Abstract
Drawing on ethnographic research among activist collectives in Montreal, Quebec, this paper illustrates how two contemporary “anarchist” movements are characterized by gendered divisions of labour, voice, and priorities despite a nominal commitment to “radical democracy” and egalitarian values. Contemporary anarchist activism synthesizes critiques of the State drawn from late 19th and early 20th century anarchist movements, with anti-authoritarian organizational forms developed by feminist movements in the 1970s and 1980s (i.e. consensus decision-making, a focus on “means matching ends”). However, the feminist call for a “politics of everyday life” appears to have been fetishized in systems of formal procedures that govern meetings within the public sphere ; process-oriented aspects of feminism have been institutionalized in these new movements, while gender relations remain private and un-interrogated.