some women just ‘do their own thing’. This can lead to a great deal of individual creativity, much of which is useful for the movement, but it is not a viable alternative for most women and certainly does not foster a spirit of co-operative group effort. Other women drift out of the movement entirely because they don’t want to develop an individual project and have found no way of discovering, joining or starting group projects that interest them. Many turn to other political organisations to give them the kind of structured, effective activity that they have not been able to find in the women’s movement. Thus, those political organisations which view women’s liberation as only one issue among many find the women’s liberation movement a vast recruiting ground for new members. There is no need for such organisations to ‘infiltrate’ (though this is not precluded).

The desire for meaningful political activity generated by women by becoming part of the women’s liberation movement is sufficient to make them eager to join other organisations. The movement itself provides no outlets for their new ideas and energies.

Those women who join other political organisations while remaining within the women’s liberation movement, or who join women’s liberation while remaining in other political organisations, in turn become the framework for new informal structures. These friendship networks are based upon their common non-feminist politics rather than the characteristics discussed earlier; however, the network operates in much the same way. Because these women share common values, ideas and political orientations, they too become informal, unplanned, unselected, unresponsible elites whether they intend to be so or not.

These new informal elites are often perceived as threats by the old informal elites previously developed within different movement groups. This is a correct perception. Such politically orientated networks are rarely willing to be merely ‘sororities’ as many of the old ones were, and want to proselytise their political as well as their feminist ideas. This is only natural, but its implications for women’s liberation have never been adequately discussed. The old elites are rarely willing to bring such differences of opinion out into the open because it would involve exposing the nature of the informal structure of the group. Many of these informal elites have been hiding under the banner of ‘anti-elitism’ and ‘structure-lessness’. To counter effectively the competition from another informal structure, they would have to become ‘public’ and this possibility is fraught with many dangerous implications. Thus, to maintain its own power, it is easier to rationalise the exclusion of the members of the other informal structure by such means as ‘red-baiting’, ‘lesbian-baiting’ or ‘straight-baiting’. The only other alternative is formally to structure the group in such a way that the original power is institutionalised. This is not always possible. If the informal elites have been well structured and have exercised a fair amount of power in the past, such a task is feasible.

These groups have a history of being somewhat politically effective in the past, as the tightness of the informal structure has proven an adequate substitute for a formal structure. Becoming structured does not alter their operation much, though the institutionalisation of the power structure does not open it to formal challenge. It is those groups which are in greatest need of structure that are often least capable of creating it. Their informal structures have not been too well formed and adherence to the ideology of ‘structureless-ness’ makes them reluctant to change tactics. The more unstructured a group it is, the more lacking it is in informal structures; the more it adheres to an ideology of ‘structurelessness’, the more vulnerable it is to being taken over by a group of political comrades.

Since the movement at large is just as unstructured as most of its constituent groups, it is similarly susceptible to indirect influence. But the phenomenon manifests itself differently. On a local level most groups can operate autonomously, but only the groups that can organise a national activity are nationally organised groups. Thus, it is often the structured feminist organisations that provide national directions for feminist activities, and this direction is determined by the priorities of these organisations. Such groups as National Organisation of Women and Women’s Equality Action League and some Left women’s caucuses are simply the only organisations capable of mounting a national campaign. The multitude of unstructured women’s liberation groups can choose to support or not support the national campaigns, but are incapable of mounting their own. Thus their members become the troops under the leadership of the structured organisations. They don’t even have a way of deciding what the priorities are.

The more unstructured a movement is, the less control it has over the directions in which it develops and the political actions in which it engages. This does not mean that its ideas do not spread. Given a certain amount of interest by the media and the appropriateness of social conditions, the ideas will still be diffused widely. But diffusion of ideas does not mean they are implemented; it only means they are talked about. Insofar as they can be applied individually they may be acted upon; insofar as they require co-ordinated political power to be implemented, they will not be.

As long as the women’s liberation movement stays dedicated to a form of organisation which stresses small, inactive discussion groups among friends, the worst problems of unstructuredness will not be felt. But this style of organisation has its limits; it is politically inefficacious,exclusive and discriminatory against those women who are not or cannot be tied into the friendship networks. Those who do not fit into what already exists because of class, race, occupation, parental or marital status, or personality will inevitably be discouraged from trying to participate. Those who do not fit in will develop vested interests in maintaining things as they are. The informal groups’ vested interests will be sustained by the informal structures that exist, and the movement will have no way of determining who shall exercise power within it. If the movement continues deliberately not to select who shall exercise power, it does not thereby abolish power. All it does is abdicate the right to demand that those who do exercise power and influence be responsible for it. If the movement continues to keep power as diffuse as possible because it knows it cannot demand responsibility from those who have it, it does prevent any group or person from totally dominating. But it simultaneously ensures that the movement is as ineffective as possible.

Some middle ground between domination and ineffectiveness can and must be found. These problems are coming to a head at this time because the nature of the movement is necessarily changing. Consciousness-raising, as the main function of the women’s liberation movement, is becoming obsolete. Due to the intense press publicity of the last two years and the numerous overground books and articles now being circulated, women’s liberation has become a household word. Its issues are discussed and informal rap groups are formed by people who have no explicit connection with any movement group. Purely educational work is no longer such an overwhelming need. The movement must go on to other tasks. It now needs to establish its priorities, articulate its goals and pursue its objectives in a co-ordinated way. To do this it must be organised locally, regionally and nationally.

Principles of Democratic Structuring

Once the movement no longer clings tenaciously to the ideology of ‘structurelessness’, it will be free to develop those forms of organisation best suited to its healthy functioning. This does not mean that we should go to the other extreme and blindly imitate the traditional forms of organisation. But neither should we blindly reject them all. Some traditional techniques will prove useful, albeit not perfect; some will give us insights into what we should not do to obtain certain ends with minimal costs to the individuals in the movement. Mostly, we will have to experiment with different kinds of structuring and develop a variety of techniques to use for different situations. The ‘lot system’ is one such idea which has emerged from the movement. It is not applicable to all situations, but it is useful, in some. Other ideas for structuring are needed. But before we can proceed to experiment intelligently, we must accept the idea that there is nothing inherently bad about structure itself - only its excessive use.

