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

[MaryRoseSatOnAPin]

...a comment heard at a conference today.

Would you agree? The person who made the comment was speaking from a Latin American context, criticising the Western focus towards the developing world. Has the West disappeared down a wormhole of LGBTQ+ rights whilst people in the global South, ignored, continue to starve?

I'm an avid lurker on the feminism boards, but haven't posted before. Asking here because you are a knowledgeable bunch - someone, somewhere must have written articles on this, but I can't find anything! It is a controversial viewpoint, but I'd be interested to read more.

No need to @ me. I'm on the thread.

So, you're complaining about bourgeois liberal infiltration of the Labour Party (I agree with you) but you reject leftist workers internationalism, which is espoused by all socialists hanging in there within the party, including blue Labour (I don't agree with you)?

If so, that would basically be the Kipper position, hence my confusion.

@LangCleg

Why not? You've done it to me a few times.

Sorry you're confused. I'm not.

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

That's the thread title, most of us agree its happening and that the left has been captured by neoliberals.

Neoliberalism is attractive because its easy, it doesn't require you to do anything.

Socialism and feminism are hard by comparison. They require you to think about your own beliefs, attitudes and actions. There's no such thing as armchair Socialism.

Why not? You've done it to me a few times.

Good grief! Are you 13? You’re rambling and ranting throughout the thread and I don’t think that you even know what you’re angry about!

Neoliberalism is attractive because its easy, it doesn't require you to do anything.Socialism and feminism are hard by comparison. They require you to think about your own beliefs, attitudes and actions. There's no such thing as armchair Socialism.

And you could add, that socialism and feminism rarely provides victories. It is hard and depressing to see set back after set back.

Neoliberalism, on the other hand, doesn’t require anyone to actually fight for anything, other than more power to the already powerful, usually white, affluent men.

To no-ones surprise, such victories are easily achieved. What’s not to like? Especially if you get to call yourself woke and progressive while you're doing it.

Late to this thread, but it doesn’t take a huge amount of class analysis or understanding of class politics to draw a straight line between the elimination of a symbol for women on a product created to assidt women deal with the biological reality of a female reproductive system, on the one hand, and a rise in childbirth mortality on the other.

Women ARE an economic class — the means of reproduction. Every facet of that is under attack now from the left AND the right.

Now, for what reason could males, as the class that exploits the female means of reproduction have, for in various ways reasserting control over those means, ie women, in the West?

Could it have anything to do with the crisis in late-stage capitalism and the common prediction amongst economists that within 1-2 generations unemployment rates on the West will reach 50%?

Hmmm..... now WHY, in the face of that, would men want to insist 1) women aren’t an ontological category of their own, for instance with their own symbol, 2) women aren’t a political category that ought to be allowed to advocate for their rights, 3) women aren’t actually oppressed due to sex, since biological sex doesn’t exist, 4) sex work IS work, 5) surrogacy work IS work?

They have a plan for us, even if not all of them are consciously aware of that plan. The wealthy have gobbled most of the pie and hidden the rest in underground bunkers. Men KNOW this.

Women shall have no pie what, depending upon how well we perform for them, employed men taking those now scarce jobs, choose to feed us.

Which is why female solidarity is critical, as is the insistence that we EXIST, ontologically, politically, and as an economic class.

Hence the furious reaction to symbolic erasure.

@BickerinBrattle

That's tin hat territory. It reads like the agenda 21 stuff. Sorry.

I'm really touching some nerves here. I've been called a 'moron', a 'kipper', accused of being angry as if it's a crazy, irrational reaction (stopped short of asking if I have PMT but not far off), 'incurious' and generally stupid.

Why? For suggesting that the left needs to concentrate more on its roots. The ugly truth is that if it doesn't, when we have an election in the next few months or so; Boris is going to get his majority.

The left will be shafted.

Public services will be cut even further.

People will get poorer.

Yet the left fiddles with its fanny pads while Rome burns.

Makes sense to me BickerinBrattle

I don’t understand a lot of this analysis so I’m grateful to many of you who take the time to explain it so clearly.

I

Yet the left fiddles with its fanny pads while Rome burns

You demonstrate your lack of understanding about what’s going on tumble

Do you think that the Labour Party are objecting to Always removing the female symbol from sanitary towel wrappers?

