Beyond Rights and Virtues as Foundation for Women's Agency: Emma Goldman's Rhetoric of Free Love
Western Journal of Communication, 2011
Publication Date: 2011
Publication Name: Western Journal of Communication
The Intersectional Style of Free Love Rhetoric
Victoria Woodhull, Emma Goldman,Voltairine de Cleyre
As described above, women have accounted for their bodiesby adopting a feminine style of discourse. Re
fl
ecting the means bywhich women learned the crafts of housewifery and motherhood,women’s speech in the nineteenth century embodied a femininestyle by presenting arguments inductively and by offering personalexperience as the justi
fi
cation for claims.
34
By affirming the quali-ties of femininity, particularly piety, women were able to accountfor the positivity of their bodies in public spaces by becoming themoral arbiters of public reason. Yet this morality, as it was embod-ied through feminine style, celebrated the unmarked woman, theprototypical bead in Spelman’s metaphysical pop-bead jewelry. Thespeci
fi
c feminine qualities embodied in feminine style (purity, piety,domesticity and submissiveness) translated into a particular visionof a “true woman”: dainty, weak, and
pale
.
35
In this regard, somewomen were able to abstract from their particular selves in order toful
fi
ll an abstract feminine subjectivity, while other women wereexcluded altogether. Fear of the body thus translates into fear of thefemale body.Responding to this public pubic psychosis, an ever presenttheme within feminist discourse and activism has been the desirefor a fullness of expression and experience—or a return to the body.Gloria Anzaldúa describes this desire as the path of El Mundo Zurdo,Lorde describes it as the erotic, and, at the turn of the twentieth
Chavez01.indd 644/27/12 3:38 PM
THE INTERSECTIONAL STYLE OF FREE LOVE RHETORIC
65
century, Victoria Woodhull, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Emma Gold-man described this desire as free love.
36
Each conceptualization isunique and transformative, focusing on the “lifeforce of women; ofthat creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of whichwe are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing,our loving, our work, our lives.”
37
While advocates of free love didnot agree on a unifying de
fi
nition of free love, the nature of theirpublic discourse suggests that agreement was secondary, even in-signi
fi
cant, for women’s and men’s movement toward liberation.Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Goldman privileged the personal ratherthan the political, demonstrating how one’s personal experienceshapes her or his vision of freedom. Their attention to the personal,speci
fi
c experiences of women and men conveys an openness to themultiple ways equality might be envisioned and embodied throughfree love within intimate, social, and political relationships. Theseaccounts may be read as a precursor to later critiques of power thatinform intersectionality.Reading free love discourse from an intersectional perspectivelends insight into how women respond to the constraint that theirbodies are always gendered, sexualized, raced, classed, and national-ized. Not quite straight, not quite American, and not quite white,Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Goldman transgressed cultural norms offemininity that were de
fi
ned through heterosexuality, a patriarchalrepublican civic ideal, and whiteness. While their trajectories to-ward wholeness differed, Woodhull, Goldman, and de Cleyre com-municated a common emancipatory spirit that might be ful
fi
lledthrough free love. As I argue below, Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Gold-man not only articulated a vision of free love that resisted a concreteor static sense of womanhood, but the way they articulated thatvision also suggests an intersectional style of discourse that is char-acterized through impropriety, play, and possibility.Free love began as a lifestyle, a central organizing ideal amongutopian communities that were scattered across the United States.As a lifestyle, free lovers believed that the legal institution of mar-riage was unnatural because it inhibited individuals from develop-ing and ending relationships on the basis of desire and emotion.Free love transformed from a lifestyle into a feminist issue in the1870s with Victoria Woodhull’s 1871 speech, “The Principles of So-cial Freedom.” As a feminist issue, free love viewed the institutionof marriage as unnatural: marriage disrupted the social order andcreated conditions of dependency, servitude, despotism, prostitu-tion, and a sexual double standard. As an alternative to marriage,free love would liberate women and men from the roles of husband
Chavez01.indd 654/27/12 3:38 PM
CHAPTER 2
66
and wife and the cultural assumptions of gender that were politi-cally and socially policed through those roles. Free love would re-store social order, creating the conditions for true freedom. Over itstenure as a movement, free love began as a supplement to suffragealongside the debates on divorce, and evolved into a core argumentof anarchist feminism. Unlike suffrage, which primarily addressedwomen’s civic rights, free love considered the force of both politicsand culture in women’s condition and liberation. Three importantproponents of free love are Victoria Woodhull, Voltairine de Cleyre,and Emma Goldman
As described above, women have accounted for their bodiesby adopting a feminine style of discourse. Re
fl
ecting the means bywhich women learned the crafts of housewifery and motherhood,women’s speech in the nineteenth century embodied a femininestyle by presenting arguments inductively and by offering personalexperience as the justi
fi
cation for claims.
