Abuse within activist and left wing groups and communities

[Butterer]

Trigger warnings for details of abuse - financial, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse, and other forms of exploitation. Also possible institutional abuse and gaslighting by informal /unregulated groups and organisations.

I've been failing to start this thread for weeks and scattering my thoughts and experiences all over difference bits of MN... I think I'm in the right headspace to do it now. I had a long think about whether I should post in relationships, mental health, off board topics etc. but decided FWR might be appropriate due to the political side/nature of the groups I experienced abuse in/from.

I believe that male/sexual violence against women in these contexts is underreported, not spoken about widely, and is often associated with things like the SWP and Comrade Delta, when its actually an uncommon and widespread issue.

There was a PhD research project in 2015/16 which talked to women impacted by this, and is available to read at
oro.open.ac.uk/47582/ (I have deliberately broken the link). Some of my experiences are in there; I didn't proofread the transcript properly and I think there's some corrections/clarifications i would make if I were to be interviewed again.

I'm hoping to make a safe thread to talk about what happened to me and give other women the chance to talk about their own experiences or find resources to support them if needed.

When I say safe, I mean I hope that I don't get posters suggesting that this forum or board is an inappropriate place for discussion, that what happened to me didn't happen or isn't relevant, that i am giving right wingers ammunition, that I should only talk about it within the movement, that I shouldn't let a few bad apples prejudice my views, treating it like an AMA or miss marple investigation into me or the people involved - all that kind of stuff.

I'm going to make a cup of tea and come back in half an hour to try work out exactly what I want to say, want to talk about, and want to make sure other people who might be on the periphery of these groups know what kind of culture they may be getting into.

That's it fir now though. Thanks all for the former and current space, x

^ also the research I have linked to is a trans inclusive project and uses triggering language, by the context of these here boards. When the first zine interviews were done, I am not sure they were inclusive of trans women in the interview/participant criteria. I apologise in advance if anyone is offended by my posting it, but it's the only research/resource I've really used or referred to in the past... I haven't kept updated for a few years until I looked them up the other week.

Thanks for starting this thread Butterer.

I have also experienced abusive behaviours in these kinds of activist spaces and have thoughts about why this might be.

Will read with interest (and the thesis!) and will think about how to make a longer post too.

I think I'm going to decide my experiences into two chunks: the first is the wider forms of abuse/coercion/exploitation etc within the wider community/specific overlapping groups; the second is the sexual violence one (involved one perpetrator, affected multiple women) and subsequent covering up/refusal to address it.
I'm sorry that you've experienced this too @InvisibleDragon

Decide=divide.
More tea needed before a longer post. I'm going to describe how I got involved, how various groups and issues were misrepresented to me, what happened while I was living in a radical housing co-op, and what happened to me after i moved out into a flat on my own. The most disastrous bits were after I moved out tbf.

I no longer get involved in political or activist groups where I live; i am trying to move to another county because the activisty co-op community is STRONG around me, and I would like to be able to do things like support BLM/lefty fluffy causes without triggering myself into madness by having to sign up to stuff alongside abusive members of my community who are still active and regarded as "safe".

Butterer this is absolutely the right place.

Totally the right place.

Personally I welcome criticism and analysis of left wing groups precisely because my politics are ideologically to the left. I want a left wing government so I need left wing parties and activists to sort themselves out.

👍💪
My introduction to radical activist stuff was mid nineties, when I was about fifteen. I picked up some zines written by a collective of blokes, which talked about reclaim the streets etc, direct action they had been involving in, squatted spaces being used as community centres and cafes, that sort of thing. I thought it was all brilliant and that I might like to do all that when I grew up a bit. I wrote to one of the authors a few times over the years, and he always replied with a new zine and a nice note about keeping positive and smashing the state

I actually properly got introduced to him my mid twentieth by a mutual friend in 2005, when we lived in the same city; up to that point he'd just been a bit of a hero from afar, and my local activist groups seemed a bit too intimidating to join as a newcomer; after we met, he introduced me to all the co-ops and activists he knew.

Right place.

Butterer - I've read a lot of your comments on other threads, and I'm glad you feel in the right place now to start a thread drawing it all together.

Might be worth flagging your OP to MN to make clear that this is intended as a support thread, not a give the OP a good kicking AIBU style thread. Usually when threads are clearly flagged as support threads, shit-posting gets deleted.

Over the next few years, I got to know people from the longstanding co-ops in leeds - usually his friends or partners, but I did date someone from there at one point (we both talked about how disappointed we were that he was a link between us- she commented that it would have been nice to date outside the gene pool). The coop ppl were kind enough to let me store stuff at theirs when I became unexpectedly homeless and fucked off to London in 2007. I thought I'd be ok cos there were co-ops down there, and id stayed with randoms that my friends knew when I'd gone to gigs on my own and stuff, and there was usually a sofa in someone's house to surf.

@CaraDuneRedux

Butterer - I've read a lot of your comments on other threads, and I'm glad you feel in the right place now to start a thread drawing it all together.

Might be worth flagging your OP to MN to make clear that this is intended as a support thread, not a give the OP a good kicking AIBU style thread. Usually when threads are clearly flagged as support threads, shit-posting gets deleted.

Thank you - good point x

I'm going to step.away from thinking about it all for the rest of the evening; I'm kind of going at a moderate pace if that's ok. I don't intend to drip feed or anything, but there's other contextual bits to what I've just outlined that are relevant that I get really uncomfortable talking and thinking about.

I'm not treating this thread as an unofficial statement to the police or accountability groups or anything like that, more as a space to unpack and process.

