“Occupy Nashville’s problem has not just been that women get abused there. More broadly, our problem is that when men and women call out that abuse, they are told that ‘that’s not what this movement is about’ and that feminism is a distraction from our larger goals, the goals that supposedly unify all of the 99%. While this kind of dodging doesn’t always fly, it works surprisingly often. When it does, the supposed nobility of the larger movement-at-hand acts as a free license for us to act out our internalized misogyny unchecked. That’s when, for all its sometimes-utility as a combative slogan, “we are the 99 percent” backfires. In those moments it becomes a tool used against women rather than a tool for inspiring democratic experiments.

On the many contentious email threads of Occupy Nashville, we are often admonished to ‘leave feminism out of this’; or, if the author doesn’t want the liability of being specific, just to ‘leave our agendas at the door’ and (it always seems to be white men saying this) ‘focus on our core issues’ – presumably, the twin goals of getting money out of politics and ending corporate personhood, rather than the issues of ending identity- or body-specific violence, like that against women, people of color, or people overseas. [I assume that other activists are familiar with these online flame-wars, but if you’re not, thank your luck and read on.] While few if any of those people calling for feminism to be ‘left out of this’ in Nashville are anarchists, this is something in anti-authoritarian circles that we refer to as “manarchism” – essentially, the idea that your anticapitalist militancy is so badass that you don’t have to treat others with kindness or take feminism seriously.”

I am taking the liberty of posting this, as a feminist occupier in Nashville. Feminism IS a core issue. But even beyond Nashville, there have been women reacting positively to this piece, upset that misogyny is alive and well in many encampments across the nation, women who are actively trying to dismantle the hegemony of patriarchy in their attempt to imagine and create a better society, a better world. I highly recommend this piece to any occupier concerned with the issue of feminism.