While engaging in this trial-and-error process, there are some principles we can keep in mind that are essential to democratic structuring and are politically effective also:

1. Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures. Letting people assume jobs or tasks by default only means they are not dependably done. If people are selected to do a task, preferably after expressing an interest or willingness to do it, they have made a commitment which cannot easily be ignored.

2. Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to all those who selected them. This is how the group has control over people in positions of authority. Individuals may exercise power, but it is the group that has the ultimate say over how the power is exercised.

3. Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible. This prevents monopoly of power and requires those in positions of authority to consult with many others in the process of exercising it. It also gives many people an opportunity to have responsibility for specific tasks and thereby to learn specific skills.

4. Rotation of tasks among individuals. Responsibilities which are held too long by one person, formally or informally, come to be seen as that person’s ‘property’ and are not easily relinquished or controlled by the group. Conversely, if tasks are rotated too frequently the individual does not have time to learn her job well and acquire a sense of satisfaction of doing a good job.

5. Allocation of tasks along rational criteria. Selecting someone for a position because they are liked by the group, or giving them hard work because they are disliked, serves neither the group nor the person in the long run. Ability, interest and responsibility have got to be the major concerns in such selection. People should be given an opportunity to learn skills they do not have, but this is best done through some sort of ‘apprenticeship’ programme rather than the ‘sink or swim’ method. Having a responsibility one can’t handle well is demoralising. Conversely, being blackballed from what one can do well does not encourage one to develop one’s skills. Women have been punished for being competent throughout most of human history The movement does not need to repeat this process.

6. Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible. Information is power. Access to information enhances one’s power. When an informal network spreads new ideas and information among themselves outside the group, they are already engaged in the process of forming an opinion Without the group participating. The more one knows about how things work, the more politically effective one can be.

7. Equal access to resources needed by the group. This is not always perfectly possible, but should be striven for. A member who maintains a monopoly over a needed resource (like a printing press or a darkroom owned by a husband) can unduly influence the use of that resource. Skills and information are also resources. Members’ skills and information can be equally available only when members are willing to teach what they know to others. When these principles are applied, they ensure that whatever structures are developed by different movement groups will be controlled by and be responsible to the group. The group of people in positions of authority will be diffuse, flexible, open and temporary. They will not be in such an easy position to institutionalise their power because ultimate decisions will be made by the group at large. The group will have the power to determine who shall exercise authority within it.

Jo Freeman.

3. The tyranny of tyranny
Cathy Levine.

An article entitled ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ which has received wide attention around the women’s movement. (in MS. Second Wave etc) assails the trend toward, ‘leaderless’, ‘structureless’ groups, as the main — if not sole — organisational form of the movement, as a dead-end. While written and received in good faith, as an aid to the movement, the article is destructive in its distortion and maligning of a valid, conscious strategy for building a revolutionary movement. It is high time that we recognise the direction these tendencies are pointing in, as a real political alternative to hierarchical organisation, rather than trying to nip it in the bud. There are (at least) two different models for building a movement, only one of which does Joreen acknowledge: a mass organisation with strong, centralised control, such as a Party. The other model, which consolidates mass support only as a coup de grave necessity, is based on small groups in voluntary association. A large group functions as an aggregate of its parts — each member functions as a unit, a cog in the wheel of the large organisation. The individual is alienated by the size, and relegated, to struggling against the obstacle created by the size of the group — as example, expending energy to get a point of view recognised. Small groups, on the other hand, multiply the strength of each member. By working collectively in small numbers, the small group utilises the various contributions of each person to their fullest, nurturing and developing individual input, instead of dissipating it in the competitive survival-of—the-fittest/smartest/wittiest spirit of the large organisation.

Joreen associates the ascendancy of the small groups with the conscious-ness-raising phase of the woman’s movement, but concludes that, with the focus shifting beyond the changing of individual consciousness toward, building a mass revolutionary movement, women should begin working towards building a large organisation. It is certainly true and has been for some time that many women who have been in consciousness-raising groups for a while feel the need to expand their political activities beyond the scope of the group end are at a loss as to how to proceed. But it is equally true that other branches of the Left are at a similar loss, as to how to defeat capitalist, imperialist, quasi-fascist Amerika.

But Joreen fails to define what she means by the women’s movement, which is an essential prerequisite to a discussion of strategy or direction. The feminist movement in its fullest sense, that is, as a movement to defeat patriarchy, is a revolutionary movement and a socialist movement, placing it under the umbrella of the Left. A central problem of women determining strategy for the women’s movement is how to relate to the male Left; we do not want to take their modus operandi as ours, because we have seen them as a perpetuation of patriarchal, and latterly, capitalist values.

Despite our best efforts to disavow and disassociate ourselves from the male Left, we have, nonetheless, had our energy. Men tend to organise the way they fuck — one big rush and then that “bam, slam, thank you ma’am”, as it were. Woman should be building our movement the way we make love — gradually, with sustained involvement, limitless endurance — and of course, multiple orgasms. Instead of getting discouraged and isolated now, we should be in our small groups — discussing, planning, creating and making trouble. We should always be making trouble for patriarchy and always supporting women — we should always be actively engaging in and creating feminist activity, because we all thrive on it; in the absence of feminist activity, women take to tranquillisers, go insane and commit suicide.

The other extreme from inactivity, which seems to plague politically active people, is over-involvement which led, in the late ‘60s, to a generation of burnt-out radicals. A feminist friend once commented that, to her, “being in the women’s-movement” meant spending approximately 25% of her time engaging in group activities and 75% of her time developing herself. This is a real, important time allocation for ‘movement’ women to think about. The male movement taught us that ‘movement’ people are supposed to devote 24 hours a day to the Cause, which is consistent with female socialisation towards self-sacrifice. Whatever the source of our selflessness, however, we tend to plunge ourselves head-first into organisational activities, neglecting personal development, until one day we find we do not know what we are doing and for whose benefit, and we hate ourselves as much as before the movement. (Male over-involvement, on the other hand, obviously unrelated to any sex-linked trait of self-sacrifice, does however smell strongly of the Protestant/Jewish, work/achievement ethic, and even more flagrantly, of the ‘rational’, cool, unemotional facade with which Machismo suppresses male feelings.)

