This is a response to an article by Julie Matthaei on the contributions of feminism to our understanding and practice of solidarity. For context, check out the original article.
As it traces the history of feminist identity politics, Julie Matthaei’s essay illuminates many of the challenges of successful collective action. In particular, it highlights concerns activists have had about the nature of identity politics—does organizing around identity-linked oppression lead to more people working together or fewer, promoting cohesion or division? This is an important discussion that is likely to persist as we build towards a Great Transition, so we should take time to develop our point of view.
Identity Politics: Moral and Strategic Considerations
We can first look at identity politics from a moral perspective. Activism tends to be based on a couple animating principles: that all people are fundamentally equal and deserve to be treated equally by society, and that as a matter of human dignity, people should be free. If you’re going to take action on the basis of these principles, then you should expect people to reflect upon them and require them to be adhered to within the movement. It’s consistent for them to do so, and inconsistent for those who don’t share the same identity and its associated social oppressions to recreate similar bias within organizing (after they’ve been made aware of it). Some may suggest that any discussion of identity promotes division, that it will always distract from creating a democratic and just economic system. However, any holistic understanding of freedom incorporates both identity and economic situation. It’s true that if you cannot be who you are without society degrading you, you’re not free. And if you’re allowed to be who you are, but your basic economic needs aren’t fulfilled, nor are you allowed the right to collectively participate in economic decisions—a denial of your human dignity and an important means of developing your character—then you are also unfree. A truly free individual has both. A movement against all forms of illegitimate authority would be sympathetic to each struggle for freedom.
From a practical or strategic perspective, promoting attention to identity-linked oppression and attempting to address it within a movement has various benefits. Identity politics can bring people into activism who wouldn’t have otherwise participated because it speaks to their specific needs, and can make a movement welcoming to people with diverse backgrounds. Greater attention to and work with multiply-oppressed individuals can accelerate the development of their autonomy—in other words, their capacity for self-directed action and the self-confidence to lead the organizing process. It can also more tightly bind a movement together. These benefits are big parts of a movement’s power.
Reflecting on the Meaning of Coalition and Fragmentation in Activism
The more controversial result of identity politics is the formation of separate organizations that are autonomous from other activist efforts and focused on the issues linked to a particular identity. While some movements can successfully incorporate diversity, in other cases the formation of a separate institution might be warranted. Matthaei points out that men were concerned that discussing and incorporating differences and identity-based oppressions would emphasize differences over similarities, and divide the socialist movement—perhaps encouraging women to depart from socialist organizing to do feminist organizing. Women were concerned that their particular oppressions would persist within the socialist movement and wouldn’t be addressed through it. Both concerns are reasonable. If activists hope to maintain a single organization for their action, it seems essential for all members to agree about the need to adhere to the movement’s animating principles and to come to a shared perspective on what that looks like in the practice of activism.
Within the socialist movement Matthaei discusses, that means committing to equality in movement-building, ensuring women’s voices are heard and that women equally participate in decision-making. It should likely come down to designing movement structures and practices that help to ensure adherence to shared principles, institutionalizing the voices of individuals from different backgrounds in planning and decision-making, creating means of conciliatory accountability when issues arise, and perhaps contingency planning that rehearses responses to potential problems. It’s true that we shouldn’t simply count on sincerely held values to faithfully guide our behavior throughout the course of social struggle, when challenges will surface and unpredictable issues (despite the best foresight) are part of the process.
Where persistent efforts to raise identity issues aren’t heard or given sufficient attention, members of a movement sometimes form their own institutions. At first, identity politics did appear to split the socialist movement. “The nightmares of the white male leftists—that feminism would divide and destroy the movement for socialism—seemed to be coming true.” However, the result that looked to men like division appears to Matthaei as a healthy development. “The intersectionality of oppressions, as we have noted above, necessarily recreates relations of inequality within identity politics groups, e.g., ‘women.’ It is normal and healthy for oppressed subgroups to create spaces, caucuses, and organizations for themselves within which they can generate liberatory conceptions of the world and themselves—and then work in coalition with other, mixed but predominantly white/middle class/heterosexual groups towards shared feminist goals.” This is only splintering if each group has no intention of trying to work with one another. A movement is stronger when we find ways to work together authentically rather than papering over differences.
