The Tyranny of Structurelessness

The Tyranny of Structurelessness Jo Freeman (bio) During the years in which the women's liberation movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leader-less, structureless groups as the main—if not sole—organizational form of the movement. The source of this idea was a natural reaction against the over-structured society in which most of us found ourselves, and the inevitable control this gave others over our lives, and the continual elitism of the Left and similar groups among those who were supposedly fighting this overstructuredness. The idea of "structurelessness," however, has moved from a healthy counter to those tendencies to becoming a goddess in its own right. The…