These perennial pitfalls of movement people, which amount to 5 bottomless pit for the movement, are explained by Joreen as part of the ‘Tyranny of Structurelessness’, which is a joke from the stand point that sees a nation of quasi-automatons, struggling to maintain a semblance of individuality against a post-technological, military/industrial bulldozer. What we definitely don’t need is more structures and rules, providing us with easy answers. pre-fab alternatives and no room in which to create our own way of life. What is threatening the female Left and the other branches even more, is the ‘tyranny of tyranny’, which has prevented us from relating to individuals, or from creating organisations in ways that do not obliterate individuality with prescribed roles, or from liberating us from capitalist structure.

Contrary to Joreen’s assumption, then, the consciousness-raising phase of the movement is nor over. Consciousness-raising is a vital process, which must go on, among those engaged in social change, to and through the revolutionary liberation. Raising our consciousness — meaning, helping each other extricate ourselves from ancient shackles — is the main way in which women are going to turn their personal anger into constructive energy, and join the struggle. Consciousness-raising, however, is a loose term — a vacuous nothingism, at this point — and needs to be qualified. An offensive television commercial can raise a women’s consciousness as she irons her husbands shirts alone in her house; it can remind her of what she already knows, is that she is trapped, her life is meaningless, boring, etc —but it will probably not encourage her to leave the laundry and organise a houseworkers’ strike. Consciousness-raising, as a strategy for revolution, must involve helping women translate their personal dissatisfaction into class-consciousness and making organised women accessible to all women.

In suggesting that the next step after consciousness-raising groups is building a movement, Joreen not only implies a false dichotomy between one and the other, but also overlooks an important process of the feminist movement, that of building a women’s culture. While, ultimately, a massive force of women (and some men) will be necessary to smash the power of the state, a mass movement itself does not a revolution make. If we hope to create a society free of male supremacy, when we overthrow capitalism and build international socialism, we had better start working on it right away, because some of our very best anti-capitalist friends are going to give us the hardest time. We must be developing a visible women’s culture, within which women can define and express themselves apart from patriarchal standards, and which will meet the needs of women where patriarchy has failed,

Culture is an essential part of a revolutionary movement — and it is also one of the greatest tools of counter-revolution. We must be very careful to specify that the culture we are discussing is revolutionary, and struggle constantly to make sure it remains inveterately opposed to the father culture.

The culture of an oppressed or colonised class or caste is not necessarily revolutionary. America contains — both in the sense of ‘having’ and in preventing the spread of — many ‘sub-cultures’ which, though defining themselves as different from the father culture, do not threaten the status quo. In fact, they are pert of the ‘pluralistic’ American one-big-happy-family society/ethnic cultures, the ‘counter-culture’. They are acknowledged, validated, adopted and ripped off by the big culture. Co-optation.

The women’s culture faces that very danger right now from a revolutionary new liberating girdle to MS magazine, to The Diary of a Mad Housewife. The New Woman, is middle-class, college-educated, male-associated —can have her share of the American Pie. Sounds scrumptious — but what about revolution? We must constantly re-evaluate our position to make sure we are not being absorbed into Uncle Sam’s ever-open arms.

The question of women’s culture, while denigrated by the arrogant and blind male Left, is not necessarily a revisionist issue. The polarisation between masculine and feminine roles as defined and controlled by male society, has not only subjugated women, but has made all men, regardless of class or race, feel superior to women — this feeling of superiority, countering anti-capitalist sentiment, is the lifeblood of the system. The aim of feminist revolution is for women to achieve our total humanity, which means destroying the masculine and feminine roles which make both men and women only half human, Creating a woman’s culture is the means through which we shall restore our lost humanity.

The question of our lost humanity brings up the subject that vulgar Marxists of every predilection have neglected in their analysis for over half a century — the psycho-sexual elements in the character structure of each individual, which acts as a personal policeman within every member of society, Wilhelm Reich began to describe, in narrow, heterosexual, male-biased form, the character armour in each person, which makes people good fascists or; in our society, just good citizens. Women experience this phenomenon every day, as the repressed feelings, especially obvious among our male friends, who find it so difficult to express or even ‘expose’ their feelings honestly, The psychic crippling which capitalist psychology coerces us into believing is the problems of the individuals, is a massive social condition which helps advanced capitalist society to hold together. Psychic crippling of its citizens makes its citizens report to work, fight in wars, suppress its women, non-whites, and all non-conformists vulnerable to suppression, In our post-technological society, every member of which recognises this as being the most advanced culture, the psychic crippling is also the most advanced — there is more shit for the psyche to cut through, what with Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the politics of ‘You’re okay. I’m okay’, not to mention post-neo-Freudians and the psycho-surgeons.

For the umpteenth time, let it be said that, unless we examine inner psychic shackles, at the time we study outer, political structures and the relationship between the two, we will not succeed in creating a force to challenge our enemy; in fact, we will not even know the enemy. The Left ha spent hours and tomes trying to define the ruling class; the ruling class has representative pigs inside the head of every member of society —thus, the logic behind so-called paranoia. The tyranny of tyranny is a deeply entrenched foe.

Where psychological struggle intersects political involvement is the small group. This is why the question of strategy and tactics and methods of organisation are so crucial at this moment. The Left has been trying for decades to rally people into the straps, always before a number sufficient to make a dent exist. As if Stone pointed out, you can’t make a revolution when four-fifths of the people are happy’ Nor should we wait until every-one is ready to become radical. While on the one hand, we should constantly suggest alternatives to capitalism, through food co-ops, anti-corporate actions and acts of personal rebellion, we should also be fighting against capitalist psychic structures and the values and living patterns which derive from them. Structures, chairmen, leaders, rhetoric — when a meeting of a Leftist group becomes indistinguishable in style from a session of a US Senate, we should not laugh about it, but re-evaluate the structure behind the style, and recognise a representative of the enemy.