True unity is achieved not by ignoring differences, but by incorporating diversity. I am convinced that a critically thinking, reflective movement is the only kind that can go beyond reform and bring about a new society. A movement of followers, one without a compelling vision of equality and freedom that incorporates as many people as possible, is unlikely to be able to weather the storms along the way. But if diverse people are pursuing a vision compelling to each of them, they are assured that their reason for fighting is worthwhile, and will likely be more resilient.
Social transformation is a huge job, likely never-ending, and different people will naturally have different priorities in the process. That’s to be expected, and there are many worthwhile projects to undertake. Perhaps this suggests that we should think more deeply about what it means to be siloed, when there are many campaigns worth pursuing, and what it means to be in coalition. Working on different issues doesn’t mean movements are siloed; perhaps being siloed means not looking for ways to collaborate. A coalition might entail separate organizations or movements coming together periodically to educate one another about their priority issues and coordinate political strategies, and at times supporting each other’s marches, demonstrations, or legislation. An obvious point of collaboration would be supporting political candidates who will defer to the policy platform of multiple movements. We can ask why there isn’t more attention paid to creating collaboration, why many movements seem content with uncoordinated action. Perhaps the issue is that existing movements don’t connect their actions to an ultimate goal of bringing about a new, egalitarian society. It may be that movements are currently animated by too narrow a vision, one that ends with their preferred issue solved or identity group free. If we all shared a broader ultimate vision, then maybe movements would more readily look for shared goals upon which to collaborate.
One concern to highlight about identity politics is that attention to identity can be taken too far. This occurs when we view the elevation of traditionally oppressed individuals into a position of political or economic power, regardless of their beliefs or actions, as a triumph for identity politics. Substance must remain the focus—we talk about attention to identity not because the physical details of a person are of substance in themselves, but rather the particular forms of oppression that are tied to these details are important. We fight for a society not where members of oppressed groups rise to become elites, but that certain ideals, regardless of a person’s outward appearance, are elevated. We attend to identity so that we can ultimately create a society where all are treated equitably.
If the process of recognizing and grappling with the reality of multiple, intersecting oppressions was always something that humanity was going to have to deal with in order to build a mass movement capable of bringing about a new society, we can appreciate the feminist movement for playing a leading role in driving that process.
A Broad Vision Makes Transformation Possible
Matthaei shows that the practice of identity politics, as multiply oppressed individuals began to organize separately to understand and overcome their issues, led to the rise of “solidarity politics” and a “broadening [of] the view” of feminist activism. I want to bring the concept of solidarity that Matthaei highlights into the context of the ecological crises we face. As I’ve explored the severity and urgency of these issues, climate change in particular, it’s become clear that the story of successful ecological activism is not simply a rapid energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables that otherwise leaves the existing society largely unchanged. Instead, the result is a fundamentally different society—one with an economy restructured to meet community needs within ecological limits, reorganized based on what the new renewable energy system can provide (which may be vastly different than the fossil fuel regime), and where decision-making power is much more evenly distributed. This wider analysis of what is necessary to address our ecological crises has yet to be incorporated into mainstream activist consciousness and action, but I think it requires us to see ourselves more as “new society activists,” with a commensurate broadening of our vision and activities. Learning about and working with others who are organizing against various forms of oppression is an essential part of this process.
It seems to me that activists often have concerns about the prospect of expanding their platform or focus to include new issues. Some may expect that broadening their platform would dilute focus on the issues they most care about. This appears to be counter-intuitive, however, because such broadening may be necessary to meet the demands of their problem and can draw different groups into collaboration—expanding the power wielded by a movement. For ecological activists this would entail new campaigns aimed explicitly at economic and cultural transformation, and working alongside other movements towards shared goals. Matthaei observes that “solidarity politics leads naturally to systemic critique,” pointing out that in the absence of a vision of systemic transformation, movements are forced to narrow their goals and accept many of the unjust assumptions underlying the existing society. For women, this leads to “focus on demands for equal opportunity within the prevailing system,” such that “feminism shrinks to a movement which takes the basic rules of our capitalist economy as given, and defines women’s oppression solely in terms of discrimination in the labor force and lack of reproductive rights.” For ecological activism, it also means taking “the basic rules of our capitalist economy as given” so that we find it difficult or impossible to envision solutions that match the scale of our issues. At a time when ecological crises require us to deeply reshape our society, having too narrow a view of our task prevents us from seeing an alternative.
