To browse Academia. Asked in an interview in "What does anarchyh old out to me-aw oman? Early U. They appealed to woman's unique moral qualities, such as her ability to nurture, while advocating that men and women were fundamentally equal in the eyes of the state. These topoi created a paradox that women still face today. We revisit Emma Goldman's free love rhetoric to recover a third possibility. Arguing that marriage be rejected, Goldman challenged audiences to ignite their inner desires, living life in balance with humanity.
We argue that Goldman's third topos, passion, is a productive lens through which to read discourses that may not fit the virtuous or civic ideal, such as those articulated by third wave feminists.
Feminist theory worldwide is confronting-perhaps as it always has done-a series of deep challenges. On the one hand, awareness of gender and sexual inequalities seems high; on the other, co-optation of feminism for nationalist or other right-wing agendas is rife. On the one hand, feminist social movements are in ascendancy, on the other there is a continued dominance of single issue feminism and a resistance to intersectional, non-binary interventions.
If we add in the collapse of the Left in the face of radical movements such as those underpinning Brexit and Trump and the frequent blaming of feminism for fragmentation of that Left then it is hard to know what to argue, to whom, and for what ends. In the face of such claims it is tempting to respond with a dogmatic or singular feminism, or to insist that what we need is a shared, clear, certain platform.
I want to argue instead-with Emma Goldman anarchist activist who died in as my guide-that it can be politically productive to embrace and theorise uncertainty, or even ambivalence, about gender equality and feminism. Anarcha-feminist Emma Goldman wrote her autobiography to evaluate her early politics and American radicalism at the turn of the century. I find in Living My Life two approaches to antiauthoritarian action: Adversarial politics seeks to emancipate the masses by contesting the agents of state, market, or patriarchy, but it falters when radicals act for those with whom they share few experiences.
