Direct Action as a tactic for Feminists

"It's interesting -- amusing in a bitter kind of way -- maybe even liberating --

to envision a slightly different world.  The man limps into the emergency room

with one ear half-torn off and multiple bruises.  As he gasps out his story, the

doctor shakes his head:  'You mean you grabbed at her breasts and

tried to pull her into your car?  Well I mean, dummy, what did you expect?'

And he gets no sympathy, not a shred, from anyone."  (Clarke)

            How can an individual or group affect change?  This question forever burns in the minds of the socially and politically conscious everywhere.  Day after day we are faced with the realities of inequality and injustice.  Day after day we are presented with problem after problem, gloomy statistic after gloomy statistic, and it can become overwhelming quite quickly.  What is even more overwhelming to the majority of us, I wager, are the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness that come part and parcel with this knowledge.  What can we, as individuals, as feminists, as global citizens in a world of over six billion human beings reasonably do to improve the human condition?  Is there really a way for us to affect significant change?  I say there is.  But in order to change the world, we will have to change our tactics.  As feminists we enter the 21st century with a lot weighing on our minds.  As our knowledge of all the evils in the world develops, so must our tactics for social change.  Any group with a mission, such as creating an egalitarian society, needs to make the best use of whatever tools are available to it.  We must take matters into our own hands. 

            Many people will, throughout the courses of their lives, make efforts to change as many of the negative social realities we face as they can, mostly through political reform and education.  I do not mean to devalue the importance of education in this essay.  I feel that every person alive is responsible for the state of the whole of society in some way or another and, ideally every person alive would take part in altering it.  The systemic inequalities that exist today are not timeless phenomenon, set in place by some supernatural force.  On the contrary, they are constructions of the human mind and, in turn, they force the perpetuation of a certain social mentality.  They may not have been expressly created for this purpose, but probably developed over time, growing exponentially so that we are progressively more and more alienated from them.  And only through educating ourselves and each other can we even begin to grasp what part we play in the maintenance of the status quo and how best to change that. 

            Be that as it may, we cannot afford to waste the lessons learned through centuries of struggle towards social, political, and economic equity.  As the problems increasingly worsen, the reality of the sort of action we need to take to affect change grows clearer.  Petitions are arguably a waste of paper.  No number of letters to your Senator is going to change anything fundamental about our society.  When the elements of these problems are so ingrained in a system itself, any attempt to work through that very system will surely fall short of real change.  "[The] essence of agency is that individuals through collective action are capable of changing the structure of society and even the course of history.  But while agency is important, we should not forget the power of the structures that subordinate people, making change difficult or, at times, impossible."  (Eitzen & Zinn 574)  Those who wish to construct a better tomorrow need to come to terms with what needs to be done today, and more or less what that involves is bringing the existing structure down, instead of simply addressing the varying symptoms of a massive problem.  "[The] evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater than any such minor results.  The main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves . . ."  (de Cleyre)  The answer, then, must lie within direct action. 

            "It is by and because of the direct acts of the forerunners of social change, whether they be of peaceful or warlike nature, that the Human Conscience, the conscience of the mass, becomes aroused to the need for change.  It would be very stupid to say that no good results are ever brought about by political action; sometimes good things do come about that way.  But never until individual rebellion, followed by mass rebellion, has forced it.  Direct action is always the clamorer, the initiator, through which the great sum of indifferentists become aware that oppression is getting intolerable."  (de Cleyre)  What exactly direct action entails, however, is debatable.  Harald Beyer-Arsenen presents us with an interesting analysis of direct action.  "Direct action has been defined as action without intermediaries," he says, and individual and collective empowerment are the roots of direct action.  He also provides this example to demonstrate what direct action isn't, for clarification purposes:

            "If you lack water you might have to dig a well, and the act of digging will be       direct action. . . We could imagine that . . . we organized to sit down outside the          landowner residence, the King's Palace, the White House or the parliament          building, called in the press and proclaimed we would remain seated on the lawn             (committing the crime of trespassing) until the absent landowner, a legislative        body or somebody else with authority, granted us a permit to dig for water on his    or her property -- or until we were carried or otherwise forced away. 

