Some questions for the socialist/left feminists here

[BlackWaveComing]

It's a free world, apparently, but this isn't a thread seeking input from conservative or right wing GC's. So

Otoh, if you are a feminist whose feminism encompasses but is not confined to GC in the context of transgender issues, and you have a socialist or left political alignment, I'd like your input. I suppose it's an AIBU for you. ( For context, I appreciate the role of social conservatism as a balancing force, and have defended FWR from accusations of transphobia on many occasions. Posting here for years, other names. You can PM me if you want my other names for veracity.)

I feel like FWR is losing a connection to feminism, and becoming a free speech board with an upsetting number of anti-feminist and anti- w/c tropes appearing here, largely unchallenged, daily.

Today I note the patriarchal notion that mothers are to blame for their children's mentally illness being trotted out. ROGD children, subject to an individualist corporation mediated social pressure being called attention seekers. This veers towards t-phobia, imo. And a complete lack of recognition that feminism is for poor women too, a cohort to whom the economic right is no friend.

Am I unreasonable in my assessment that yes, FWR is sliding into anti-genderism, anti-feminist conservatism?

And regardless of whether I'm wrong or right, is there a place for international w/c socialist feminists to discuss gender, among the many other issues facing women and children?

TIA.

I feel like this thread is quite divisive. Anyone can be for women's rights. We can all contribute to various discussions and agree or disagree about various things without it being a problem. I don't think people should have to subscribe to any particular political philosophy in order to be considered to bring value to discussions. A diversity of viewpoints keeps a movement alive. I don't think there's any need to create these divisions between us when generally people get along just fine here, one way or another. It's healthy to have differences of opinion and experience and I don't think anyone should try to claim FWR for themselves when it's clear its success depends on our diversity.

Just take a look over this thread. Blackwave what a fantastic post, you have brought together a diverse bunch of women to discuss their feminism. I absolutely love it. It shows me that feminism is alive and well and the more it can pull in diverse views, the better the chances of success.

I was appalled by the fact that women's rights had gone backwards. Loads of us had taken our eye off the ball but reading these posts, I am hopeful for the future.

here's to you all

I’m a left wing feminist and I don’t feel welcome in FWR as I’m not GC. It’s a shame but I generally just don’t bother with it any more. Happy to leave it to be the niche board it’s become.

@highame

I also find there's a lot of homophobic tinges to comments eg a thread defending someone who is against kids learning about gay relationships I can't find the thread but it was to do with a religious woman at employment tribunal and I think there was homophobia and transphobia. I made a comment on the thread.

The problem comes from a cross between women's rights and anything that looks as though it's supporting the case. I think it's too easy to assume because someone is against TWAW that they are automatically 'on our side' and jumping to their defence without thinking whether it has tipped over into Phobia.

I support women's rights to my core, I do not support Homo/trans/any other phobia

This is the sort of thing where the siloed issues based thinking has resulted in people asking questions about things that were done in good faith, but where deveopments have made them look back from another perspective.

The general support on the liberal left of changing social attitudes around homosexuality resulted in pretty widespread support for all kinds of related teaching in schools, groups like Stonewall invited in to speak, clubs for LGBT students, minor students supported in schools with the idea that this should be kept private from their parents. All along there have also been certain parents, often from more conservative cultures, who were somewhat alienated by this, but they were considered retrograde and it was a fairly explicit idea that teaching their children differently would help eliminate these views, and was fully justified in terms of bringing people in line with correct social attitudes.

The same approach has been employed with gender ideology, and all of a sudden a number of leftists and feminists and even some LGB activists have realised that their own views and place as parents is being undermined by schools, that organisations that they disagree with are being given access to their kids, that they are being left out of the loop when their kids ask for help and it is seen as ok and even good, that the school sees itself as being in a better position to look out for the child's best interests than the parent and is right to try and minimize the parents influence.

All of a sudden, the role of schools vs the role of parents becomes a live issue and if you want to argue that the schools are undermining the parental role, it begins to look like they were already overstepping in the exact same way on some issues that you might personally think they are right about.

That's not right wing, it's a question that's arisen within the left around consistency on the view of things like role of parents, safeguarding, the degree to which the education system can and should teach values.

