Ian Duncan-smith says unmarried men are a problem for society

[QuentinSummers]

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/uk_59d3b8f9e4b04b9f92054af5
Seems to me there are undertones that women should be controlling men better.

Also quite a lot of blatant sexism such as men who aren't married develop "low value for women" which suggests to me that the value women hold is intrinsicly linked to their chastity/marriageability to ID'S

Interested to hear what others think because I'm being a bit inarticulate on this.

I'm not shaming the FAT. I'm shaming the ENTITLEMENT

You are shaming the fat, because you wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

Makeourfuture, yes that is what I mean.

A marxist analysis cannot be made without understanding how women are a reproductive class under capitalism. Thus feminism is essential to any left wing analysis.

Feminism is not some kind of take it or leave it bolt on topic.

Why do we need to run through the causes of homeless?

They are well known.

SylviaPoe, great post!

Feminism isn't a subset of capitalism imho, it's strange that it's being framed as such. If women are getting on in a capitalist society it's not because they're bad people. Barely a generation has passed since you had to give up your professional job if you were married and you weren't allowed to buy a house if you didn't have a penis, how much change can you expect the people with the least power in the system to effect in 40 years?

A marxist analysis cannot be made without understanding how women are a reproductive class under capitalism. Thus feminism is essential to any left wing analysis.

Sylvia it was when Marx was writing - but, I'm not sure it is now. I don't think capitalism needs many people now. In fact, there's too many of them for it to cope with. It doesn't need lots of men working in shipyards and factories and it doesn't need women in the home.

And eventually it will find technological ways of reproducing people without men.

john

I'm not learned, politically. So I will bite. Are you suggesting that the fact that there are more homeless man than woman is a sexist issue?

I should imagine that the fact that women are the one raising the children has something to do with it. Society might feel happy to discard adults on the street, but not children.

I think this is absolutely true. The monogamous, loving relationship will die out eventually
you spin it always dont you....I cant be arsed
good luck with that manifesto of yours

I'm shaming the entitlement.

I'm out now.

Gentlemanjohn hasn't got the intelligence to argue properly. Things are explained very well, over and over and over again and he says but if male privilege exists why are there homeless men.

Either he is doing a very convincing impression of a man not over burdened with intelligence or he is winding us up to bolster up his ego because his life is shit.

I'm out.

Currently there isn't a way of literally reproducing people without women, so I'm going to still be hanging on to my reproductive rights while I am still the means of reproduction, thanks.

And of course capitalism still needs women to do all the reproductive work of the home. The reproductive work of the home is now even greater because technological advances mean that young adults need to have developed even greater levels of educational specialism when entering the workforce, and the vast majority of education of the young and preparing them for adult life is still carried out by female care givers in the home.

If you look at your causes of homelessness you will find that many of the greatest are down to not having a female care giver who got you through with training for adulthood - care leavers are one of the biggest homeless groups, along with ex offenders (massive number of whom are ex care leavers) and ex soldiers (again, ex care leavers dominate).

I'm not learned, politically. So I will bite. Are you suggesting that the fact that there are more homeless man than woman is a sexist issue?

No, I'm not talking about the fact that there are more of them at all. I'm talking about the causes.

If we understood the world purely in terms of these identitarian privileges, then there is the question of why there are socioeconomically disadvantaged men with all their privilege? Surely they shouldn't be doing well?

So the only logical answer is that they are homeless due to some deficiency on their part - that they have had all this privilege and not made anything of it. So then the feminist position finds itself falling back on the very right wing conviction that the poor are poor through fault of their own

I am NOT attacking feminism per se at all - but I am saying there is a strain of identity feminism which does, unwittingly perhaps, employ the same logic as neoliberalism in that people are abstracted from structural economic systems into purely cultural identities.

At worst, it's some well off women suggesting poor men deserve to be poor. And we've heard that quite clearly from Loquacious. It is an attitude that is evident in the views of more right-wing feminists.

Fred is hypothetically homeless. His strawman house blew down and he has nowhere else to go. John brought up homeless men but won't get to the point about it...

More women have low paid/min wage jobs. More women than men are dependent on social security, so women are being hit hardest by the austerity agenda. But hey, as feminists we should focus on the area where john can find some inequality, homeless men

Get a grip john. And stop making assumptions about the women on this board and our backgrounds. It's ridiculous.