            This surely would be civil disobedience, a breach of law, but would it also be         direct action?  Hardly.  We had tried to put pressure on an authority to make or       undo a judgment.  In this we had abided by their power and authority to make             such a judgment in the first place.  Rather than letting our ends only be mediated   by our own efforts and (wo) man-made tools . . . we had put their rule between          our means and ends."

Likewise, when I use the term direct action, I do not mean to reference just any action which involves measures other than or slightly beyond casting ballots or signing petitions.  I feel that the term has been diluted as politics and times change.  "Some would define any non-parliamentary action as a direct action, such as any street demonstration.  But to make a statement about what we would like something to be, or not to be, is not likely to move any mountain.  If the mere words, 'Stop the bombing!' halted bombs in mid-air, or took away their deadly effect, the world would be a better place to live.  It is not any more likely that breaking window panes would generate this effect, either."  (Beyer-Arsenen) 

            There is a saying that goes "if voting changed anything, it would be illegal."  I think the most important message to get across to people is not to abstain from voting but not to view voting as an ends in itself.  Voting is little more than making a statement, which may or may not be accepted by the government.  "Statements don’t do it.  If [they] did, we would have transformed society in this country more than a century ago."  (Clyne)  Not only do I feel, as I said before, that not enough change can come through working with the system, but voting and signing petitions gives individuals a false sense of accomplishment, of action.  As Ward Churchill states, "if you conduct your protest activities in a manner which is sanctioned by the state, [it is only because] the state understands that the protest will have no effect on anything."  (Clyne)  Most protests and rallies seem to do little more than work to alleviate middle class guilt.  All this could be characterized a drive-through activism.   And to think of all the time and energy which is being put into political campaigns for various issues, the organization and participation in vastly ineffective protests which could be used in more productive ways.

            And what are those more productive ways, you may wonder?  The formula is simple:  do what they don't want you to do.  "You can gauge the effectiveness—real or potential at least—of any line of activity by the degree of severity of repression visited upon it by the state. It responds harshly to those things it sees as, at least incipiently, destabilizing. So you look where they are visiting repression: that’s exactly what you need to be doing. People engaged in the activity that is engendering the repression are the first people who need to be supported..." (Clyne)  Some of the first things that may come to mind when considering what the powers that be don't want you to do may include sabotage and property destruction and sometimes physical violence.  These things generally don't appeal to your run-of-the-mill middle class liberal apologist, but must be taken into serious consideration.  However, they are not the end-all and be-all of this argument.  "Nonviolent action can [also] be effectual when harnessed in a way that is absolutely unacceptable to the state: if you actually clog the freeways or occupy sites or whatever to disrupt state functioning with the idea of ultimately making it impossible for the state to function at all, and are willing to incur the consequences of that. That’s very different from people standing with little signs, making a statement."  (Clyne)  Whether activists are willing to admit the reality of what they must do or not is probably strongly dependent upon their attachment to the status quo of their lives.  Revolution is not a painless process, and if people are dedicated to making change they will have to take risks which may come with unhappy consequences.  In a speech from "U.S. Off the Planet: An Evening with Ward Churchill and Chellis Glendinning," Ward Churchill had the following to say about killing your colonizer (a phrase coined by Frantz Fanon, inextricably linked with the idea of direct action), figuratively and literally:

            Understand the rules of engagement.  You did not create them.  They are rules      imposed upon you. . . Rules that are imposed every 357 magnum strapped to the   hip of every cop that is walking a beat today, . . . by the existence of nuclear    weaponry, by the existence of fragmentation bombs, [et cetera.  No one knows the            full list but these things are there for] a reason.  The reason is to keep us in line. . .         There isn't a pill we can take, there's not a prayer we can say, there's not            song we can sing, there's not a petition we can circulate, there's not a vote we can make, there's not an argument that can be extended in speaking truth to   power             that will alter the situation fundamentally because fundamentally          power ain't listening; there's nothing we can tell them that they don't know          already and they flatly fucking don't care.  So if we're serious about liberation,. . .     if we're serious about forging a different future . . .  we're going to have to look     things square in the eye and figure out where we stand and how we go about        getting it done and do it.  (Emphasis mine)

