Part 1 is here
I loved living on wimmin’s land. And I hated it. The thing I hated most about living on the land was the fighting. Well, that and the chollas. Those prickly cactus prongs hurt worse on the way out than when they get stuck in you.
I’m talking here not about harassment by neighbors and law enforcement, but infighting amongst women. Some of the blowups could be doozies, getting so out of hand there was no way to be neutral. You might think it obvious, with women coming together from vastly different walks of life, many of whom had never met before coming to the land, that there would be disagreements stemming from class, race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Sometimes the fights were about these issues (or, more commonly, devolved into these issues), but most of the fights were just…stupid.
Dog poop was a perennial issue, and I probably only remember this one because it was a pet peeve of mine. Irresponsible compost practices was another bone of contention. Workers versus shirkers, messes in common areas, ecological considerations, decisions about repairs – I could go on, but you get the idea. The mundane nature of the issues should not suggest that the disagreements they sparked were minor. Tempers flared and fights could go on for days if not weeks.
Less explosive, but no less disturbing, were disagreements about personal choices perceived as harmful to the individual woman, if not the community. Alcohol abuse, management of medical and mental health issues, dysfunctional relationships, childrearing practices, unsafe sex, decisions to leave the land, decisions to stay on the land – these types of issues cannot remain private and “none of your business” in a women’s community.
Some behaviors were automatic deal-breakers and would get a woman expelled quickly, albeit sometimes only temporarily. Bringing guns onto the land (can you imagine what would have happened if we’d been armed?) and abusive sexual relationships are two that I remember, but there were others. Stealing within the community didn’t happen much, mostly because none of us had anything worth stealing, but I doubt anyone would have been kicked out for that. Some of the women stole or scammed the outside systems, but that was tolerated. Illicit drug use was tolerated – actually a lot of things were tolerated that probably shouldn’t have been, but that was partly reflective of the times. Wimmin’s communities invariably fell short of ideals and could certainly be criticized for some things, but those leaving as a result of their own egregious behaviors were the most likely to gossip and try to stir up bad blood against the community. It was almost like some women could not leave the fighting behind.
In Finding A Woman’s Place, Lorraine Duvall describes (among other things) infighting in a women’s community in upstate New York that stemmed from more substantive issues. A Woman’s Place struggled under financial pressures and an ambitious mission. The women were trying to run their land as a formal retreat, with workshops and programs, with few resources of their own or from the demographic they served. The location of A Woman’s Place meant better access to fundraising, but the harsh winter environment required ongoing financial investment, as did running what was essentially a business.
At Adobeland we were in a better situation. The woman who generously opened the land as an intentional community, Joan “Adobe” Pepper, asked residents and visitors for a relatively small amount of money for modest living expenses and property taxes. There was no land mortgage to meet, property taxes in Arizona were low, and the climate did not require upkeep on modern structures. We welcomed women for a day or a weekend or a few months, but we didn’t advertise, and women dropped in, paid what they could afford, and moved on. We did a lot of alternative healing, and there were workshops arranged by residents or visitors, but no conscious attempt to create structure. Organically, we achieved some of what A Woman’s Place was trying to do, probably because we had fewer financial worries.
One disagreement on Adobeland was substantive and ongoing. Many women believed that Adobe held too much power in the community, that it wasn’t really wimmin’s land because it was not held in trust. Theoretically, Adobe could ask anyone to leave for any reason, although in practice she seldom asked anyone to leave even when there were good reasons. The future of the land was a contentious issue with no foreseeable path forward. Residents didn’t have the money to buy the land from Adobe, and she refused to make arrangements for the land to continue after her death. To most women, it seemed a no-brainer at the time to will the land to a trust so Adobeland could continue serving women for the next few hundred years. In retrospect that level of faith seems quaint, given the social changes that would make wimmin’s land everywhere more difficult to sustain.
One thing we did not fight about on wimmin’s land was men, and this is the significant takeaway. As women in a patriarchal society, we aren’t taught how to negotiate conflict with other women. Most of the time, women are competing with women in structures men create for the crumbs that men allow us, or we are conspiring to protect women from males in male-led systems. When men are banished from the equation, what do we have? Of course we bring baggage from patriarchy, but what we don’t bring is experience resolving conflict. We’re taught to avoid conflict. It makes men uncomfortable, and when men are uncomfortable they hurt us. Though I hated the fighting at the time (even when I participated in it), I realized in retrospect that it was important. Maybe not as important as the loving, but one of the things we were ultimately there for. Living for long periods with only women in situations not accountable to men and minimally accountable to male systems invites an outpouring of pent up resentment, with limited skills for handling it gracefully. This is what “safe space” does to a woman.
The fighting still saddens me, and I can’t help but wonder if more women’s communities would have survived, despite all the factors against us, if we had handled conflicts better. I will say, in defense of women who participated in this experiment, that we weren’t prepared for the intensity of conflict. How could we be? I do think that resolving conflict and disagreement among women is integral to women’s liberation, and that this is work we cannot do with men around, either through their physical presence or their outside control.
It’s working through conflict – learning to compromise, learning to be wrong, learning to love a woman that you hated a week ago – that makes a woman strong. Wimmin’s land created secure self-confident women not only through support, but through struggle.
Meet Mago contributor Hearth Moon Rising
Mahalo for this insight! If I may be allowed to add my two cents’ worth… What may have been lacking was a shared understanding of the “rules” (both local and global) and the agreement, on the part of each member, to abide by them. If there were no local rules (sounds like), then consensus would have been the first order of business. Together, create the structure you all want to follow. The global rules (which each woman brings with her) are far easier to agree upon: the Ten Commandments?
Once one of those frameworks is in place, then create consequences for “deviance” and methods to process same. I know; easier said than done. True, but, look what happened without…
Re: wimmins land…I think this is a very important essay because it addresses the problems women face with other women and reveals that blaming men isn’t the whole problem. We don’t resolve conflicts – my relationships with other women have suffered again and again because I am willing – but others are not. Avoidance is still the way most women deal with conflict and I learned the hard way that trying to be open just won’t work. I have finally learned that in this culture I had better not depend on either men or women for support… sounds horrible – I was struck by the non human species that were pictured – Animals know how to live. Humans have forgotten – egalitarian matriarchal societies are viable only if we are willing to re-learn old ways.