The origin of the small group preference in the women’s movement —and by small group I refer to political collectives — was, as Joreen explains, a reaction against the over-structured, hierarchical organisation of society in general, and male Left groups in particular. But what people fail to realise is that we are reacting against bureaucracy because it deprives us of control, like the rest of this society; and instead of recognising the folly of our ways by returning to the structured fold, we who are rebelling against bureaucracy should be creating an alternative to bureaucratic organisation. The reason for building a movement on a foundation of collectives is that we want to create a revolutionary culture consistent with our view of the new society; it is more than a reaction; the small group is a solution. Because the women’s movement is tending towards small groups and because the women’s movement lacks direction at this time, some people conclude that small groups are to blame for the lack of direction. They wave the shibboleth of ‘structure’ as a solution to the strategic stalemate, as if structure would give us theoretical insight or relief from personal anxieties. It might give us a structure into which to ‘organise’, or fit more women, but in the absence of political strategy we may create Kafkaesque irony, where the trial is replaced by a meeting.

The lack of political energy that has been stalking us for the last few years, less in the women’s movement than in the male Left, probably relates directly to feelings of personal shininess that tyrannise each and every one of us. Unless we confront those feelings directly and treat them with the same seriousness as we treat the bombing of Hanoi, paralysis by the former will prevent us from retaliating effectively against the latter. Rather than calling for the replacement of small groups with structured, larger groups, we need to encourage each other to get settled into small, unstructured groups which recognise and extol the value of the individual. Friendships, more than therapy of any kind, instantly relieve the feelings of personal shininess — the revolution should be built on the model of friendships.

The omnipresent problem which Joreen confronts, that of elites, does not find solution in the formation of structures. Contrary to the belief that lack of up-front structures lead to insidious, invisible structures based on elites, the absence of structures in small mutual trust groups fights elitism on the basic level — the level of personal dynamics, at which the individual who counters insecurity with aggressive behaviour rules over the person whose insecurity maintains silence. The small personally involved group learns, first to recognise those stylistic differences, and then to appreciate and work with them; rather than trying to either ignore or annihilate differences in personal style, the smell group learns to appreciate and utilise them, thus strengthening the personal power of each individual. Given that each of us has been socialised in a society in which individual competition with every other Individual is the way of existence, we are not going to obliterate personal-styles-as-power, except by constant recognition of these differences, and by learning to let differences of personal styles exist together, Insofar as we are not the enemy, but the victims, we need to nurture and not destroy each other.

The destructive elements will recede gradually as we grow stronger. But in the meantime we should guard against situations which reward personal style with power. Meetings award prizes to the more aggressive, rhetorical, charismatic, articulate (almost always male).

Considering how much the various derivatives of the term ‘anarchism’ are bandied about, very few people in the Left have studied anarchism with any seriousness, For people priding themselves on cynicism about social taboos, we sure are sucked in by this taboo against anarchism. Like masturbation, anarchism is something we have been brought up to fear, irrationally and unquestioningly, because not to fear it might lead us to probe it, learn it and like it. For anyone who has ever considered the possibility that masturbation might provide more benefits than madness, a study of anarchism is highly recommended — all the way beck to the time of Marx, when Bakunin was his most radical socialist adversary.., most radical, because he was a dialectical giant step beyond Marx, trusting the qualities of individuals to save humanity.

Why has the Left all but ignored anarchism? It might be because the anarchists have never sustained a revolutionary victory. Marxism has triumphed, but so has capitalism. What does that prove, or what does it suggest but that maybe the loser, up to this point is on our side? The Russian anarchists fiercely opposed the very revisionist tyranny among the Bolsheviks that the New Left would come to deride with sophomoric callousness, before their old Left parents in the ‘60s. Sure, the old generation of American Leftists were narrow-minded not to see capitalism regenerating in Russia; but the tunnel vision with which we have charted a path of Marxist-Leninist dogma is not something to be proud of either.

Women, of course, have made it out of the tunnel way before most men, because we found ourselves in the dark, being led by the blind men of the New Left, and split. Housewife for-the revolution or prostitute for the proletariat; amazing how quickly our revision restored itself. All across the country independent groups of women began functioning without the structure, leaders and other factotems of the male Left, creating independently and simultaneously, organisations similar to those of anarchists of many decades and locales. No accident either.

The style, the audacity of Emma Goldman, has been touted by women who do not regard themselves as anarchists. because Emma was so right-on. Few women have gotten so many men scared for so long as Emma Goldman. It seems logical that we should study Emma, not to embrace her every thought, but to find the source of her strength and love of life, It is no accident, either, that the anarchist Red Terror named Emma was also an advocate and practitioner of free-love; she was an affront to more capitalist shackles than any of her Marxist contemporaries.

How to give and receive criticism

By Scott Berkun, September 2004

Good feedback is rare. It can take a long time to find people who know how to provide useful criticism, instead of simply telling you all the things they think are “wrong” with you or whatever you’ve made. A good critic spends as much energy describing what something is, as well as what it isn’t. Good criticism serves one purpose: to give the creator of the work more perspective and help them make their next set of choices. Bad criticism uses the opportunity provided by someone else’s work to make the critic feel smart, superior or better about themselves: things that have nothing to do with helping the recipient of the critique (Or in the case of movie reviews, the reader of the critique). Given the difficultly of creative work, it would seem that giving and receiving useful feedback should be an important part of what designers, writers, programmers and others are taught to do. This essay attempts to serve that purpose.

Assumptions bad critics make

There are four fundamental assumptions bad critics make:

1. There is one universal and objective measure of how good and bad anything is.
2. That the critic is in sole possession of the skill for making these measurements.
3. Anyone that doesn’t possess this skill (including the creator of the work) is an idiot and should be ridiculed.
4. That valid criticisms can and should always be resolved.