            In practice, direct action has had its successes and, of course, failures.  What's more, it has undeniably become a part of history, particularly the history of the United States , even in its more brutal forms.  "[Direct] action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it," wrote Voltairine de Cleyre in the late 19th/early 20th century.  "[It] may be the extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of the Brook of Shiloa that go softly."  Some powerful examples of direct action in the past include the Underground Railroad, in which many risked life and limb to help give freedom to others.  "There were times when in the operation of the 'underground' that violence was required, and was used," de Cleyre recounts.  "I recollect one old friend relating to me how she and her mother kept watch all night at the door, while a slave for whom a posse was searching hid in the cellar, and though they were of Quaker descent and sympathies, there was a shotgun on the table.  Fortunately it did not have to be used that night."  Various other examples of both violent and nonviolent direct action help make the political history of the States quite colorful.  One of these is the notorious Boston Tea Party, which involved trespassing and property destruction at the very least.  Fed up with the Crown, the colonialists made a move that was not only symbolic but costly and highly memorable.

            Furthermore, a great figurehead of the antislavery movement in the United States could, for all intents and purposes, be labeled nothing less than a terrorist.  And when John Brown wasn't striking fear into the hearts of those who were slave-owners, he was plunging knives into them.  "John Brown was a man of violence; he would have scorned anybody's attempt to make him out anything else.  And once a person is a believer in violence, it is with him only a question of the most effective way of applying it, which can be determined only by a knowledge of conditions and means at his disposal."  (de Cleyre)  Both the actions of Brown and the participants in the Boston Tea Party were looked upon at illegitimate at the time, but consider the venerable places that they hold in our history books today.  (Shuman 20)  We will never truly know how much we owe to them. 

            Workers going on strike is yet another example of direct action.  Workers can complain about wages, working conditions, hours, harassment and the like all they want, but these complaints can be easily dismissed by those who hold the reigns of power.   Until, that is, workers make a statement that is more than just a statement, but a manifestation of the seriousness of their position.  They must force others to care.  "[Workers] must learn that their power does not lie in their voting strength, that their power lies in their ability to stop production."  A considerable failure of democracy, our voices do not constitute our political pull, even in large groups.  No, "[events], not tongues, must make [our positions] clear."  (de Cleyre)

            The breakdown of working class consciousness and cohesion has led to a sad decline in that particular sort of direct action.  However, as a whole it is not a thing of the past.  No, not at all -- direct action is alive and well today, all throughout the world.  So-called ecoterrorism happens semi-regularly throughout the states in housing and industrial developments.  While the ethics of the tactics used by, for example, the Earth Liberation Front, is a matter for debate, their impact is a bit less so.  It may even be scientifically measurable.  "At some level, the elves' action will cause developers to think twice . . .   [and in] the whaling industry, for example, concerted sabotage has made it almost impossible for prospective whalers to insure their boats."  (Phillabaum)   Another example on a smaller scale is the reaction of students at MIT in 1988 who were concerned about an on-campus showing of the film Deep Throat.  "The MIT administration did not stop it . . . [so activists] responded by taking direct action.  A dozen women and a few men leafletted the audience, and then interrupted the movie, cutting the cord of the movie projector.  The action was successful in substituting a constructive discussion of the severity of both actions for an endless debate on how (and whether) the MIT administration should define pornography."  (Cowan)  But there's a lot more to direct action than the cessation of work or sabotage.  A prime example of this took place in India where:

