An Anonymous Statement Concerning Community Safety

The following statement has been collectively authored by a group of female- and male-bodied comrades who wish to address a problem which endangers the members of our community and threatens the momentum of our movement. Regrettably, we believe that our anonymity is necessary and, moreover, a symptom of the problem: it is not safe for us to submit this statement otherwise.

Our community needs to build toward establishing a safe process in which conflicts between individuals can be discussed and worked through in a collective manner. If we are to act on our conviction that the personal is political, then we must learn together how to address individual conflicts which have collective implications and which impact community safety, and to determine when and how this is the case.

In order to address these issues, we propose an upcoming public forum that would give us the opportunity to strategize around individual conflicts within a collective. We offer the following questions for the community to think through, though they are not comprehensive and would not serve as an agenda for such a forum.

Q. Some radical spaces do not feel safe for women and some women do not feel comfortable around particular men. How can we begin to make these spaces feel safer? In spaces that may require extended stays, should we establish a practice of creating areas in which only women are allowed or from which anyone can be barred from without the need for collective discussion? What are the ramifications of this action?

Q. Can we discuss as a community whether it is productive to ban particular men from collective radical spaces without a group discussion about it? Can such a process be carried out in a way that respects the rights and persons of both the banisher and the banished? Further, we feel that it would benefit not just this community, but the entire ‘Occupy’ movement, to establish precedents for process and criteria in cases of banishment or censure.

Q. Should we designate a group to begin researching forms of accountability processes for people accused of sexual violence or assault? How can we discuss whether we would like to begin incorporating such a process into our movement? Should we begin to develop a language and set of practices that make some distinction between the political and the personal in order to prevent the disintegration of the movement as a result of the disintegration of particular relationships, something that we have witnessed many times in our years of activism?

Q. Should we have separate assemblies that are solely addressed to gender dynamics within the movement? It could also be phrased thusly: Given that we live in a world dominated by patriarchy and riven by class conflict, are there good venues or forums whereby our various overlapping communities can confront the dynamic legacies of gender and class inequality in our personal and working relationships? (I am fine with either of these approaches)

Q. Can we come to some agreement about our treatment of third parties who have not themselves committed any sexual violence but whom some may perceive as condoning it? Again in the interest of making some distinction of the personal and the political? Given that these opinions are often formed from hearsay and partial knowledge, it seems incumbent upon us to find ways to mitigate the fallout.

We understand that it is problematic to make a distinction between the personal and the political and we understand that some cannot abide this distinction at all. The writers of this statement feel that a group of communities has come together around the politics of occupation and anti-capitalism and we are passionate about preserving that goal; comrades, who are also striving for this goal, will succumb to personal failures or weaknesses and relationships will disintegrate for personal reasons. There is no way to fight capitalism without thoroughly feminist tactics and the questions above will hopefully lead to a discussion of ways we can collectively agree on anti-patriarchal accountability and safety measures for all of us who fight together.