34
By affirming the quali-ties of femininity, particularly piety, women were able to accountfor the positivity of their bodies in public spaces by becoming themoral arbiters of public reason. Yet this morality, as it was embod-ied through feminine style, celebrated the unmarked woman, theprototypical bead in Spelman’s metaphysical pop-bead jewelry. Thespeci
fi
c feminine qualities embodied in feminine style (purity, piety,domesticity and submissiveness) translated into a particular visionof a “true woman”: dainty, weak, and
pale
.
35
In this regard, somewomen were able to abstract from their particular selves in order toful
fi
ll an abstract feminine subjectivity, while other women wereexcluded altogether. Fear of the body thus translates into fear of thefemale body.Responding to this public pubic psychosis, an ever presenttheme within feminist discourse and activism has been the desirefor a fullness of expression and experience—or a return to the body.Gloria Anzaldúa describes this desire as the path of El Mundo Zurdo,Lorde describes it as the erotic, and, at the turn of the twentieth
Chavez01.indd 644/27/12 3:38 PM
THE INTERSECTIONAL STYLE OF FREE LOVE RHETORIC
65
century, Victoria Woodhull, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Emma Gold-man described this desire as free love.
36
Each conceptualization isunique and transformative, focusing on the “lifeforce of women; ofthat creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of whichwe are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing,our loving, our work, our lives.”
37
While advocates of free love didnot agree on a unifying de
fi
nition of free love, the nature of theirpublic discourse suggests that agreement was secondary, even in-signi
fi
cant, for women’s and men’s movement toward liberation.Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Goldman privileged the personal ratherthan the political, demonstrating how one’s personal experienceshapes her or his vision of freedom. Their attention to the personal,speci
fi
c experiences of women and men conveys an openness to themultiple ways equality might be envisioned and embodied throughfree love within intimate, social, and political relationships. Theseaccounts may be read as a precursor to later critiques of power thatinform intersectionality.Reading free love discourse from an intersectional perspectivelends insight into how women respond to the constraint that theirbodies are always gendered, sexualized, raced, classed, and national-ized. Not quite straight, not quite American, and not quite white,Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Goldman transgressed cultural norms offemininity that were de
fi
ned through heterosexuality, a patriarchalrepublican civic ideal, and whiteness. While their trajectories to-ward wholeness differed, Woodhull, Goldman, and de Cleyre com-municated a common emancipatory spirit that might be ful
fi
lledthrough free love. As I argue below, Woodhull, de Cleyre, and Gold-man not only articulated a vision of free love that resisted a concreteor static sense of womanhood, but the way they articulated thatvision also suggests an intersectional style of discourse that is char-acterized through impropriety, play, and possibility.Free love began as a lifestyle, a central organizing ideal amongutopian communities that were scattered across the United States.As a lifestyle, free lovers believed that the legal institution of mar-riage was unnatural because it inhibited individuals from develop-ing and ending relationships on the basis of desire and emotion.Free love transformed from a lifestyle into a feminist issue in the1870s with Victoria Woodhull’s 1871 speech, “The Principles of So-cial Freedom.” As a feminist issue, free love viewed the institutionof marriage as unnatural: marriage disrupted the social order andcreated conditions of dependency, servitude, despotism, prostitu-tion, and a sexual double standard. As an alternative to marriage,free love would liberate women and men from the roles of husband
Chavez01.indd 654/27/12 3:38 PM
CHAPTER 2
66
and wife and the cultural assumptions of gender that were politi-cally and socially policed through those roles. Free love would re-store social order, creating the conditions for true freedom. Over itstenure as a movement, free love began as a supplement to suffragealongside the debates on divorce, and evolved into a core argumentof anarchist feminism. Unlike suffrage, which primarily addressedwomen’s civic rights, free love considered the force of both politicsand culture in women’s condition and liberation. Three importantproponents of free love are Victoria Woodhull, Voltairine de Cleyre,and Emma Goldman