            "At 3pm on August 13, 2004, Akku Yadav was lynched by a mob of around 200 women from Kasturba Nagar.  It took them 15 minutes to hack to death the man    they say raped them with impunity for more than a decade. . . Laughed at and     abused by the police when they reported being raped by Yadav, the women took   the law into their own hands. . . Each time he was arrested, he was granted bail. . .       But the 32-year-old was never changed with rape.  Instead, the women say, the       police would tell him who had made the reports and he would come after them.         According to residents, the police were hand-in-glove with Yadav. . .  The women             decided that, if necessary, they'd go to prison, but that this man would never come            back and terrorise them. . . Now every woman living in the slum has claimed   responsibility for the murder."  ("Arrest us all")

The action taken by these women to stop the suffering inflicted upon so many by this man was undeniably effective.  The saying that dead men don't rape seems quite fitting here.  "Violence definitely solves some things.  A dead rapist will not commit any more rapes:  he's been solved."  (Clarke)  What's more, in taking action as such a big group, it is harder for the women to be punished for exercising what should be considered their right when the law enforcement system has failed them.  Additionally, activists have taken on not only rapists but things which they feel promote rape.  Take, for example, the fire-bombing Vancouver 5, also known as the Wimmen's Fire Brigade, which had "decided to make literal the name of [the Red Hot Video chain] which specialized in violent pornography. . . According to Open Road, '(m)any of the films depicted not only explicit sex scenes, but women being trussed up, beaten, raped, tortured, forced to undergo enemas by armed intruders and other forms of degradation'. . .  Women's groups had been fighting for six months against Red Hot Video, but there was no response from the state.  Within a few weeks [of the bombings] . . . six porn shops had closed, moved away or withdrawn much of their stock out of fear they would be the next target.  Within two months the first charges were laid for combining explicit sex with violence."  ( Campbell )  In this case, direct action achieved the desired results (the Red Hot Video stores were gone) and then some.  While the Vancouver 5 were all subjected to many years' worth of imprisonment each, their sacrifice has left a brilliant legacy for activist communities.   

            The debate about direct action, particularly the violent sort, has many implications for feminists.  On the one hand, feminists generally claim to seek female empowerment while, on the other, they generally value pacifism.  "The troublesome question of nonviolence haunts the women's movement and always has.  We despise the brutality to which women are subjected by men, the . . . casual destructiveness of male violence . . . Yet like all oppressed peoples, women are divided on the essential question of violence as a tactic. . . [Will] gentleness and kindness really win the hearts of nasty and violent people?  Will reason, patience, and setting a good example make men see the error of their ways?" (Clarke)  The answer is no, they probably won't, and we can't keep deluding ourselves into thinking otherwise.  We have a choice then between passively accepting our fate and stepping up to confront it.  "A woman with a sword. . .  is a powerful emblem.  She is no one's property.  A crime against her will be answered by her own hand."  (Clarke)  The fact of the matter is, the more hesitant we are to defend ourselves and our interests, the less hesitant others will be to tread upon our dignity, welfare, and very lives.  Men do what they do to women because they can.  Because they get away with it.  (Clarke)  The consequences for abusing women must be more powerful, more compelling.  We have struggled for justice within the legal system for decades without much to show for it in the realm of violence against women especially.   We need to create our own deterrents.  We need to make men as afraid to rape as we are to be raped.  To create a new reputation for ourselves.  "[Sometimes] a demonstration of violent rage accomplishes what years of prayers, petitions, and protests cannot:  it gets you taken seriously. . . If the risk involved in attacking a woman were greater, there might be fewer attacks. If women defended themselves violently, the amount of damage they were willing to do to would-be assailants would be the measure of their seriousness about the limits beyond which they would not be pushed.  If more women killed husbands and boyfriends who abused them or their children, perhaps there would be less abuse.  A large number of women refusing to be pushed any further would erode, however slowly, the myth of the masochistic female which threatens all our lives.  Violent resistance to attack has its advantages all round."  (Clarke)  Physical prevention or destruction is necessary when the pleas of dozens, hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of millions of women are so easily ignored. 