Let’s work with these one at a time. First, the idea of objective measures runs against everything we know about the history of man made things. To objectively measure how good and bad anything is would require not only that the universe is objective, but that the people in it are objective. There is no film, book, software, website, or album that is universally liked by everyone (including those who have the word critic in their job title). Some people may be more informed or knowledgeable than others, but this doesn’t make their opinions objective.

More important perhaps is the idea of measurement. To measure how good or bad something is requires knowledge about the intent of what the thing is trying to do. If you show me a frying pan that you’ve made, and I criticize it for not playing MP3 files, there’s a mismatch of intention in what we’re trying to measure and evaluate. Unless the intention of the work is clear to everyone “I want to make omelets”, good criticism is impossible. There are an infinite number of intentions and goals in the universe, and if two people can’t agree on what the creators intentions are, real communication is impossible. It might be fair to say that the intentions of a work should be transparent in the work itself: A toaster oven should look vaguely like something that can receive slices of bread. But in the case where the intentions aren’t clear, critics have a choice: they can trust the creator and invest more energy trying to sort out what the intentions are, or they can assume the worst about those intentions and begin criticizing what they don’t understand.

Second, believing that one person has sole possession of good perspective is a contradiction in terms. Good perspective by definition means the recognition of how many alternatively valuable perspectives there are on any matter. Two smart knowledgeable people might both love the new super-thin I-mac design or the recently U.S. released film Hero, but for entirely different and non-overlapping reasons. Good criticism generally comes with some degree of humility and respect for the possibility of other equally valid points of view. The better the critic, the more holistic their sense of how their own perspectives and tastes fit into the diverse pool of informed opinion of others.

Third, respect and ridicule don’t mix well. To offer good criticism must be an act of respect: an act of communication with the intention of helping the other person do better work, or understand their work better. If you are shaping sentences and remarks to be snide, snarky, or sarcastic, the intention of being helpful is unlikely to be served (Unless you know the recipient of the criticisms well enough to be comfortable razzing or joking with them about their work). It’s entirely possible to offer criticism, commentary and advice without any negative energy attached: it’s just so rare that we see it done properly that most of us don’t realize it’s possible, much less more effective.

Lastly, finding a valid criticism doesn’t mean that it can be fixed or is worth fixing. In many situations responding to one kind of criticism will just make the design or the work vulnerable to another kind of criticism. A film or essay that is dark and brooding could be made lighter and funnier, but then another critic could say "it wasn’t dark and brooding enough". And in some cases, fixing a particular problem will cause other problems that are worse. Until the creator explores the alternatives presented by feedback, it’s impossible to know whether responding to a piece of criticism is possible, much less desirable.

Collectively, this means that criticizing and giving feedback should be a thoughtful activity. If you’re flippant, arrogant, dismissive, curt or annoyed while giving feedback, you’re probably making one of the four assumptions above and not giving very good criticism.

The verb criticize, once a neutral word somewhere between praise and censure, is now mainly used in a negative sense. To say “He criticized me for being so friendly” generally means something different and less positive than “He made me think about the possible effects of being so friendly”.

crit•i•cal (adj.)
1. Inclined to judge severely and find fault.
2. Characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment: a critical reading.

Now I’m not saying that finding fault isn’t useful. On the contrary, it’s very important. It’s just that of equal importance in understanding the value of a design, algorithm, script, or film is to know what isn’t broken, or god forbid, what’s actually done brilliantly. What you want to do when you are offering criticism is to live up to the second definition listed above: Careful evaluation and judgment. To do this you need to do the following:

* Before you speak, know the goals: What problem is the work trying to solve? What are the goals? If you don’t know the intention of the work it’s very difficult to offer careful evaluation and judgment. Remember the frying pan? If I don’t know what the creator is trying to achieve, how can I possibly offer any commentary that’s of value? Now it should be the creators job to inform me of what they’re trying to do, or tell me that they think it should be self-evident in the work, but if they don’t there’s not much harm in me asking “What are you trying to accomplish here?”, and it will save everyone much time and grief. If the problem is at the level of intention, discussion will ensue at that level instead of trying (and failing) to sort out intentions at the level of specific design choices.

Good and bad, is not the same as what you like or don’t like. You must shatter the idea that anything you like is good, and anything you don’t is bad. If you can’t separate your personal preferences from more abstract analysis of a kind of work, then you will rarely provide much useful feedback: criticism is not about you. It’s about the work you are viewing and the person that made it. Your personal preferences only get in the way of providing the work (and its maker or possible consumers) with useful information. Learn to see the good and respectable attributes in work you do not like: they are there if you let yourself see them. For example: a good film review should evaluate the film’s merits somewhat independently from the reviewers personal tastes. It should be possible to read a review about a film the reviewer didn’t like, but be inclined to see it anyway based on the observations he made about it’s content, style, and form.
* Talk as much about what it is, as what it isn’t. While it can be more efficient to focus on problems and what’s broken, rather than what’s good and working, if the creator can’t see both, there’s not much hope of their next choices being good ones. Make sure you spend as much energy helping them to see and keep the strong parts of what they’ve done as you help them see the weaker and more questionable parts.
* Try the PNP sandwich (positive negative positive): I don’t like this idea much, but I think it can be a good one (see what I did there?) for dealing with people sensitive or new to receiving criticism. The idea is simple: find a way to alternate your feedback. Find something positive, then find something negative, then find another positive thing. It’s an easy way to develop trust and help people become comfortable with hearing other people’s opinion. I don’t like it because it has a touchy-feely vibe and it can lead to pretension and insincerity. However I have seen it work as a way to get strangers to warm up to each other, and eventually grow out of this little pattern of behavior.

Receiving critical feedback

It’s much harder to receive criticism than to give it. By the time most people make it through college there have been so many bad experiences with receiving feedback, especially on creative work, that they tend to avoid it or ignore it. Nothing can be worse: feedback is essential to developing ideas, and if the project involves a team in any way, the dialog and communication that falls out of feedback is essential. Anyone that makes anything must find ways to not only obtain feedback, but to master the skills of milking it for all it’s worth.

