How is it possible for left wing men to defend female genital mutilation?

[HerBeatitude]

There's a good article here about Ken Livingstone's support for a leading proponent of FGM and some of the comments afterwards made me really pissed off - things like "think of the bigger picture, we need to get the tories out, stop attacking Ken"

In other words, women really aren't important, stop mithering and line up behind us, you can make the tea at the revolution comrade.

I'm beginning to think Tory men are more attractive than lefty ones, really I am. Am not sure if they are more likely to have pecs, but at least they talk bullshit about everything, not just about women.

Agree about Galloway. I couldn't believe my ears a few weeks or months back. He was on radio and he was discussing the Wayne Rooney affair and he used the term "scrubber" several times. Fortunately a male caller rang up, said that he was a fan of his, but he was very disappointed that he had used that term. Galloway was unconcerned as usual.

Bloody hell! He gets worse and worse, doesn't he?

'I wonder if it's time to form a women's party? I don't want to vote for any of these pricks.'

Yup. If anyone wants to stand I will definitely campaign for you

It's the same old shit, really. The inherent smug selfrighteousness in some leftwing men means that they actively support these horrible woman-hating fuckups because it's a way to enjoy and air their own contempt for women in a way that they think shuts women up - 'You're just being racist, dear, you overpriviledged western women don't understand the importance of misogynistic cultures; their women have such dignity and strengh (ie they Know Their Place)'

exactly Solid.
Also 'you're not as clever as me because you don't understand that cultural relativism is the only philosophically coherent position; you are simplistic and a bit dim if you think it is possible to have universal notions of good and bad. As well as racist!'

My point in posting a link to the FGM Act 2003 was that the article which started this thread quoted:

"Qaradawi ... issued a fatwa arguing that 'circumcision [in this case cutting the labia minora, not the clitoris ? what the World Health Organisation (WHO) refers to as Type IIa FGM] is better for a woman's health and it enhances her conjugal relation with her husband' and that, while it is 'not obligatory', 'whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world'."

Thus the act encouraged in this case is a crime both in the UK and abroad under English law and it carries 14 years' imprisonment as a maximum. It is also a specified violent offence for the purposes of the dangerous offender provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It merely occurred to me that the person quoted appears to be encouraging the commission of this offence and that is another aspect to Livingstone's association with him.

You often get lefty male tossers criticising feminists, with an air of triumph, for not being "inclusive" or "liberal" or "supportive" in contexts where the people concerned have made no claims to be any of these things, and they have nothing to do with their objectives. It's as if they think, "ah, wimmin, they must have collected their aims from the most clicheed collection of vague woolly Nice values, so they will be scuppered if I point out that it's not Inclusive to not be interested in, say, me". Then they don't understand when they get the reply, "we don't want to be inclusive of male tossers; we want to hear each other's voices, and we want to get something done."