Dear organisers of AFEM 2014,

We write to you as comrades, as anarchists and feminists.

We are anarchists because we live our lives in struggle against domination and oppression. We are feminists because gender domination is one of the most vicious forms of power we face every day: its norms and violence poison all our relationships and are dug deep into our bodies.

We are also feminists and anarchists because we feel ourselves part of powerful traditions that have carried these banners through our history.

To be anarchists and feminists means to fight, to confront the structures of domination. That means taking on the repressive violence of the status quo. It also means confronting our own fears, traumas, habits and fixed ideas, the ingrained passivity, shame and guilt, all the little comforts and rewards for being good girls and boys, and all the other shit that has been screwed into us through our lifetimes. It is by challenging ourselves to fight back and destroy what destroys us that we become more powerful.

When we come to think about spaces, more or less safe or dangerous, this is where we’re starting from. Being safe is not an end in itself. You might be relatively safe locked up ‘for your own protection’ in a timid life of conformity and earned privileges. That’s not what we want. On the other hand, we don’t love danger or conflict for its own sake. What we want are spaces and encounters that empower us, that help us grow, that help us fight, because only by fighting can we make lives worth living in this world.

So that’s our question: how do we make empowering spaces for large gatherings of anarchists and feminists?

It may not sound very exciting, but we think it involves a balance. On the one hand, yes, we need some safety. For example, we want to have discussions without cops, fascists, loudmouth macho idiots, or other abusers barging in. And we want to make spaces that are welcoming, where a wide range of people feel able to come and participate, including, for example, people who feel vulnerable or traumatised, intimidated by meetings, or are new to our events.

On the other hand, a good gathering also needs a bit of danger. Empowering encounters often involve an edge of confrontation, challenge and expose us and push us out of our comfort zones. It is often through arguments with our comrades that we have learnt most, either changing our views or affirming them.

Maybe a half-decent analogy is how we learn martial arts: you don’t want to break your bones every time you train, but you expect a few bruised muscles and egos. Of course, we can’t be sparring all the time. You need to rest and recover between sessions. Get a massage, get a hug. Sometimes you need a longer break, time to recover from an injury. But, if we want to be fighters, we can’t be in recuperation mode all the time. Not if we want to grow, become powerful, able to defend each other and take on our enemies.

We don’t want to stretch this analogy too far. There are many kinds of gatherings, many kinds of spaces. But our worry is that the idea of ‘safer spaces’ is pushing us much too far in one direction. It’s pushing an image of meetings, encounters, exchanges as all about safety, retreat and recovery, with no element of risk or confrontation. Like every time we meet we need to be wrapped up in a warm fluffy blanket of caution, to protect us against all the sharp words and edges.

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And the more we seek to legislate on safer spaces, enforce ‘correct’ terminology, insist that harmful words come with a warning attached, the more we become accustomed to the comforts of our cliques and detached from the harsh world outside it. We find it harder to relate to others, and when people outside our self-referential bubble express themselves in the ‘wrong’ way, they are snapped at impatiently. Even other anarchists and feminists are intimidated and excluded by the language required at these events.

Far from being inclusive, such events are exclusive to those versed in the (frankly complex) and shifting debates around ‘correct’ terminology and behaviour. Is this empowering new people to action, or merely entrenching the power of well-read feminists to define our oppression?

When the state talks about increased safety and security, it means we’re about to see new anti-terror laws, police powers, and surveillance systems. When anarchists and feminists write rules for safer spaces, who sets the lists of forbidden words? And who is going to make sure we conform?

Years ago, “get out of your comfort zone” was an oft-bandied about phrase. It meant: be prepared to take risks, be prepared to annoy and upset people if you want to take action that threatens the status quo. We need to be prepared and willing to do this where necessary. At a time where actual action seems so lacking, we wonder if we have given up on that idea.

The price of our preoccupation with safety is fear of transgressing, disempowerment, elite cliques, and stagnation. Instead, we want to be trusted to challenge each other, welcome new people, welcome difference, question and sometimes change our ideas, be empowered to act, and have relevance in the struggles of this world. It is by creating spaces of comradeship and respect that we can achieve this, and not by seeking to legislate against oppression.

In solidarity,

Some anarchist feminists