Grass-Routes

In Barrett's article, she voices that she "would tend to be somewhat critical of the view expressed by the authors of the Beyond the Fragments that the libertarian, grass-roots style of the women's movement could be taken as a model for a new socialist organization form." She also states that she "would not see the potential benefits of some kind of alliance as consisting in what each movement could learn from the other in these respects." These two characteristics of some feminist movement efforts seem to recall the structures championed by the Occupy Movement today. It's grass-roots, non-conservative, and proposes new demands which would ideally, for those participating in the movement, create a new social organizational form. The Occupy Movement is also somewhat hard to define, and as such is often referred to as a joining of movements that are there to learn from one another. While that approach (for both feminism and the Occupy Movement) sounds ideal and feasible, Barrett points out that such a movement would be lacking something exceptionally important: "The more urgent question to be asked is whether there are political objectives in common that might constitute a basis for a relationship." Her concerns, then, of having such movements be the models for practical change stem from the understanding that they lack political direction. The movie Born In Flames that was screened in class earlier this week also expanded on this point. Though the women featured in the film all desired some kind of change, the groups were unable to fully function as a unified force, partially because they were unsure of what exactly their overall, practical, tangible goal would be. Without defining a direction, it's often very hard to organize and make effective the efforts of large numbers of people, especially if it is unclear as to where (or what) their final destination would be.