* Shut up. Just shut up and listen. Creators often fall into the trap of speaking for their work, trying to use words to defend things that should be in the design. This is a form of denial: The work has to speak for itself. Even if only for a few minutes, let the prototype or draft be its own thing, and stand on its own. If you respond right away to (or perhaps interrupt) every point made in a critique, you can’t possibly be thinking about what’s being said to you. Thinking takes time. Try to talk as little as possible, and let the time be used for critique, not for defense. If you don’t trust the people critiquing you to be fair, that’s a problem best solved by defining sound ground rules (See below), or by investing more in finding better critique partners.
* Ask clarifying questions. Again, avoid filling the conversation with defensive chatter. Instead respond to questions by trying to sort out any ambiguities or points you don’t agree with by getting whoever is critiquing to restate their point. “When you say the style in my design is sloppy, do you mean that the lines aren’t sharp, or that the composition isn’t balanced quite right? Can you show me exactly what you mean?” By asking clarifying questions you allow yourself time to decide if you agree with the criticism or not by working with the other person to understand their point/question better. It makes the critique into a dialog, which is what it should be, and not a courtroom trial.
* Refer back to the goals. If you’re not getting what you want from the critique, provide some goals for the work that you’re trying to achieve. If you’re working on a project this should be easy: the goals for a given design should derive from the project goals. Ask whoever is giving you feedback to do so in terms of those goals or your derivations of them. Then whenever the conversation goes astray, you can refer back to the goals and set things in a useful direction again.
* Ask for what changes you can make that will satisfy the criticism. The goal of criticism is not to learn every nuance about a design’s weaknesses: its to know enough about a design so that the designer can make it better. If you agree with a criticism, but don’t see a path to improvement, ask for one. Turn the question back around on the person who made the comment. “Good point. So do you see anything I can do to improve on that?” Often they won’t have anything to say: critiquing is not the same as creating. But by asking the question you do move the conversation forward into thinking about future action, instead of staying stuck in criticism mode.

Ground Rules

* Take control of your feedback process. Feedback is not something that happens to you: it should be something you make happen. If you wait for feedback to come to you, it tends to be less positive and supportive than if you seek it out. If you walk into someone’s office and say “hey, can I have 5 minutes of your time to look at something?” you are taking control. You put yourself in the driver’s seat of the process, and can frame and shape the criticism you get however you want. But if you wait and wait and wait until deadlines approach, you have less and less control over how feedback will be given to you. It will have more edge to it and will tend to serve others more than serve you.
* Pick your partners. Who do you get the best feedback from? It’s probably not the person who loves everything you do. If you don’t think you get good feedback from anyone, part of the problem might be you haven’t taken control of the process. Be more specific about what kinds of criticism you need, and go to people and ask for it. If you find a good source, cherish it, and reward them for it. Much of what a good mentor does is provide good, consistent, honest feedback. If you can get this from a peer or a manager find ways to cultivate and reward it. Look for people outside of your company or organization that might be willing to form a peer review group: meet once a week/month over coffee and show each other your work.
* Strive to hear it all, informally and early. The sooner you hear a question or criticism of something you’ve created, the greater your ability to do something about it before it’s finished. If there is any kind of formal review or feedback process (e.g. a spec review or group critique) make it your job to find out what opinions there are of what you’re doing well before it happens. This can be as simple as going to door to door and showing sketches, and asking for a few quick comments. Give yourself the opportunity to benefit early from other perspectives and think things through. But do know how much feedback you can handle: you don’t want your work driven by other people’s opinions, but you do want to give yourself the opportunity to benefit from them.

Consensus Decision-Making

What is consensus?

Consensus is a process for group decision-making. It is a method by which an entire group of people can come to an agreement. The input and ideas of all participants are gathered and synthesized to arrive at a final decision acceptable to all. Through consensus, we are not only working to achieve better solutions, but also to promote the growth of community and trust. Consensus vs. voting
Voting is a means by which we choose one alternative from several. Consensus, on the other hand, is a process of synthesizing many diverse elements together.

Voting is a win or lose model, in which people are more often concerned with the numbers it takes to "win" than with the issue itself. Voting does not take into account individual feelings or needs. In essence, it is a quantitative, rather than qualitative, method of decision-making.
With consensus people can and should work through differences and reach a mutually satisfactory position. It is possible for one person's insights or strongly held beliefs to sway the whole group. No ideas are lost, each member's input is valued as part of the solution.
A group committed to consensus may utilize other forms of decision making (individual, compromise, majority rules) when appropriate; however, a group that has adopted a consensus model will use that process for any item that brings up a lot of emotions, is something that concerns people's ethics, politics, morals or other areas where there is much investment.

What does consensus mean?

Consensus does not mean that everyone thinks that the decision made is necessarily the best one possible, or even that they are sure it will work. What it does mean is that in coming to that decision, no one felt that her/his position on the matter was misunderstood or that it wasn't given a proper hearing. Hopefully, everyone will think it is the best decision; this often happens because, when it works, collective intelligence does come up with better solutions than could individuals.
Consensus takes more time and member skill, but uses lots of resources before a decision is made, creates commitment to the decision and often facilitates creative decision. It gives everyone some experience with new processes of interaction and conflict resolution, which is basic but important skill-building. For consensus to be a positive experience, it is best if the group has 1) common values, 2) some skill in group process and conflict resolution, or a commitment to let these be facilitated, 3) commitment and responsibility to the group by its members and 4) sufficient time for everyone to participate in the process.

Forming the consensus proposals

During discussion a proposal for resolution is put forward. It is amended and modified through more discussion, or withdrawn if it seems to be a dead end. During this discussion period it is important to articulate differences clearly. It is the responsibility of those who are having trouble with a proposal to put forth alternative suggestions.
The fundamental right of consensus is for all people to be able to express themselves in their own words and of their own will. The fundamental responsibility of consensus is to assure others of their right to speak and be heard. Coercion and trade-offs are replaced with creative alternatives, and compromise with synthesis.

