Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

242 / ANARCHISM
Be reassured. "gentlemen." We do not need any of your titles to take over your
fu nctions when it pleases us to do so. Your titles. Bah! We do not want rubbish. Do
what you want to with them. They are too flawed and limited for women. The time is
not fa r off when you will come and offer them to us in order to try to dress them up a
little by dividing them with us.
Keep those rags and tatters. We want none of them. What we do want is knowledge
and education and liberty. We know what our rights are. and we demand them.
Are we not standing next to you fighting the supreme fight Are you not strong
enough, men. to make part of that supreme fight a struggle fo r the rights of women
And then men and women together will gain the rights of all humanity.
Beyond our tormented epoch will come the time when men and women will
move through life together as good companions. and they will no more argue about
which sex is superior than races will argue about which race is fo remost in the world.
69. Carmen Lareva: Free Love (1896)
In place of tlIe legal fa mily. under tlIe name of "free love. " anarclIists advocated individual
freedom and voluntary uniol1s. TlIe concept offree love was col1troversial, frequently misrepresented
and misunderstood. In tlIis article. "Free Love: WlIy Do We Want It, " originally published
il1 1896 in tlIe Argentine feminist anarclIist-coml1ul11ist journal, La Voz de la Mujer
(Woman's Voice), Carmen Lareva clarifies tlIe idea and dispels some of tlIe misconceptions
associated witII it. La Voz de la Mujer was probably one of tlIe first explicitly feminist anarchist
papers. It lIas been recently reprinted in book form: La Voz de la Mujer: peri6dico
comunista-anarquico, 1896-1897 (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 1997).
The translation is by Paul SIIU/·key.
THE IGNORANT BELIEVE AND THE MALICIOUS say that the Anarchist idea flies in the
face of everything fine and beautiful, of art, the sciences and, above all, home life.
In fact, time after time we have had occasion to hear this fr om the lips of some
working women: "Oh, some splendid idea, this Anarchist idea of yours is! You want
all us women-wives. daughters, mothers and sisters-turned into concubines, sordid
playthings fo r man's unrestrained passions!"
It is to those who talk this way and think this way that we address ourselves. Let
us see.
We hold that in society as it exists there is no one and nothing more disgraced
than hapless woman. Scarcely have we attained puberty than we become targets fo r
lubricious, cynically sexual leering by the stronger sex. Of the exploiter and exploited
classes alike. Later, on reaching "womanhood," we are most often tricked into the