Spoiler alert: they aren’t

So what are you actually talking about?

Again, you seem angry with the women here. We’re not ‘the left’. So what’s your point?

I work in international aid and a lot of the funding which used to be available for projects targeting gender inequality and discrimination has been updated to explicitly reference support/inclusion for LGBT communities. This is positive in that it encourages organisations to consider this issue (as they should) and how to include those populations. It is however tough in areas where there aren’t active/out LGBTQ communities (we work in isolated rural areas and have never had a beneficiary identify as this, despite staff sensitivity training and openness) because we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before because they explicitly want us to explain how we engage LBTQ communities. We try but the reality is the focus of our work is on engaging communities to reduce child marriage, keep girls in schools, support domestic violence survivors and widows etc. We have strategies in place but it is not the priority need in areas where we work, and we can promote inclusion but we can’t create a population to work with in areas where that group are not coming forward. I think an issue is that in communities struggling with starvation, poor outcomes for children, high gender based violence etc is that identity politics is not as high on their hierarchy of needs as basic security etc and so it is challenging to do real work in that area

As Bunbury would say, let's get back to a useful contribution relevant to the OP and ignore politically illiterate interventions.

This is a helpful illustration of the actual "white colonialism" that is going on at the coal face of international aid work. Wokeism has performed a third sector capture, as we often say on here, and identity issues that preoccupy the western bourgeois wokeing class are being imposed on aid work in the field - even when it is blindingly obvious it provides the least bang for buck available and the needs of women and girls are ignored.

This is in complete opposition to the traditional principles of leftist internationalism and everything to do with the old school colonialism of British Victorians. These people are actually reviving the 19th century notion of the mission to civilise.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilizing_mission

@LangCleg

"As Bunbury would say, let's get back to a useful contribution relevant to the OP and ignore politically illiterate interventions."

Is that aimed at me?

Your prejudices are showing again.

Some time ago, I was talking to a friend who had just returned from a visit to Uganda, where her family was from. Uganda was in the news at the time because the govt was bringing in harsher penalties against homosexuality (originally including the death penalty, although that was eventually dropped).

My friend's family and friends in Uganda were generally against the new laws; even her more homophobic relatives thought they were unnecessarily harsh. But they did wonder why this issue among all others drew the attention of the western media. Why not child trafficking, murder of journalists, access to HIV medication, maternal mortality rates, and other problems that affect Ugandans? It seemed an odd sense of priority, from their viewpoint.

I support LGB solidarity action in homophobic states, but I also firmly agree that imposing it as an objective by external Western aid organisations is shockingly imperialist.

Aid organisations should only support local organisations and what they see as important. Ie. find a grassroots women's welfare organisation and fund them. Find a trade union collective and fund them.

we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before because they explicitly want us to explain how we engage LBTQ communities. We try but the reality is the focus of our work is on engaging communities to reduce child marriage, keep girls in schools, support domestic violence survivors and widows etc.

I would so, so much rather see you being able to focus on supporting women & girls' sex-based rights than the whole LGBTQetc thing (and I do mean sex-based, not gender-based - I think 'gender equality' is an oxymoron). And I'm saying that as a lesbian.

Tumble, Bicker is correct in her analysis.

Is has sod all to do with what is causing infant mortality to rise.

Tumble's derail and Bicker's retort are linked to the OP by the erasure of women as a distinct sex class worthy of consideration within a class analysis.