When a proposal seems to be well understood by everyone, and there are no new changes asked for, the facilitator(s) can ask if there are any objections or reservations to it. If there are no objections, there can be a call for consensus. If there are still no objections, then after a moment of silence you have your decision. Once consensus does appear to have been reached, it really helps to have someone repeat the decision to the group so everyone is clear on what has been decided.

Difficulties in reaching consensus

If a decision has been reached, or is on the verge of being reached that you cannot support, there are several ways to express your objections:

Non-support ("I don't see the need for this, but I'll go along.")

Reservations ("I think this may be a mistake but I can live with it.")

Standing aside ("I personally can't do this, but I won't stop others from doing it.")

Blocking ("I cannot support this or allow the group to support this. It is immoral." If a final decision violates someone's fundamental moral values they are obligated to block consensus.)

Withdrawing from the group. Obviously, if many people express non-support or reservations or stand aside or leave the group, it may not be a viable decision even if no one directly blocks it. This is what is known as a "lukewarm" consensus and it is just as desirable as a lukewarm beer or a lukewarm bath.

If consensus is blocked and no new consensus can be reached, the group stays with whatever the previous decision was on the subject, or does nothing if that is applicable. Major philosophical or moral questions that will come up with each affinity group will have to be worked through as soon as the group forms.

Roles in a consensus meeting

There are several roles which, if filled, can help consensus decision making run smoothly ' The facilitator(s) aids the group in defining decisions that need to be made, helps them through the stages of reaching an agreement, keeps the meeting moving, focuses discussion to the point at hand; makes sure everyone has the opportunity to participate, and formulates and tests to see if consensus has been reached. Facilitators help to direct the process of the meeting, not its content. They never make decisions for the group. If a facilitator feels too emotionally involved in an issue or discussion and cannot remain neutral in behavior, if not in attitude, then s/he should ask someone to take over the task of facilitation for that agenda item.

A vibes-watcher is someone besides the facilitator who watches and comments on individual and group feelings and patterns of participation. Vibes-watchers need to be especially tuned in to the sexism of group dynamics.

A recorder can take notes on the meeting, especially of decisions made and means of implementation and a time-keeper keeps things going on schedule so that each agenda item can be covered in the time allotted for it (if discussion runs over the time for an item, the group may or may not decide to contract for more time to finish up).

Even though individuals take on these roles, all participants in a meeting should be aware of and involved in the issues, process, and feelings of the group, and should share their individual expertise in helping the group run smoothly and reach a decision. This is especially true when it comes to finding compromise agreements to seemingly contradictory positions.

Working Together for A Change

Many of the problems we run into in movement groups are those of domination within the movement.
People join a social change movement in order to alleviate an external problem. Too often we are confronted with the same kind of behavior we find in our everyday lives. We're all too often stifled by heavy-handed authority: bosses at work, parents or spouse at home and teachers at school.
People want not only to be accepted in these groups, but also to make a contribution and be active participants. In order to work successfully to change things we must also pay attention to our own behavior. More often than not, men are the ones dominating group activity. Such behavior is therefore termed a "masculine behavior pattern," not because women never act that way, but because it is generally men who do.

Men are beginning to take responsibility for their behavior. The following are some of the more common problems to become aware of:

Hogging the show. Talking too much, too long, too loud.

Problem solver. continually giving the answer or solution before others have had much chance to contribute.

Speaking in capital letters. Giving one's own solutions or opinions as the final word on the subject, often aggravated by tone of voice and body posture.

Defensiveness. Responding to every contrary opinion as though it were a personal attack.

Nit-picking. Picking out minor flaws in statements of others and stating the exception to every generality.

Restating. Especially what a woman has just said perfectly clearly.

Attention seeking. Using all sort of dramatics to get the spotlight.

Task and content focus. To the exclusion of nurturing individuals or the group through attention to process and form.

Put downs and one-upmanship. 'I used to believe that, but now..." or 'How can you possibly say that ... ?" Negativism. Finding something wrong or problematical in everything.

Focus transfer. Transferring the focus of the discussion to one's own pet issues in order to give one's own pet raps.

Residual office holder. Hanging on to former powerful positions.

Self-listening. Formulating a response after the first few sentences, not listening to anything from that point on, and leaping in at the first pause.

George Custerism. Intransigence and dogmatism; taking a last stand for ones position on even minor
items.

Condescension and paternalism.

Being 'on the make". Treating women seductively; using sexuality to manipulate women.
Seeking attention and support from women while competing with men.

Running the show. Continually taking charge of tasks before others have the chance to volunteer.

Graduate studentitis. Protectively storing key group information for one's own use and benefit.

Speaking for others. 'A lot of us .think that we should. . . "or "What so and so really meant was..."

The full wealth of knowledge and skills is severely limited by such behavior. Women and men who are less assertive than others or who don't feel comfortable participating in a competitive atmosphere are, in effect, cut off from the interchange of experience and ideas.

If sexism isn't ended within social change groups there can't be a movement for real social change. Not only will the movement flounder amidst divisiveness, but the crucial issue of liberation from sex oppression will not be dealt with. Any change of society which does not include the freeing of women and men from oppressive sexrole conditioning, from subtle as well as blatant forms of male supremacy, is incomplete.

Here are some specific ways we can be responsible to ourselves and others in groups:

Not interrupting people who are speaking. We can even leave space after each speaker, counting to five before speaking.

Becoming a good listener. Good listening is as important as good speaking. It's important not to withdraw when not speaking; good listening is active participation.

Getting and giving support. We can help each other be aware of and interrupt patterns of domination, as well as affirm each other as we move away from those ways. It is important that men support and challenge each other, rather than asking women to do so. This will also allow women more space to break out of their own conditioned role of looking after men's needs while ignoring their own.

Not giving answers and solutions. We can give our opinions in a manner which says we believe our ideas to be valuable, but no more important than others' ideas.

Relaxing. The group will do fine without our anxiety attacks.

Not speaking on every subject. We need not share every idea we have, at least not with the whole group.

Not putting others down. We need to check ourselves when we're about to attack or "one-up" another. We can ask ourselves, 'Why am I doing this? What am I feeling? What do I need?"

Interrupting others' oppressive behavior. We should take responsibility for interrupting a brother who is exhibiting behavior which is oppressive to others and prohibits his own growth. It is no act of friendship to allow friends to continue dominating those around them. We need to learn caring and forthright ways of doing this.

- from an article by Bill Moyelri

There are no absolute rules. Facilitation requires a sensitivity to the ways in which a group functions. Equally, the role of the facilitator is not set in stone; it is determined by the needs of the group (as understood by the group itself as much as by the facilitator – the facilitator must always and repeatedly be authorised by the group). These needs and functions vary along many lines (place, time, imperatives, distractions, dynamics within the group). We need to learn strategies, and we can only learn by doing -

A facilitator needs to facilitate (to make easy, facil) the negotiation of a number of overlapping tensions. Not to resolve them or overcome them, exhaust them or deny them, but to let them play out productively.

The tension between task (what the group wants to get done) and maintenance (ensuring that the group holds together, wants to remain together – but it was pointed out that this is itself a task, the politics of how we relate is essential to our broader politics as much as it is to the success of our actions).

The tension between making decisions and letting our ideas elaborate themselves – we do need to decide, but we also need to let things cook. We need moments of silence and an engagement with ideas that seem out of place (don’t look at people strangely, don’t ignore their comments if they appear irrelevant at first – there is value in that which appears as unproductive). But we also need to not get stuck in a discussion that exhausts us and stops us from dealing with those issues and decisions which we feel are more important. We need conflict (this is where thought happens), but we must find ways of avoiding the automatic disagreements which can happen between people who have already decided to fight. We must find an adequate rhythm and pace for our meetings.

The tension between inclusion and exclusion. Absolute inclusivity is an impossibility, and an extreme exclusivity is terrible. We need to ensure that there is space for all to speak while also making sure that we have focus and parameters. This is not easy and the task is shared equally by those who are comfortable with speaking and those who are not. Responsibility is always shared, but good facilitation lets this responsibility be owned (together). We need to make all (especially new people) comfortable in the space; to let all know what is happening and where the group is at (without this, the group will easily fall apart).

This extends beyond a ‘formal’ meeting to the group as such – in the tension between our social relations and our desire to work together towards political action. That people feel comfortable saying dangerous things (as they might with friends), but that they don’t talk without focus. We must let our personal relations play out, but we should not let them overdetermine everything that happens. The sharing of facilitation amongst a group is essential to all this, as is a sensitivity to all of these tensions in contexts other than meetings (actions, social interactions…)

The tension between the need to distribute leadership functions (we need to get things done) and the formation of informal hierarchies. To some extent, hierarchies are unavoidable, but it would be the task of facilitation (and the group in general) to expose these in a safe and secure environment – and to find strategies for dealing with them. Again, everyone is responsible for this (not just those who have become ‘dominant,’ not just the facilitator).

Facilitation is the skill of letting things happen. It is a skill which we must all learn and learn together. It is impossible to see and include absolutely everything; we will always miss things. But by trying and sharing we can begin to get better.

WORKSHOP
On Writing to political prisoners and Supporting them and the ins and outs of visiting prisons in Victoria

Writing to prisoners consists of just sending a simple card stating who you are and what your interests are. They send one back and keep in contact. If you don't hear from any prisoners wait a while then send another. Cards are good. Don't send pictures of nudity or talk about protest actions you might attend or acts of violence. This could jepodize you or the prisoners. Sometimes prisoners don't respond because of the influx of letters. Maybe something is going on internally in the prison.

Visiting prisons in Victoria

Well, there are alot of things to be aware of. Be careful what you say in visiting rooms. Visiting your friend in reception is another issue. Don't talk about drugs, acts of violence rallies etc or other arrestees. You don't know who's listening. Also don't disclose any information about the person you visited in or after visiting the prison. I know it sounds like there's a lot of things that can't be done but it is important that you and your fellow prisoner are safe from the authorities.

Now there are several prisons that have different security devices extra. Melbourne assessment prison has iris scans. In the entrance you have to get your eye scanned. the first time you visit they take an inferred photo of your iris and then you go into this glass box like a tardis in doctor who. Then you put your eye in the roundish camera and then the door opens when it identifies you in a robot voice. It says: you are identified. Also you go in another glass tardis where these puffs of air come out. it is weird. This is a drug and weapons testing device. Note: don't smoke pot before going to visit a mate inside and wear new clothes and wash your hair. This is important because the machine
could detect drugs on your clothes, skin and hair.

Port phillip prison have hand scans. it's an older system. Strip searches and dogs are used. well this is a hard one, especially from experience. Basically keep your cool in strip searches. Don't give the authorities any energy by getting pissed off with them. It is a humiliating experience but you have to go through it if you want to see your fellow bro or sis inside.

Anarchist Black Cross Melbourne.
P.o. box 300 Brunswick East 3057

**THE JAILS ARE THE REAL CRIME!!**

**FOR A WORLD WITHOUT PRISONS!!**

to make sure that people want to come (and come back) we thought awhile ago that one of the most important things is to make them as interactive and participatory as possible. to those ends we found it helpful to think of it as a basic 40/ 60 format with timing: spend about 40 percent introducing the material and engaging with it, and 60 percent encouraging people to ask questions and lead a discussion. ofcourse if you want to make the whole thing a discussion that is also brilliant. the key point being that its not just one person talking for the entire time and that people feel like they can also contribute. if you want to do practical enjoyable things that is also totally recommended as is bringing food/ drinks etc. just think of what kind of event you yourself would have the most fun being a part of, and the kinds of things that you feel could make an event even better.

Additional information on upcoming skillshares

Non-specialist has a new website, a new news section, a new skillshare section. this is the first non-specialist blog entry on this new website, we hope you like it, please keep in touch.