@tinierclanger

I’m a left wing feminist and I don’t feel welcome in FWR as I’m not GC. It’s a shame but I generally just don’t bother with it any more. Happy to leave it to be the niche board it’s become.

I see posts like this quite often here but have never seen any of those posters start a thread on feminist issues that they are interested in. As I said earlier, I'm trying to learn so would love to see a variety of feminist issues posted.

When people say they are "not GC" are they saying that they actually agree with nonsense like blue for boys, pink for girls? Really?

If it's something else would someone be kind enough to explain?

It's funny how so many left wing feminists are now getting their pieces published in The Spectator as they've been no-platformed elsewhere- Julie Bindel for one.

Am I unreasonable in my assessment that yes, FWR is sliding into anti-genderism, anti-feminist conservatism?

Yes, in my opinion you are. The only anti-feminist stuff I see on here is generally when a TRA/MRA comes on, or a new poster who seems to regard women as nothing but support humans who should focus on everyone bar themselves.

@Gingerkittykat

Feel free to challenge anything you dislike.

As a left wing woman I do feel like right wing voices are more common here, but maybe right wing posters feel the same way.

I am a lifelong lefty and I think that this section especially has many more left wing voices than right, MANY more. Seems really rare to see posts that veer to the right, ignoring of course, that even stating women are a real thing is apparently right wing thinking, so on the womens rights angle a lot of lefties would write many off as right wing purey for not being into gender woo and thinking sex is important.

Across MN this seems to even out a bit more, but its still a bit biased in favour of the left I think. Its an interesting question actually, does peoples perception of the average user here differ based on your personal beliefs..hmm

It seems like flawed logic to say 'Labour supports self ID so I don't like the left'. (I realise that's an over simplification).

Yes, but there is a lot of this kind of impossible problem with speaking around this. What do people mean when they say the left? The Labour Party? They are hardly leftist at all, just as in many ways the Tories are no longer really conservative.

If you made a list based on a really solid traditional leftist way of thinking, I think you'd be hard pressed to see substantial similarities with either the Tories or Labour, but both would also have a few elements. Which are them would be most important is pretty hard to point to when they are so fragmented, which I think is why you see people making a decision based on realpolitik.

And to find out if there is a place where women who are on the left, and who want to bring a leftist, feminist lens to a variety of issues, including but not only transgenderism and TRA's, can talk without having to deal with non-feminist anti-genderism.

Such a space would only exist in a private group. It would be lovely to have a place for feminists to talk, that was not often bombarded with antifeminist shite.

IMO the reason talk of self ID and such is so common here is that its in many womens opinion, a looming imminent threat to womens rights.

I have seen a few threads like this, that take issue with te amount of talking about stuff that doesn't interest them, or they don't think is important. Its a fair enough view to not want to talk about this..BUT, the answer is to start talking about something else! All these people who say TRA stuff dominates currently are entirely correct. But it seems, none of these people see that the answer to this is for them to start topics about other aspects of feminism. Start topics about what you want to talk about.

@Butterer

Tbf mumsnet isn't as right wing as I expected it to be. I absolutely didn't expect to find fellow left wing women here, and certainly not CG left wing women - I suppose our expectations are different. That and I'm not an old timer on here.

I expected a heavy bias to the right when I joined, just based on what at the time I thought of the 'average' mumsnetter, as it had always been described as a place where predomiately middle class women talk. Yeah its steretyping as is saying I expected 'the middle class' to be more likely to be right wing as tends to happen everywhere (more money and lder, by stats I think) but was pleasantly surprised by how even it seemed to be. I still find it that way tbh. I understand if people don;t but I certainly do not see loads of right wing views shouting 'you need to join the right!' or whatever. I did see a lot of angst about women feeling unable to vote for Labour/Greens at the last election too which would generally say a lot of thse women are lefties!

How interesting. After posting I thought a bit. I thought I had shifed a little closer centre in recent years, however, it seems I am more left wing than ever (and more of a liberatrion).

I know this is not accurate as such, but have been doing this for a few years just to check, curiousity really. I have generally been in the middle corner area, between liberatrian and left.

www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-4.75&soc=-3.08

@GoingAroundBeingAWoman

When people say they are "not GC" are they saying that they actually agree with nonsense like blue for boys, pink for girls? Really?