If I'm not careful I end up treating this stuff like i do a full time job - getting all consumed in sorting out the issues, and forget how to switch off.

The other thing I'm going to be upfrint about is that I've been threatened with legal action for defamation in the past by a guardian journalist/direct activist within specific multiple protest groups. That was around 2013 when i expressed concern that their direct action group was joining up with disabled people against the cuts, and i was terrified they'd treat potentially vulnerable members the same way they'd treated me, in the name of "the cause".
She hasn't sued me yet.

I received a letter from a solicitor on behalf of the man who raped me, saying he was willing to sue for defamation and harassment if I discussed him, his behaviour, or the co-ops he lived in and worked for in association with him. That was in 2013, he hasn't sued me yet (and it was on a firm's stationary but done as a personal favour off the books by his solicitor mate, without being given any info about what the libellous things I was saying actually were).

I may well post the names of the groups/orgs involved, if not the individuals.

I'm anonymising my rapist and referring to him as Comrade Alpha from now.

Definitely in the right place. I’ve got a friend that experienced serious abuse at the hands of the Socialist party.

My ex was in the Greens and I’m not surprised by any of the nasty shit coming out about them. I look back and I realise that it’s very dark but I didn’t realise it at the time. I’ll post tomorrow when I can think.

Thank you for starting this thread. Most needed

Supporting you and others finding your voice

An excellent choice of pseudonym, Butterer - "Comrade Alpha" makes me want to throw things at him from the back of the room already!

Second-wave feminism in the US was partly the result of the appalling treatment of women in the Civil Rights Movement. This was demeaning, discriminatory, belittling and often abusive.

I was active in the left in the 80s, including on the fringes of the SWP. What I saw was top-ranked men with harems. Usually, these consisted of one woman (usually extremely bright and very devoted to the cause) who was the main person he fucked (ostensibly a girlfriend) and then a cabal of groupie women who were also fucked. It was pretty clear in many cases the women did the sexual labour, domestic labour and other women's work as well his intellectual labour. Sometimes the GF was cast aside in favour of a younger or prettier model. Often they went into mental decline as a result. Often they were shunned.

I was always on the edges because I stood up to men and corrected them - there was an inner sanctum to which I was never invited. I'd have turned down the invites anyway, because, even at 18, I smelt 'cult' and 'brainwashing' and 'group-think' and so on. It felt very much like a religion.

The other thing that often happened was that men of particular minorities expected white or in other ways 'privileged' women to let them fuck them as a way of proving that they were not prejudiced. One man tried this with me. I told him to fuck off. I later found that two of my friends had been fucked (over) by him. They had had sex that they consented to but did not want in order to prove they were not prejudiced. That man hated me.

I melted away soon after.

Ugh, I am so sorry @YetAnotherSpartacus - all that sounds grim as.

*What I saw was top-ranked men with harems. Usually, these consisted of one woman (usually extremely bright and very devoted to the cause) who was the main person he fucked (ostensibly a girlfriend) and then a cabal of .... women who were also fucked.

There was an inner sanctum to which I was never invited. I smelt 'cult' and 'brainwashing' and 'group-think' and so on. It felt very much like a religion.*

^ I've chopped and highlighted the bits that made me do a shiver of recognition.

I was working out what I'd missed that made me really uncomfortable.

I stayed with a social centre in another city in 2006, I think, and kept in touch by email with a guy who volunteered there. He came to visit and I think that's the first time my PTSD (adverse childhood experiences with violent and abusive men) ever kicked in.

What shook me up was that he thought I was a kindred spirit and said he felt really comfortable talking to me. Then he told me he was really angry with his ex gf and that he wanted to rape her to teach her a lesson; he asked if I could get him hard drugs; he talked about wondering whether young girls at the swimming pool had specific bikini line styles; he told me that he watched kids in the park and noticed how often mums let their attention slip; he told me he volunteered at the social centre in order to meet vulnerable women.

I woke up on the sofa in the morning to find him taking photos of me. I walked him to the coach station then called the police about him.

Wow, that's some scary situations to be in, what a messed up individual he sounds...
Yes, hopefully this is a safe space to talk x

he told me he volunteered at the social centre in order to meet vulnerable women.

Oh ... But but but... Men never do that!

I was very interested in the kama sutra at one point and read the book. It has a section on how to get laid. One of the options is to get into a position of power and trust over women.
And then use your power to coerce them into having sex. That's how old this is. Men discovered they could do this alongside discovering the wheel.

(And I do believe men invented the wheel - other tools women may have invented but the wheel has MAN written all over it)

I've split your comment into two, to pick apart what I think he was up to:

What shook me up was that he thought I was a kindred spirit and said he felt really comfortable talking to me.

Grooming - "we have something special."

Then he told me he was really angry with his ex gf and that he wanted to rape her to teach her a lesson; he asked if I could get him hard drugs; he talked about wondering whether young girls at the swimming pool had specific bikini line styles; he told me that he watched kids in the park and noticed how often mums let their attention slip; he told me he volunteered at the social centre in order to meet vulnerable women.

Boundary testing - "I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm like in order to test whether the grooming process has worked. If you recoil in horror, I know it hasn't, I cut my losses and move onto the next victim. If I watch you swallow your obvious discomfort and try to enter a state of cognitive dissonance then game on."

Text book.

Sorry you encountered him, Butterer. He sounds a monster. But a very slick, practised one.

Thanks forgiven and grapes and cara - that makes a LOT of sense. He still makes me shudder thinking about him. I'm going to come back to the unravelling after breakfast - there was extra oddness / community involvement at the time I reported him for being terrifying.