Sexual Freedom and the Promise of Revolution: Emma Goldman's Passion

Abstract

This article explores the contributions to a history of sexuality, capitalism and revolution made when we consider the work of anarchist thinker and activist Emma Goldman . I suggest that Goldman's centring of sexual freedom at the heart of revolutionary vision and practice is part of a long tradition of sexual politics, one which struggles to make sense of how productive and reproductive labour come together, and to identify the difference between sexual freedom and capitalist opportunity. Goldman's concern with the significance of kinship in holding together capitalism, militarism and religion, as well as sexual feeling's capacity to disrupt those relationships, echoes across more than a century to resonate with Marxist, feminist and queer scholars' engagements with similar issues. But where contemporary scholars often tend to retain the opposition between culture and society, representation and the real, making it difficult to produce a materialist analysis of sexuality as transformative rather than always already overdetermined, Goldman's energetic insistence on sexual connectivity as freeing provides an important vantage point. Not only does Goldman consistently situate sexuality in a broad political context of the sexual division of labour, the institutions of marriage and the church, consumerism, patriotism and productive (as well as reproductive) labour, she frames sexual freedom as both the basis of new relationships between men and women, and as a model for a new political future.

Toward a Genealogy of a Discourse on Women’s Erotic Autonomy: Feminist and Queer-Feminist Critiques of Monogamy

“…For Goldman, sexuality is core to the gendered division of labour, which sustains patriarchal marriage as an instrumental feature of the nation state and the capitalistic economy. At the same time, sexuality remains the potential source for a life-affirming energetic connectivity, which coalesces around an inherently liberating core (Haaland 1993;Hemmings 2014).…”

“…It grounds women's economic and emotional dependence and works as a disincentive for participating in public live. The married codes of motherhood further install the systematic exploitation of women's reproductive labour, which reinforces women's social isolation (Hemmings 2014).…”

“…Apart from the emphasis of the socially embedded, fully socialised and ideologically formed character of the autonomous female subject, a concern with the emotional and embodied features of women's lives and actions shapes feminist critiques of mononormative patriarchal relations across the decades. Such positions can be identified in Goldman's recognition of pleasure as a source of vitality and her notion of companionate revolutionary love (Hemmings 2014). It is evident in Lorde's endorsement of women's erotic sentiments and connections (Sheller 2012;Barriteau 2014).…”

A Transnational Perspective of Emma Goldman’s Evolution as an Anarcha-Feminist

“…What makes Goldman different from her contemporaries was that she saw the emancipation of women as an integral part for advancing revolutionary action. [64].…”

“…"Goldman's centering of sexual freedom at the heart of revolutionary vision and practice is part of a long tradition of sexual politics, one which struggles to make sense of how productive and reproductive labour come together." [43]…”