We are a non-identarian group
Which means we recognise and value people, approaches and analysis based on merit and political alignment, whilst also recognising identity leads to difference in power, experience and insight. But identity alone is not praxis and it is not political affinity by default.
So we do not assume merit, nor reduce value and importance to the identity of the person/group expressing them alone. I.e. if a woman wants to mend a fence “against patriarchy”, that does not make this proposal feminist or unquestionable or effective just because a woman proposed it. If someone speaks for the collective it’s because their content is aligned, expresses our politics and values well, and is meaningful to share – not because this person “represents x identity” so anything they want to say is immediately great. We feel this represents true respect and is anti-tokenising/fetishising, whilst not pretending that our identities don’t affect our material positions of power, safety and influence (class-reductionism), and whilst needing to work with these identity-based imbalances in real context.
Working with our reality
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” ― audre lorde
We practice and strongly encourage each other to engage with perspectives and politics informed by people’s experiences rooted in a diversity of lives, which often developed due to experiencing many systemic oppression based on our identities – and beyond. We do not simply import categories and frameworks from USA, and instead try to understand what specifically shapes our identities and hierarchies of sub-classes in UK, in England, in Manchester. I.e. our poorest neighbourhoods are of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi diaspora, not Black neighbourhoods; our British patriarchy is not of the overt machismo flavour; our fight for abortion is under a monarchy and neoliberal political parties, not evangelist Christian corporations; our labour laws have many protections inc. multi-month maternity leave, and our trade unions are allowed to strike and do so often. Those of us who come from different cultures and/or countries also bring insight that deepens global understandings and inform our work.
Through knowing each other and working together and in the real world around us we examine where categorisations of identities are similar or differ, where they offer opportunity for shared work and where the work is more politically meaningful when separate. We look at where our oppression intersects with the oppression of working class men and masculine people, and we do not consider them enemies by default.
Solidarity and responsible politics
We consider everyone on our side of the class war equal and understand that having lived experience alone does not automatically equal political analysis that brings us closer to the goal of freedom. We owe each other respect, discipline, and analysis based on merits, not shortcuts and deference. We owe each other care, consideration, good faith, respect, and commitment. We owe each other building trust and understanding which will change us deeply, not superficially.
Any popular slogans that the left is simply “supposed to be”, such as “intersectional”, “abolitionist” and “acab”, we do not simply recite as slogans and accept as “obvious truths”. We consciously engage with them, examine them, and decide for ourselves what applies, why, in what situations, and how. So if you join us, you don’t need to run a list of things you “are in agreement with” to tick off to show you’re a “good feminist”, you need to think for yourself and be responsible for what you believe in and act on – and why.
Identity-based power analysis
Power is held between individuals as well as associated with social position. Power analysis is essential, but we understand power as always situational, contextual, in real terms and real time, not an abstract “badge” that is assigned once and done with, rigid, and never on a scale of fluctuation or applicability.
As a collective we do not participate in liberal representation politics, respectability politics, gender separatism, gender binarism, nor subscribe to the theory of static “hierarchy of oppression” pyramids from american academics – nor view these approaches as analytically or materially useful.
We recognise that frequently individual men in specific circumstances, places, relational moments, or interactions, do not simply “have power over women and femmes”. A physically disabled man being fed by a paid carer is not likely in a position of power over her, or likely anyone. A mother witholding financial help for continuing education from her youngest son is not oppressed by him in that circumstance, even if the amount of money she possess is a result of patriarchal discrimination. A male worker being fired by his female boss is not holding patriarchal power over her in that situation. And often, in human moments of connection, culture making, or public existence, the patriarchal hierarchy does not come to the forefront and is not key to understanding what is happening between people or in the community.
When we get into it, patriarchal power assigned to men that matters is always about something being manifested, influenced, protected, prioritised. All men in all circumstances do not hold all power over all women and femmes, in all circumstances, at all times, with the same force. It would be irresponsible to flatten understanding of power like that – and it would leave no doors open to political opportunities for growth, solidarity, and actual dismantling of patriarchal culture and structures. We could just give up now, if it’s all so fixed an un-changeable. But we don’t, because precisely understanding where the power balances change is so key to deciding what we do.
Power can be negotiated, shifted, shared, dissolved, amplified. This is what the work against the power-to-dominate is about.