If it's something else would someone be kind enough to explain?

I think maybe some people just see GC as being anti-trans and they see themselves as pro-trans.

Some think of gender as a spectrum where people fall along different points in some sense in their expression.

I don't personally find GC fits for me, though not-GC doesn't either, so I don't know where that leaves me. I don't think gender is an innate faculty of it's own, I think it's a collective cultural expression of our sexual dimorphism and as such will always have some force and needs to be managed within that reality.

I grew up in a left-wing family (Dad an ex trade union official, Mum a second-wave feminist activist, both parents active in the Australian Labor Party) and, until a few years ago, I took it for granted that the left = good, right = bad.

I'm still left-wing on economic issues, but I no longer feel any solidarity with the left per se, and I feel that the traditional left/right division is inadequate for dealing with the challenges of the 21st century, especially the huge disruptions to the social and political fabric caused by the internet and other tech.

The left has become increasingly authoritarian over the past 5-10 years, and is now actively hostile to free speech and open debate. This is most obvious on the trans issue, but I find many left-aligned people (which is most of my family and friends) these days to be extremely self-righteous and close-minded on a variety of subjects. Many act as if they are in possession of the 'revealed truth' about everything, and anyone who disagrees with them is a person of bad character and little worth. There's a performative nature about it too, as if everyone is anxious to make sure that everyone else knows they have the Right Opinions. It's not an environment conducive to creative thinking, or independent thought of any kind. Most disturbing of all, evidence and truth doesn't seem to matter much to large swathes of the left.

I think one reason why we're seeing more right-leaning posts and links here is because centrists and the centre-right are starting to take the threats to free speech and free thought seriously. So if you want open discussion of the trans issue, or any number of issues, that's where it's going to be coming from. I would love for that to change, and for left-wing institutions and publications to open up, but at the moment it feels like most are intimidated by the zealotry of the woke.

I agree with the OP's assessment of the damaging effects of austerity on women and their children, and I understand why you would want to make this your political priority. It's still my number 1 issue at the voting booth too. But it's interesting that, for instance, the push for UBI seems to be coming from centrists or even free-market capitalists (e.g. Elon Musk). I trust our tech overlords on nothing, but I think that engagement with centrists and the centre-right (not the far right obviously) could be fruitful on a wide range of issues affecting women and children. Safeguarding is another one that pp have mentioned.

I also can't ignore that there is a febrile, irrational atmosphere on the left that reminds one of the Cultural Revolution. Ultimately it seems as if many current leftists, especially the young, are hostile to the principles of democracy, free speech, private property and equality under the law. And we know that many want to abolish the criminal justice system altogether. Worse, old-school liberal/leftists in positions of institutional power seem incapable of standing up to them. It doesn't bode well for the future of democratic societies, and women here are right to be concerned about it. It's not a matter of being a selfish Tory who only cares about lower taxes, nor is it about being obsessed with trans issues to the detriment of everything else. Democracy, the rule of law and free speech are not side issues - if we don't have them we don't have anything.

NRatched

I generally end up in exactly the same place, or a little more left in some schemes with slightly different questions. One thing I dislike about that test is the use of libertarian for that end of the axis - it's true enough if you go far enough I suppose, but people in the middle like you, me, and Gandhi end to be something more like communitarians. I suppose authoritarian is also the extreme in the other direction, I just find people don't generally have a strong sense of how a communitarian low-level
leftism would look.

Which is probably because as you might notice, there is little or no political representation for the green quadrant. That's probably why so many feel politically homeless.

Hmm, I've misspoken somewhat, it looks like the political compass is plotting a lot of parties in the green quadrant now.

That's interesting because a few years ago they weren't to nearly the same degree. But I would say I feel a lot less politically represented now, and in generally politics has become focused on big state solutions, especially on the left.

There's something a bit odd going on with their charting, I think.

I don't personally find GC fits for me, though not-GC doesn't either, so I don't know where that leaves me. I don't think gender is an innate faculty of it's own, I think it's a collective cultural expression of our sexual dimorphism and as such will always have some force and needs to be managed within that reality.

