Gender – Dark Nights

DA PARI A PARI – Contro l’autoritarismo identitario / ON EQUAL TERMS – Against identitarian authoritarianism (EN,IT)

Posted on 2025/07/08 - 2025/07/13 by darknights

DA PARI A PARI
Contro l’autoritarismo identitario

Siamo alcuni compagni e compagne anarchici che hanno preso parte all’assemblea “Sabotiamo la guerra”. Con questo scritto vogliamo prendere parola su una brutta vicenda capitata alla nostra assemblea (non la sola di questo tipo, ma la più grave), ma soprattutto su una forma mentis e un’ideologia che rendono ormai sistematici episodi di questo genere. Se ci presentiamo in maniera tanto circoscritta è perché “Sabotiamo la guerra” è appunto un’assemblea, fatta di volta in volta da chi vi partecipa, e non possiamo parlare a nome di tutti i suoi numerosi partecipanti, passati, presenti e futuri. Fatta questa premessa, cominciamo a spiegarci.

IT: https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2025/07/07/da-pari-a-pari-contro-lautoritarismo-identitario/

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ON EQUAL TERMS
Against identitarian authoritarianism

We are some anarchist comrades who took part in the ‘Sabotiamo la guerra’1 assembly. With this writing we want to speak out on a bad episode that happened at our assembly (not the only one of this kind, but the most serious), but above all on a forma mentis and an ideology that now make such episodes systematic. If we present ourselves in such a circumscribed manner, it is because ‘Sabotiamo la guerra’ is precisely an assembly, made from time to time by those who participate in it, and we cannot speak on behalf of all its many past, present, and future participants. Having said that, let us begin to explain ourselves.

EN: https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2025/07/07/on-equal-terms-against-identitarian-authoritarianism/

[Corrected English version to be updated in the future]

Russia: Women partisans – interviews with BOAK group members

Posted on 2023/02/16 by darknights

It is important that women’s protest voices be heard from movements with different strategies: we all have something to exchange with each other. Our activists are interviewing representatives of the Militant Anarcho-Communist Organization to remind us that the phrase “women’s place is in resistance” is not just a beautiful metaphor, and sometimes women make the choice to protest radically. For the initiative, whose representatives we interviewed, it is important to damage public infrastructure, not civilians, so all actions are designed so that no one gets hurt. You can read about the women partisans of the past, whom our heroines inherit, in a beautiful text by Maria Rachmaninova.

If you are in Russia, be careful about distributing this material, learn all the necessary cybersecurity guidelines if you are distributing any material about war and resistance.

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Do women take part in your guerrilla actions? If so, in what capacity? Does gender affect camouflage and security, maybe women arouse less suspicion and so on?

Yes, we take an active part in guerrilla actions at all stages, from plan formulation and scouting (note: intelligence) to direct action and media coverage. To some extent, the distribution of responsibilities may be due to physical ability, but it often depends not on gender, but on a person’s individual characteristics: some people find it easier to carry a 15-kilogram bucket of igdanite, some can see better, some run faster, and some shoot more accurately.

Gender certainly affects disguise and security: the very presence of a woman in the collective transforms (in the eyes of the public and the police) a dangerous gang of shady types into a harmless group of friends walking late into the night. Because of the sexism ingrained in the ranks of the police, women tend to be less likely to be stopped on the street or in the subway, and less likely to be searched. We’ve had quite a few cases where, for example, when we pass through a metal detector frame, a signal goes off, and the subway policemen and janitors come running and start meticulously checking a young man (who, of course, has nothing to hide), while a girl with a gun stands quietly nearby. So it turns out that sometimes the man is carrying something heavy and the woman carries something dangerous (like a detonator) in a small purse, without arousing suspicion.

Also, in our experience, it is much easier for women in terms of disguise themselves – changing their appearance. At the action itself everyone looks about the same: as blackblock kids, but before and after the action, when it is necessary to look civil, a woman needs to dissolve her hair (wig) and roll up a dress, when as a typical male image, which should not attract attention, allows only minor changes, for example in the color of clothing.

Editor’s note: We clarified here whether we should publish such details and whether it would hurt disguise strategies, but we were allowed to publish in full to share with others.
Continue reading “Russia: Women partisans – interviews with BOAK group members” →

Italy: Degenerations – Between pride and gender victimhood by Anna Beniamino

Posted on 2021/07/15 - 2021/07/15 by darknights

Degenerations – Between pride and gender victimhood
(An article Degenerazioni – Tra orgoglio e vittimismo di genere
Published in issue 3 of the anarchist paper Vetriolo)

I am anarchist, I am not feminist because I see feminism as a sectorial and victimist withdrawal, I have never made any gender discrimination although I don’t use gender-friendly linguistic conventions, on the contrary I often use dirty politically incorrect language. I think that the annulment of gender privilege and similar oppression is already contained in the search for anarchy, that is to say in the practice of antiauthoritarian relations, and should be cultivated there. Ah, I forgot, I loathe consciousness-raising in public meetings and I also consider assemblies to be blunt instruments. I understand and also have the will to meet. But I see how all too often the assembly degenerates into sterile self-representation.

You see nowadays you risk having to start off with such a preamble in order to enter the thicket of clichés on gender and feminism, disentangling yourself in the intricate incapacity to relate to the anarchist galaxy, with a range of behaviours going from hyper-emotiveness to the bureaucratic calculation of what stand (and degree of negotiable compromise) to take in a struggle. I don’t think that authoritarian and sexist behaviour can be fought by trying to spread new linguistic conventions or by cooking up shreds of mainstream indignant rhetoric (among which #nonunadimeno [enough is enough], the feminicide count on TV, pride, red shoes and rainbow ribbons) in an alternative sauce.

Rather these should be recognized as signs of yet another operation of the deconstruction of real meaning and recuperation in act. Convinced that one is opposing them, in actual fact one is adapting to the very behavioural and normative codes conceded by dominion as ways of releasing tension.

It’s nothing new that economic and political power is tending to swallow up and redigest everything, faster and faster; consider for example the pearls of anti-sexist, antiracist or whatever it might be neo-conservatism and conformism that are being dispensed by the media every day. Continue reading “Italy: Degenerations – Between pride and gender victimhood by Anna Beniamino” →