As we broaden our understanding of the different ways that the population experiences oppression, Matthaei observes that “targets shift from the dominant group—i.e., “men (or the 1% or whites) are the enemy”—to the social concepts, practices, and institutions that create and perpetuate a particular structural inequality.” This is an essential development for a movement aimed at transforming society, because it locates the right target. It is easy to believe that opposing particular people or putting different individuals into positions of power can bring about new social dynamics. This strategy can have a positive effect, but it is very limited. Most importantly, focus on individuals obscures the social structures that constrain and guide human behavior—leading oppression to persist as a historical pattern even as individuals from different ends of the elite-sanctioned political spectrum gain power.
To shift culture and shape a new narrative of human history, we must be aware of the underlying forces that drive it. Focusing on ideas and institutions rather than individuals also orients a movement towards welcoming fellow oppressed people who we may initially ignore because they’ve been taught to blame other burdened groups for their situation, and opens up the possibility of reconciliation with people in power during and after the process of social change. We replace antagonism with a compelling sense of humanity. Adhering to this perspective is challenging; it’s much easier to condemn a person along with their toxic ideology than to separate the two and direct our anger towards the ideology alone. But I think this is key to a deeper concept of humanity and solidarity, and these concepts may be vital parts of a narrative that sees humanity come together to save itself and create the transition we need.
Beyond Gradual Economic Change: Turning Corporations into Cooperatives
The major issue in Matthaei’s essay is that the gradual vision of solidarity economics doesn’t coincide with the timeline dictated by the existential crises we face. Keeping warming to 2 degrees Celsius (since preindustrial times), a threshold beyond which extremely dangerous change becomes more likely, would require us to eliminate carbon emissions within the next two decades—entailing a rapid transformation of our economy. Our goals must match the scale of the problem as closely as possible. We simply don’t have the ability to wait for a gradual shift towards a sustainable economic system. Instead, the public must gain enough power to transform corporations into cooperatives, redesigning the economy so that the primary consideration is meeting present needs without making a future for humanity impossible.
Matthaei notes that “the solidarity economy framework encourages people to participate in systemic economic transformation in the here and now, rather than waiting for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.” Presumably, under the “r/evolution” model, systemic transformation occurs when enough cooperative firms come into existence that they overwhelm corporations. But as Mary Mellor points out, the successful British coop movement’s failure to supplant the existing economic system suggests that we could be waiting for a transformation that will never come indirectly, but only through direct action. The growth of cooperatives to this point will play an important role in the large-scale transition we must bring about, because their existence dispels arguments about the infeasibility of economic democracy, even making the notion mundane. Despite her remark that “the solidarity economy is thriving, within markets, alongside of capitalist institutions, even within them,” Matthaei importantly points out that “the owners and managers of firms literally do not care about the possible negative effects of their actions on others. Workers are fired and deprived of their livelihoods, consumers are manipulated and misinformed, and the environment is destroyed, all as a regular part of business.” These effects aren’t simply unfortunate—they are the reason humanity faces existential crises, and they’ll prevent their resolution if we don’t come together to transform existing economic institutions.
Conclusion
A movement of movements must expand across the country and the world, intervening throughout our social lives to prepare us and others for the task ahead. Consciously shaping a liberated culture must become a part of everyday life both at home and in the public sphere. “Traditional authoritarian parenting in a patriarchal family sets up the dominant-subordinate roles,” Matthaei observes, “which are then reproduced through traditional schooling and then in capitalist, authoritarian firms.” A movement capable of transforming society must be able to identify and question the aspects of culture that lead people to accept or even defend oppression, often their own. This effort must be guided by a broad vision. “We need to reach beyond a politics that views feminism as a struggle of women against oppression by men for a solidarity politics that seeks to end all forms of oppression—patriarchy, racism, classism, homophobia, able-ism, neocolonialism, species-ism, etc.—from our movements, and from our economy and society.” Facing existential crises, this perspective is more than desirable—it’s necessary.