Also, if your book is like your posts its not going to make you a living. It might be improved by you taking on board some of the points here.

John, so your argument is that right wing feminism exists?

Nobody is denying that.

Feminism is not some kind of take it or leave it bolt on topic

I agree. I understand you now.

we recognise these needs, and are sensible of the humiliation of the woman, the privileges of the man. That we hate, yes, hate everything, and will abolish everything which tortures and oppresses the woman worker, the housewife, the peasant woman, the wife of the petty trader, yes, and in many cases the women of the possessing classes. The rights and social regulations which we demand for women from bourgeois society show that we understand the position and interests of women, and will have consideration for them under the proletarian dictatorship

• V Lenin

But john no one, least of all feminists are saying people deserve to be poor. Capitalism exploits everyone, but it also exploits sexism. Because it can.

The fact that poor women are doing the child rearing will give them more welfare. Which might account for the fact there are fewer on the streets.

But of those on the streets, women will still be below men in the hierarchy. In terms of vulnerability.

And of course capitalism still needs women to do all the reproductive work of the home.

No it doesn't. I'm sure there is a residual cultural issue of men expecting women to do all the home and kiddie stuff, but that has nothing to do with capitalism. It did, and this is why. Lots of very onerous manual labour once needed to be done - mining, drilling, lifting big steel girders - the kind of thing that was most effectively done by men with their greater upper body strength. Capitalism depended on men to do this. And it also depended on women to take care of the home and raise the children while the blokes were out working. Furthermore, pre-globalisation and before more advanced technological warfare, nation states were vulnerable to invasion and had to be defended with standing armies. There was also a British Empire which needed lots of soldiers to rape, pillage, enslave massacre their way through Africa and the sub-continent as we well know. Let's not get nostalgic about those days eh.

Anyway, western economies are now de-industrialised and de-militarised. More women might be in the home, but to personify capitalism - it could not give a fuck if the primary carer is man woman or dog so long as people open a Facebook account, take out lots of loans, get into lots of debt, give up all their data, pay exorbitant rents and buy loads of shit they don't need made by ten year old sweat shop workers and robots in Indonesia.

Capitalism does not need the nuclear family anymore. At all. That's why it promotes casual sex, gives people websites to help them cheat on their partners, and basically does everything it can to destroy the family unit.

Dating websites would not make lots of money if people got married and stayed married.

Sylvia and Datun I don't think you are saying that - you both seem very reasonable in what you're saying, but there are people who do think that.

There may well be, but I don't think they are feminists.

God, is he still banging on about a homeless man?

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/feb/14/homelessness-women-disadvantaged-channel-4-councils

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/06/housing-womens-issue-international-womens-day

There, there's the privilege, in black and white stats - if that homeless man were a homeless woman, they'd be more likely to be assaulted. They'll never be made homeless when pregnant, and, if they are homeless, it's more likely to be with children to look after.

THAT'S THE BLOODY PRIVILEGE. Even when you're sleeping rough, it's better to be doing it as a man.

made by ten year old sweat shop workers and robots in Indonesia

Yes. We export so many of our problems.

john

Homelessness is a national scandal. And you can intersect it with feminism.

Feminism will take care of the women who are homeless. Homelessness is another thread entirely.

John, it is my opinion that your posts goaded the poster who you are now using as your example of nasty feminists who are horrible to men earlier. But what's the point? You only see what you want to see anyway.

However one example of sexism continuing to operate within capitalism is pornography. You (women) are still worth a lot of money as sexual objects and images of desire. Megabucks. No denying that. But even this is quite complicated now. More women are themselves using pornography, creating their own pornography - so even then there could in theory be a form of sexual capitalism which is not misogynist - which caters as much to the female consumer as the male.

There is nothing in feminism - as it is currently framed - that is inherently op-positional to capitalism. There is no reason why women could not control the means of production.

But the question is then - is this the kind of feminism you want? The question is, what is feminism really about? Is it a matter of finding power for women within the current system, or does it go beyond female empowerment to a broader vision of a more humane and just world?

Can I just say, I have been accused of complaining that feminists are taking away my power. On the contrary, I am excited by the possibility of a world run by women - but not if they're going to behave just the same as the men. Because in the end what is the point of that?

Handbag the poster is entirely responsible for the offensive garbage s/he was spouting. They're not a child and perfectly responsible for what they say on the internet.