I wonder about this, and I worry. Obviously I hope sanity, reason and justice will prevail. But the world in general doesn’t have a great history in that department.
And this is like a civil war. Even if truth, reason and justice do win the day, we’re still going to have these hordes of people who have been (and currently still are) pushing lies, unreason and injustice for all they’re worth and conning themselves (and trying to con others) that what they’re doing is actually just and progressive. What happens to them?
How do they row back from that position? How does the Labour Party admit it was insanely wrong? The Greens, the LibDems, the SNP?
I think there would have to be a fair amount of 2), the way we’re seeing orgs withdrawing from Stonewall’s Diversity Champion racket on the pretext of budget reasons.
But what happens to the True Believers? Owen Jones, and his ilk, and all the other high profile transactivists? Plus the non-high profile ones on anonymous boards and all over sm who are none the less zealous. I don’t see them giving up on this, especially while the ideology still holds such sway in North America. I don’t see many of them having an epiphany and realising they’ve been backing the wrong horse here.
Although I do take heart from the number of women on here who say they were once True Allies, and then woke up and realised what was going on.
All this arises from misogyny, really truly deeply rooted misogyny, and that is still with us. Even if we win this, we will have to be prepared for the misogyny to just reassert itself in another form. I don’t know what it’s going to take for there to be a societal shift towards dismantling that misogyny at its root. Even recognising it. But that’s what needs to happen, ultimately, if we’re ever going to make any real progress.