1. Removing the Venus symbol from sanpro is done explicitly to appease a set of people (trans privilege activists) who deny that menstruation is a women's experience and pretend that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
2. The increase in (mainly white, well-off, privileged) transmen in the news for giving birth is also to deny that pregnancy and maternity are a women's experience and pretend that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
3. Women are the underclass in terms of healthcare, with drugs researched on and designed for men, symptoms defined on men. This will get worse if people start actively asserting that female and male biological difference is unimportant.
4. Women's symptoms and pain are routinely taken less seriously by HCPs, leading to undertreatment, which exacerbates (3).
5. Women and girls around the world are the least and the last when resources are scarce, such as in famine or poverty. When combined with (3) and (4), we see women get worse care during pregnancy and childbirth and an increase in infant mortality as that is linked to maternal health.
6. (1) and (2) allow well-off, white, privileged men to claim to be women and hence oppressed as though they are women and divert resources intended to solve (5) to themselves. For example, "diversity grants" to improve women's participation in tech can be applied for by "anyone who identifies as female", in other words, anyone. If anyone can claim to be a woman, when I buy Cafe Femenino coffee, can I really be sure that the coffee growers receiving my money are female these days? When resources intended to aid women are diverted to men, this harms women.
7. The appropriation of resources intended for women outlined in (6) is being pushed globally and appropriating indigenous people's traditional third- and fourth-gender roles in the process, in a breathtaking display of colonialism by the very people who claim to be against "white feminism" and colonialism.

So yes, taking the Venus symbol off sanpro is a symptom of the global erasure of women as a sex class, an erasure that hampers women's ability to tackle the poverty that women bear the brunt of because they are female.

Frankly, anyone who has any understanding of class analysis recognises that women's reproductive labour is a resource that is exploited and controlled by the state, the economic forces of capitalism that also drive poverty, or both. Surrogacy is an example of this. Abortion restrictions are an example of this. Forced abortion, female foeticide, and one-child policies are examples of this.

we are now excluded from funding we could apply for before

This is shocking. Worthy of a deep-dive piece or series by some enterprising journalist.

Superb post, haXXor. Embarrassed that my short comment posted right after it, before I'd seen yours.

I support LGB solidarity action in homophobic states, but I also firmly agree that imposing it as an objective by external Western aid organisations is shockingly imperialist.

Yes. Precisely.

Aid organisations should only support local organisations and what they see as important. Ie. find a grassroots women's welfare organisation and fund them. Find a trade union collective and fund them.

Wherever possible and if such grassroots infrastructures are forming. I believe the woke term for this is "agency"! And of course, this is where left wing internationalism would be coming in, if all our institutions and third sector orgs - including, dispiritingly, many of our trade unions - weren't subject to woke capture.

Frankly, anyone who has any understanding of class analysis recognises that women's reproductive labour is a resource that is exploited and controlled by the state, the economic forces of capitalism that also drive poverty, or both. Surrogacy is an example of this. Abortion restrictions are an example of this. Forced abortion, female foeticide, and one-child policies are examples of this.

Fab post, HaXXor, thank you.

Nativists should take note. If this is all being imposed by woke capture in third sector international aid, it's also being imposed by woke capture domestically. So even if your interest is limited to the plight of poor Britons, you should be taking note.

". So even if your interest is limited to the plight of poor Britons, you should be taking note"

Which was my point in the first place!

Feminism and a sort of socialism, is turning into something that is done for educated, middle class women, for educated, middle class women.

It's a useless, self-perpetuating echo chamber.

It's part of the problem that feeds voters to UKIP.

Feminism and a sort of socialism, is turning into something that is done for educated, middle class women, for educated, middle class women.

I think you've mistaken the male privilege movement known as "liberal feminism" for actual feminism.

This thread rather neatly demonstrates that Mumsnet FWR are largely familiar with the current problems that the wokerati have caused/are causing. What we need is a strategy for dealing with it. Any ideas, Tumbletwat?

I’m beyond saddened to hear about the funding restrictions - at what point will those responsible for these decisions realise the damage they are causing? Yet again the road to hell is paved with good intent.

Lisa Muggeridge was right, charities and public institutions are fucked. Working class people (especially children) are a massive blind spot.

Yes, it has overrun them and I think maybe that's the point.

FWIW, I think it is worthwhile to keep publications in mind, without being dismissive, though now I also am more inclined to look at who has written something. But in some cases, Lifesitenews comes to mind as an example, I find that there are often so many errors or outright misrepresentation of facts, that I don't trust what they are telling me. And it makes it hard to read when you can't even depend on that level of honesty.

I do observe this feminist forum with dismay sometimes. 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. I think it's hard to shift the mindset once in this flow. If we look at the actual dangers as opposed to the theoretical I think may be we could rebalance.

And that has to do with the takeover by wokeism in the international aid sector how, Vicky?