Issues of poverty are being neglected by social justice movements because of the overwhelming focus on sexuality...

the current focus on identity does feel very fin de siecle decadent

this idea that no-one really knows what sex is for

a woman being able to maintain that pretence is completely reliant on being able to get hold of reliable contraception if she wishes to be sexually active

it takes so much for granted which is not available to many people and was only relatively recently available here

I agree, Arnold and that scares me too. There is a kind of hysterical fantasy/high emotion wankery to society at the moment that very much echoes the Edwardian era. Which ended in them being very sharply yanked back to reality and having no time for wankery when things like food rationing, flooding casualties, deprivation and direct threat to life took up every waking hour. And there was the tragedy of over privileged, very protected wealthy young people who had no skills to survive in a demanding real life, who had strong opinions and the money and time to indulge them, and were wholly unable to cope once their bubble burst.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but historically the only things that have led to closing of wealth gaps to the benefit of ordinary people have been major wars, famines, epidemics. Situations where millions have died leaving survivors with greater bargaining power. World War Two is an example of this. The 14th century plague another. In between such major disruptions the tendency has been the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Society never has given much of a damn about the poor.

HaXXor - interesting post and thought provoking. It depresses me that we now have food banks and the poor often vilified by the right wing. All notions of a society caring for its vulnerable have gone and if that goes hand in hand with capitalism then it’s woeful

the left in this country were galvanised by the second world war

We had an influx of returning servicemen, many of whom were disabled; the housing stock had been trashed by the Luftwaffe; and of course there were widows and orphans of those who did not come home or were killed during the Blitz.

The whole country got behind the idea of high-quality, socially-funded, affordable "homes fit for heroes"; a socially-funded health care service that would care for these men and their families cradle-to-grave regardless of means; and a social security safety net so that those who could never work again or who were raising children alone wouldn't starve. Anything less would have felt like, and been, a betrayal of those servicemen and widows and orphans.

Since then, the British people have lost sight of that. It's been easy for the right-wing press to demonise the poor and single mothers. It's been easy to paint pictures of "undeserving poor" to distract from how capitalism requires unemployed people to act as a reserve army of labour. It's been easy to portray motherhood as a personal choice made in total isolation, when in reality capitalism and the State both need women to keep on bearing the right number of future workers, consumers, and citizens: Romanian and Chinese policy inform us what happens when the State decides that women are bearing too few or too many future citizens.

The complete rules of misogyny list.

14: Women's words exist to be twisted to benefit men and discredit feminists. Anything a man or his proxy (e.g. handmaid) claims a woman said, she must have said it, even when proven otherwise.

Example: see Tumble's accusation that we accuse anyone we disagree with of being men.

and I think I agree with the people who say that to an extent the left was ever thus

the left in this country were galvanised by the second world war I think, and have slowly been unwinding from that position ever since

the cry went up from tumble

'the left is in crisis, someone should really do something about that'

tumble appears to have chosen us to both hold responsible and to act on their behalf

I'm just not too clear why and they don't seem to want to explain

Let's put it this way:

Some of the posters here have clearly never experienced the life long oppression of being female and it really shows.

tumble anybody with an opinion that you don't like, must be a man

Where did 0lga say that? We are well aware here that women can and do uphold the rules of patriarchy. We call them "handmaids".

conditions of funding mean that it now has to welcome adult males

If it welcomes/provides for adults born male then its funding is not in any danger: adults born male get their needs met. Local Authorities will line up to do it. I'm more concerned about the women who won't go to those places because males are there, and so now have nowhere to go and are left with truly appalling options.

Signal of the truly oppressed: funding isn't there for them, funding is constantly diverted away from them, and it's considered wrong even supposed to talk about them and their needs because they're so obviously unimportant compared to other groups.

Even if you stop looking at the Emperor, the fact doesn't change that he's still stark bollock naked.

Eleventy-seventh bollox rule: anybody with an opinion that you don't like, must be a man, probably stupid and out to enforce the patriarchy

Because blaming women on this board ( while absolving yourself of all responsibility ) for all the mistakes of left wing politics isn’t misogynistic at all.

It's not the opinion so much as posters who relentlessly bang on repeating one point over and over without being able to move the discussion on, or respond to what others are saying in reply. Which is tedious and people lose interest and patience. Labour Party please take note.

whether the shelter is trans inclusive or not the actual issue here is that the shelter will close unless we highlight it.

If it stays open but the conditions of funding mean that it now has to welcome adult males, then it might as well be closed for all the good it will do for Childrenandhomeless, Detroit, and no doubt countless other women who haven't made support threads. In which case, you might as well close the shelter and use the funding to pay for flats for homeless women fleeing DV so that they can at least have somewhere to stay without being housed with penishavers and retraumatised by that.

..anybody with an opinion that you don't like, must be a man...

Yeah. Or one of those "special" men.

The concentration on trans and gender issues does seam to be fixation which excludes time for us to look at other issues that really are higher in most women list of priorities.

Most women should come here and start threads then. Where are they? Who's stopping them?

Eleventy-seventh bollox rule: anybody with an opinion that you don't like, must be a man, probably stupid and out to enforce the patriarchy...

As usual we have people coming on telling women what they should be concentrating on, while they make no attempt whatsoever to start those discussions themselves

Ooh I’ve not posted any of these for a while

THE RULES OF MISOGYNY

1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

5th rule of misogyny: WATM! Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.

9th rule of misogyny: Men always know the "real reasons" for everything women do and say.

Constantly mentioning the 0.6% makes it sound like a tiny problem but it isn't is it?

Creating and keeping safe spaces for women affects ALL women (and children).

That's 51% and when you factor in children it's a huge amount of the population.

If we can't sort this out we are fucked.

I hold that the concentration on the inclusion of 0.6% of the population is holding us back from looking at issues:-

Have you started threads here about the issues you listed?

Have those threads been ignored by the other posters?

Saying that sex related issues are a distraction as isn't necessarily identical to saying that they aren't necessary to deal with when something like the definition of woman is under fire.

It's the fact that a response is necessary that makes some of them them such a powerful distraction.

As usual we have people coming on telling women what they should be concentrating on, while they make no attempt whatsoever to start those discussions themselves.

I've always found that the left focuses on frilly nonsense while ignoring poverty, disability, mental health, physical illness, class issues etc ie the stuff that actually impacts the majority of people. It's definitely a case of living in an ivory tower.

I hope you start threads on those issues and encourage others to support your work for women in those areas, Vicky. There's plenty of room for women to fight for women in the different ways important to them.

Agree. When I was in the SGP "social justice" mainly involved the LGBT movement, especially the most persecuted of all mortals the Ts, and stopping illegal immigrants being deported. Poor working class Scots got very little attention, what with all their white privilege, especially the male ones. Although I'm on FWR I have developed a dislike of all identity politics and the privilege poker that goes with it..