Fearless Feminists No. 1 - Emma Goldman

[Sally]

Recently I've been reading up on the anarchist and political activist Emma Goldman. I thought it would be interesting to profile her. So here's a bit of a summary, as well as some links to additional information and writing. I've also posted a video on the main page of Sandrah Oh reading one of Sister Emma's rousing anti-war speeches.


Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (now Lithuania) Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement.

Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, free love, and homosexuality. She was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions, once accused of inciting a riot and at another point for plotting the assassination of a political rival

Although she was hostile to first-wave feminism and its suffragist goals, Goldman advocated passionately for the rights of women, and is today heralded as a founder of anarcha-feminism, which challenges patriarchy as a hierarchy to be resisted alongside state power and class divisions. In 1897 she wrote: "I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood."

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/2159/redemm.html

[Sally]

I should also note that she said one of my favourite quotes of all time "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution"