Big Flamers believed in 'autonomy' for this, that and the other oppressed group of people - including, of course, autonomy for women to organise against their oppression as women.
In the early 80s, I knew of the group and was very sympathetic, so I keenly bought a copy of the group's paper, Big Flame. The paper reflected the group's belief in 'autonomy'. The centre page spread was about nuclear weapons and the campaigns against cruise missiles. The main article was a straightforward account of missiles and movements, protests and dangers - including the Greenham Common women, of course. Accompanying the main article was another written by an 'autonomous' group, some ideological Greenhamites - ie, pacifist feminists. It explained that nuclear weapons are phallic symbols and that campaigns against cruise missiles are really campaigns against patriarchy.
I wondered whether the writers knew that cruise missiles had wings, but mostly it just struck me that the shapes of missiles owed more to aerodynamics than to symbolism of any sort. (That was 'male thinking', apparently.)
Why had the Marxists who ran Big Flame decided to publish such crackpot twaddle about phallic symbolism? I think they felt obliged to. That was where their belief in (or their version of) 'autonomy' had taken them. They deferred to nutters, just because the nutters were of the sort who started their speeches by saying, "Speaking as a woman...."