            As distasteful the idea of adopting violence may be to many feminists, we do live in a dog-eat-dog world.  "It's not as if we were suggesting that women introduce violence into the Garden of Eden.  The war is already on.  Women are children are steadily losing it."  (Clarke)  We have to play their game -- or, rather, play against it.  Being dependent on the mercy of others for our very lives does not strike me as very feminist at all.  Being unwilling to do what it takes to alter that dynamic even less so. 

            But isn't there an inherent level of backwardness in praising techniques which we find so despicable when put into practice by counter-progressive forces, such as abortion clinic bombers?  This is a fair question.  Not all who employ methods of direct action will be left-leaning and that is simply a fact we must live with.  It seems the primary argument that advocates of choice make against abortion-clinic bombings or shootings is that it is a blatant contradiction of the professed values of most pro-life people or groups. 

            The preservation of life at all costs is not at the root of feminism.  It is much more so about improving the quality of life for those who live.  This is why we do not see feminists on the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, or donating generously to campaigns to eliminate assisted suicide.  While we may disagree with the message behind abortion clinic bombings, we cannot blacklist tactics simply because they're used by our political adversaries.  Within the structure of our society, we are not given much of a choice. 

            Of course not all activists are progressive.  Nor is all direct action is progressive.  There is no black and white here, only uncomfortable grey areas through and through.  Such is life.  And though not all direct action is progressive, it is more often than not the voice of the disempowered, marginalized and oppressed which is carried upon its back.  This is important where true democracy is lacking. "Violence is like money:  it can't make you happy, save your soul, make you a better person -- but it certainly can solve things.  When the winners exterminate the losers, historical conflicts are permanently solved."  (Clarke)

            The conclusion that I'm hoping will be drawn from all of this is that people who truly desire change will stop paying lip service to issues that are supposedly important to them and abandon tactics that have repeatedly failed in favor of more direct strategies.  Strategies which bring injustice to a screeching halt, rather than simply waving the nagging finger of disapproval at them.  Furthermore, we cannot pick and choose what aspects of this diseased and inherently anti-egalitarian system to embrace and which to campaign against.  We need to start at the root of the problems, and as it stands that root is the very basis of society itself.  We need to rebuild, working from the ground up.  We need to concentrate upon real change and not do just enough to assuage liberal guilt.  And to rebuild, sometimes we must destroy.

Works Cited

"Arrest us all."  The Guardian.  16 September 2005.

Beyer-Arnesen, Harald.  "Direct Action; Towards an understanding of a concept."             Anarcho-Syndicalist Review.  Champaign : Summer 200., Iss. 29; pg. 11

Campbell, Jim.  "The Vancouver 5: armed struggle in Canada ."  10 November 2005.             <http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/profiles/v5/v5_canada.html>

Churchill, Ward.  " U.S. Off the Planet:  An Evening with Ward Churchill and Chellis

            Glendinning."  Lemming.  Eugene , Oregon .  17 June, 2001.

Clarke, D.A. "Justice is a Woman with a Sword."  Always Causing Legal Unrest. 10         November 2005.  <http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/Porn/Justice.html>

Clyne, Catherine.  (2004).  “Dismantling the Politics of Comfort: The Satya Interview

            with Ward Churchill."  Satya.

Cowan, Rich.  "The Challenge to Pornography at MIT."  War Research Info Service. 

            September 1992: Vol. 2, #1. 

De Cleyre, Voltairine.  "Direct Action."  Spunk Library.  10 November 2005.              <http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/decleyre/sp001334.html>

Eitzen, D. Stanley & Zinn, Maxine Baca.  (2006).  Social Problems, tenth edition. 

            Boston :  Pearson Education, Inc.

Shuman, Samuel I.  Law and Disorder:  The Legitimation of Direct Action as an     Instrument of Social Policy.  Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 1971. 

Phillabaum, Lacey.  "ELF BURNS DOWN VAIL."  Earth First!  Tucson : Jan 31, 1999.    Vol. 19, Iss. 2; pg. 1