Same. I think 'gender-critical' is terrible branding for resisting trans ideology in general, simply because most people will be confused about what it means. Most people use 'gender' as a synonym for sex, for a start.

I wish we could drop the weasel word 'gender' altogether and just talk about sex roles. Sex roles are obviously culturally dictated, but they have a material basis in the body, and thus they can't simply be abolished (and there's evidence that most people might not want them to be).

'Gender abolition' is IMO completely unrealistic and hews very close to trans beliefs, in the sense that it looks towards a glorious future in which being embodied as male or female is socially irrelevant. That is impossible without massive transhumanist interventions. Much better to talk openly and honestly about sex roles, where they come from, who they benefit, and how they function in society.

@DonkeySkin well said! Erosion of measured and civil debate and the quasi-religious adherence to a political party is deeply concerning to me. I'm a leftist and my priorities are climate change, women's and children's rights, BLM, and economic equality.

I think one reason why we're seeing more right-leaning posts and links here is because centrists and the centre-right are starting to take the threats to free speech and free thought seriously

Great post DonkeySkin. That is precisely how I feel. The more authoritarian and self righteous the left becomes, the more voters are alienated. Freedom of speech is facing an existential threat from people who don't believe it is a foundational value, but an impediment to their total narrative control. I am right wing. Zero apologies for my politics and zero time for people whose Manichean view of the political landscape tolerates no diversity of views.

@DonkeySkin

When I use gender critical, I mean it to say exactly what you have just said really. I believe in sex based difference and don't really think that gender is that helpful. I would love to be talking about sex rather than gender!

But maybe I am missing something!

I think some of the assumptions in OP's opening remarks aren't accurate.

Feminism, even in the days of the suffragettes was not of the left, which is why it splintered. And as someone who became a feminist during women's liberation, there was a very strong "right wing" strand. ie women who believed that the solution for women was to become independent through a "capitalist" approach ie start a business. And in fact for many working class and BME women who were often blocked from self advancement moving into some sort of self employment seemed a better option.

That's why for instance, within women's liberation, some women formed socialist feminist groups as they wanted to look at how women's liberation could be achieved within a socialist frame work.

Because FWR became one of the few places that the issue of trans rights vs. women's rights could be discussed maybe a more diverse group of women joined. Some of them may not see themselves as being particularly "political" and so express opinions that aren't based on some sort of approved analysis of how to think.

I haven't seen any of this blaming mothers, but then I dont go on every thread. I have seen discussions about whether "affirmative" child rearing has created problems eg the snowflake generation.

I have been on threads where I thought that some marks were not just bordering on racism, but were racist, but I said so and then stopped commentating as I didnt want to give any more oxygen to that thread.

But although I agree with those who have suggested if you dont like the topics being discussed start your own, I think that many women on FWR only really engage with a few issues directly relating to trans activism.

But maybe this is because I forget there is a feminist activism board and maybe more overtly political discussion are happening there. Have you tried? This is after all the "chat" board.

But as someone who was part of consciousness raising groups, where you could find yourself with a marxist, a right wing libertarian, an apolitical floating voter, working and middle class, and benefited from the opportunity to find our what we had in common as women, I am happy that there isn't a party line on FWR.

I think politics as a whole has moved right, since the Reagan Thatcher era, and having been and in some way still away a wishy washy middle of the road liberal (with a small l, not the party) now find that what were common views when I was growing up mean I get categorised as left wing.

If you cant persuade women through interacting with them that the views you hold are ones that have value you, you cant just blame them.

Feminism is a broad term. What OP is experiencing is why there is a difference in say the approach of WPUK who are firmly socialist, and over women's groups campaiging as gender critical feminists who feel that because the issue impacts all women, they cant solve it by only talking to and campaigning with women in their own bubble of beliefs.

But as someone who was part of consciousness raising groups, where you could find yourself with a marxist, a right wing libertarian, an apolitical floating voter, working and middle class, and benefited from the opportunity to find our what we had in common as women, I am happy that there isn't a party line on FWR

Great post stumbledin

Not caught up with the whole thread but we have always had shit stirrers here

And in recent years there's the whole posting for the screenshots thing

The reason I don't engage with certain threads, views. Is because I don't think everyone who posts is posting on good faith and I CBA with getting into it with them.

As another thought.