'Feminism is identity politics' - DH just does not get it

[newdocket]

Yesterday morning, after I had just been reading about the heavy handed policing in Clapham, DH appeared and started railing against it - they shouldn't have gone, it isn't all men, identity politics just alienates people etc etc. The crux of his argument is that the rare event of a woman being abducted and killed was being appropriated by women with a beef against men and that this just stirs up division. I explained that women were responding to something that resonates, that many (most) women have a story, or stories about male harrassment and more to tell etc. He just won't accept that it is a widepsread problem (despite me having a number of stories to tell, starting from the age of 11 and our daughter getting harrassed when in her school uniform). He remains hung up on the idea that 'identity politics' is not the way to resolve inequality issues. Come to think of it, he had a similar stance to the BLM protests.

I'm finding myself feeling repulsed by his attitude, it all feels a bit Jordan Peterson. I felt really rattled yesterday and feel a bit sick at the thought of having this kind of conversation with him again. Can anyone think of a helpful way to tackle this? Sorry if my post is a bit inarticulate...

I would tend to say that in realistic terms he's not wrong. But it shouldn't be that way. But even political action around things like race or ethnicity, which today are usually managed within an identity politics paradigm, don't have to be.

Women's issues are rooted in material realities, concrete true physiologically based things about men and women. There is some question about where we might draw the lines around what that means, but that's what it's about.

So when we talk about a political provision around something like maternity leave, that is about material women's issues and not identity. In It could be also about non-real perceptions attached to the biological category of women - the idea that women shouldn't be able to vote, perhaps.

Similarly to this second category we could talk about something like voting rights for black people. We all know that race categories are socially constructed category but they also in some places and times severely affected the lives of real people. We could talk about a political movement to make sure race is not a barrier to voting, and that would not have to be identity politics, it could be a repudiation of identity politics, exploding racial categories as a valid way to classify people.

But a lot of feminism has been based on identity politics and critical theory and was even very involved in the development of those areas of thought over the years, CT found a home in a lot of women's studies departments. So it's not really any wonder your husband might see itthat way.

I'd say he's wrong. And he knows it or he wouldn't be defensive. Plus he wouldn't be coming up with clothing rules for DD. If there's no actual problem, what for?

The point, as other commenters said, is that these are not identities. They're biological facts and you don't get to identify out of them. The other half of the point, as OP has said, is the power imbalance. The people with the boot on their neck have a right to try to have it lifted. The guy in the boot is not equally oppressed by having to stop destroying others.

(All that said, yes, of course, using misogyny to get a leg up (Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk) is gross. Understandable, given how awful having a boot on your neck is, but still, reprehensible. That is NOT what people protesting for equality are doing. Saying so is just making excuses for yourself.)

If he can’t see that women have the same right to freedom, respect etc as men, and that (since most violence and almost all sexual assault is carried out by men) men have a duty to try to prevent male violence and to defend women and children — he’s not really trying, is he?

He's certainly attuned to what our daughter wears - he has banned a few outfits. I really object to this in principle but equally, can see the realities

Does he have any input into the harrassment asides from this?

I think he does agree that women have the same right to freedom as men. I don't think he gets the power thing at all though.

Exactly that re the clothing rules thing. I think he is coming from a 1970s perspective; men have urges, women and girls shouldn't provoke them.

Identity politics becomes a problem when everything is seen through your label and there is no nuance or understanding of the bigger picture of oppression. People deeply embedded in the theory cannot seem to see that other people can also be disadvantaged. The more we deal with facts the more we can be sure we are focusing on actual oppression rather than broad generalisations.