Can feminism be right wing?

[DisgustedofManchester]

This popped up on twitter today ( its an image I cannot share that basically says that 90% of the news that fairplayforwomen interacts with leans right ) and its an interesting question especially with regard to gender critical feminism because the ideology with regards to trans rights and trans people does match the views of traditionally conservative groups like men's rights activists, the christian right, conservative politics and the generally socially conservative.

The conundrum is that I see many GC accounts also being for example anti-brexit which is not a right wing position or is it a case of my enemy's enemy is my friend? Even if they are anti-feminists as well. Or is right wing feminism where women now feel more represented?

I don't think that's really even a relevant question re "gender critical". Its a basic question of material reality - hence why people from vastly different political perspectives agree.

I am always so perplexed when the term TERF is used - as if its only some small group of feminists who know that women don't have dicks....99.9999% of the world know that there are two sexes (and yes some intersex). It's not a political belief. It's reality.

If “gc” feminists think that the next item on the agenda after shoving all the trans and gay people back in the closet isn’t shoving women back in the kitchen they’re massively deluded. Access to safe, legal abortion is fundamental to women and girls’ safety but some people want to be all hands across the aisle with people who want to take it away. I wonder if criminalising abortion would hurt girls and women more or less than inclusive language in nhs documents, and trans women in toilets? Hmmmmmmmm

I don't think you can neatly call feminism left or right wing.
Feminism centres women. Politics shifts around.

Biology doesn't do politics, science is neutral. it simply is. How do you politicise "On the origin of species" or the "Human Genome Project", you can't because they are admired and accepted by right, left and centre.
Twenty eight UK Prime Ministers have been educated at Oxford University, they would have been a mix of right, left and centrist views, this would be the same of people who are feminists or hold gender critical views. I am GC, but consider myself centre-left.

I find this helpful when such questions arise.

ideology with regards to trans rights and trans people does match the views of traditionally conservative groups

I don't think it does. Crucially conservative groups are not critical of gender, they believe that gender roles are innate and natural. (Men should behave like men, women are from the kitchen/venus and all that bullshit). If someone calling themselves GC also believes this then I think they've misunderstood the critical part.

While the two groups may not believe humans are like clownfish or that sex is on a spectrum, the similarities end there.

Is it left wing to be feminist?

When I read the Communist Manifesto I seem to remember it advocated keeping women together in a collective so that they could have babies for the state.

I don't see women's rights as being inherently left wing.

I think that's about the measure of it Viper

I've met otherwise left-wing people who disagree with abortion, and otherwise right-wing types who were very supportive of gay marriage. I think the left/right labels are not as clear cut as people (specifically those in politics and media) would like them to be.

This country's two female prime ministers came from the Tories, not Labour. They were women who were elected fairly, on merit. Whatever you think of their political record, that is about as feminist as it gets.

I also think it's worth repeating that Thatcher is the only UK PM who had a science degree, and had a proper job before politics. Ludicrous that this is so unusual.

Define tight wing.

I’ve been called right wing for denouncing Corbyn. . I’ve been called a facist for voting Tory at the last election and also for not supporting an anarchist group like “anti fa”. Words like Right Wing and Fascist are bandied around WAY to freely by those who perhaps need to have a hard think about it.

As far as I'm concerned, feminism is about standing up for women and girls. It is not the plaything of any political party, although I realise some of them believe otherwise.

I think Andrea Dworkin had a handy quote for it, as she often did.

its an interesting question especially with regard to gender critical feminism because the ideology with regards to trans rights and trans people does match the views of traditionally conservative groups

OP I'm not sure I understand what you think or mean here?

My first take was that you were asserting that ideology around trans rights is Conservative? If so I agree to an extent:

The desire to mask homosexuality by encouraging trans identification seems socially conservative, especially when you consider the forced sex reassignment surgery performed on gay men in Iran.

The fragmentation of people into individuals (over 100 genders, multiple very specific sexualities) is an echo of Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society, only the individual" and is in direct opposition to the class analysis upon which socialism was built.

This fragmentation is also famously employed to encourage us to spend more money (hence the invention of pink for girls, blue for boys). This pro capitalist stance is politically Conservative. Also supported by the way in which trans people are forced to become life long medical consumers - the hormones, the breasts removed or fake breasts added. All makes quite a lot of money for some people!

Reading the rest of your post I'm less clear of your meaning. Perhaps you are not from the UK? Brexit was not split along left /right lines. It was far more about middle class metropolitan elite /the somewhat ignored rest of the population (or racists /anti racists, depending on who you listen to!)

You can't really call being gender critical an ideology. It is just a belief in material reality and science. Whilst I'm a far left aligned socialist and aspiring radical feminist, I still expect many right wingers to understand science and reality, at least in the UK.

Depends what is meant by "leans right"?

Huge difference between right of centre (subjective anyway), and far right.

And of course, if left leaning media outlets wont cover certain stories then that only leaves the right leaning ones. So discussion of those stories will inevitably contain links to right leaning media outlets.

Well if you bear in mind that women are people and we all have different opinions and beliefs depending on our differing experiences of life then Is right wing feminism where women now feel more represented? is a bit of a daft question isnt it?

When I read the Communist Manifesto I seem to remember it advocated keeping women together in a collective so that they could have babies for the state.

It actually says the complete opposite:

"The bourgeois sees his wife as a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production."

"Keeping women in a collective" is what Marx says the bourgeois THINKS the Communists want, because the bourgeois sees women as property.

Here we go again 🙄

Where's the meme about how many TRAs are also sex offenders? Cause there seems to be a lot of those two groups overlapping and yet nobody on the TRA side ever seems to worry about that.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

90% of the news that fairplayforwomen interacts with leans right

What does this gibberish even mean?

IKR? 😂

Access to safe, legal abortion is fundamental to women and girls’ safety but some people want to be all hands across the aisle with people who want to take it away.

So let's imagine that left-wingers and right-wingers cooperate on a particular issue like protecting women's sports... and?

Should there never be cooperation because conservatives hold evil view X, or lefties hold evil view Y, so they should never work together on anything at all?

If they work together on protecting women's sports, does that mean that in a few years time there will be a ban on abortion? Or will it give any help to the anti-abortion cause?

They are very different issues, and I'm not sure how supporting one of them, (protect female sports), means that things will spiral out of control and society will head towards an abortion ban...

I considered myself left wing for most of my adult life, until the left started to eat itself. Consider myself a pragmatist now.

Obviously there is some level of agreement between GC feminists and conservatives, but also obviously the perspectives are different.

Although for something like women's sports, I think they agree, and they probably agree for the exact same reasons: they know that biological males have an advantage and so they therefore view it as unfair to let them compete against women. This isn't even really a left vs right issue; people across the spectrum can all come to the conclusion that it's unfair.

As far as I know, while conservatives may admit that gender roles are "social construct" to a significant degree, they would likely also view them as having also a substantial basis in biology. So there are real differences in typical traits between men and women that go beyond socialization; even if individuals can show a high degree of variability.

There’s a DisgustedofManchester that frequently comments on articles in The Times. Is that you? Does that mean your “interactions lean right”? Or does it not count in the same way as FPFW because you’re only “leaning right” with your interactions to tell women to stop protecting women’s rights?

I am more right wing than centrist. And I'm a feminist.

Maybe one day the Labour Party will have a female leader. I wonder when that will be?