The misogynist left

[catduckgoose]

I'm on the left and have been all my life, but I've been thinking a lot recently about the misogynist strand of leftist politics and how it is that their views cluster around so many women-hating beliefs, such as:

1. TWAW and gender ideology - seeing male desires as more important than the needs of women and girls.
2. Glorifying sex work - disregarding the physical and mental harm to women, in favour of what best supports male lechery.
3. Uncritical support of Islam - ignoring the inherent misogyny and violence of men against women, and using oppression narratives to excuse this.

The last one there has been a huge amount of in the past few days in context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, I made the mistake of watching war footage of Hamas' brutality, particularly towards women (Shani Louk video is absolutely horrifying), and then I see people on the left, mostly men, defending all this as a just cause and crying 'Islamophobia' to anyone disagreeing.

The frustrating thing is those who promote these views don't even recognise their misogyny and sometimes even try to twist it to paint anyone criticising these views as misogynist!

Anyway I just wanted to open a conversation about this and was wondering if anyone else feels the same and has other examples of similar beliefs amongst the misogynist left.

It was comments made by J K Rowling decrying leftist men slagging off Theresa May (a Scottish Labour supporting writer called TM a whore on Twitter) in 2017 that made me sit up and take notice of her political view points which have hit the nail on the head every time since.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jk-rowling-blasts-writer-in-explosive-twitter-tirade-for-calling-theresa-may-a-whore-over-dup-deal-a3561891.html

Direct link to JKR’s original Twitter thread: https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/873207949564497920?s=61&t=haffcpWC9mwmf6zkaHVRIg

Yes I think part of the problem is the laser focus on the end result of the socialist utopia, so anything is a ok as long as they get there in the end. Anyone who disagrees or questions them is against Utopia so is automatically wrong. How you get there is irrelevant. If Utopia is not forthcoming ( for example, because Corbyn wasn't elected) its because mist people in the country try are brainwashed/ stupid/ evil. They themselves are brainwashed into blindly believing what the Left tells them that they don't question at all.

It's hard not to think it's at least partly due to antisemitism given the crashing silences about Myanmar, Tibet, etc, never mind other things e.g. the racist policies that exist in Malaysia which are biased against Chinese and Indians. Israel is held to a very different standard, and often when that standard is being applied no account is taken of the practical difficulties of the situation and the limited alternatives.

@Angrycat2768
Yes I think part of the problem is the laser focus on the end result of the socialist utopia, so anything is a ok as long as they get there in the end

I had an unedifying experience a few years ago. A Chinese academic was giving a presentation about her book, which dissected a particularly deadly episode under Chairman Mao, which this academic's parents and other family members had (mostly) survived.

At the end, an aging Leftists (there were several in the department) went off on one about how, really we should think twice about writing books like this that were so critical about what had been a Utopian project, because they made people doubt the wisdom of pursuing Utopia, and in the modern world nobody was seeking Utopia any longer.

The Chinese academic looked, frankly, astounded at this diatribe urging self-censorship, and I was thinking, well thank God most have people have stopped seeking Utopia because every bloody time it seems to end in some combo of massacres, mass arrests for wrongthink, witch burnings and gulags. Never mind famines when bad luck or your fab new version of agriculture (or a combo of the two) leads to mass crop failures and because you live in Utopia, you have to claim everything is AOK and thus must refuse all offers of help.

Which brings me back to what @LongLizStridesAgain was saying about gradual change being ultimately more productive and humane than the mad urge to sweep it all away.

Wonderful thread, very interesting, many thanks to all contributors.

I have a friend with a Chinese academic wife at Russell Group uni. She is both revered as a woman and non white. Yet she's reviled for being anti Left wing (survivor of Mao cultural Revolution) and being fervently anti-woke.

Indeed she feels the mixed attitudes daily, identarily uplifted as a non Western woman. And relegated as a non believer in a socialist future or that her nationality or ethnicity should control her politics or attitude to trans, affirmative action, free speech on campus.

As I say, the Left are lost. We're gonna need to have one term of Starmer and his quotas and unions predominance in public policy, to see how much.

It’s interesting that East Asian and Chinese people are often the most egregious victims of aggressive DIE policies. The recent Supreme Court decision in the US on race based affirmative action in college admission decisions hinged on the explicit discrimination Asian Americans faced. Admissions departments were marking them down on their personality and social interaction skills as it was the only subjective part of the assessment and they were just so strong academically.

I recall Ayaan Hirsi Ali saying something along the lines of "Islam is very much about Mohammed pre his time in Medina, and after his time in Medina. After Medina, Islam became more war like/warrior-like. It is then that it all becomes about jihad and holy war. ( I'll have to try and dig out some quotes)

It’s interesting that East Asian and Chinese people are often the most egregious victims of aggressive DIE policies

Ithink it's because it's heavily intellectual theory based from a place of relative comfort. Mostly by peopie who have the luxury of time to pontificate, coupled with the idea that because they are educated intellectuals, reading a book on a subject is superior to practical experience. So people with actual experience who don't do what they are supposed to do ( working class Tories, Black and Asian Tories, people who have lived under Communist regimes and escaped) are all too stupid to know what's good for them- because they read lots of books and know they are innocent right. Atheism and humanism has similar traits and are often full of the same kind of people.

The double standards are absolutely antisemitic. Neither China nor Myanmar came in for the same amount of vitriol for their treatment of Muslim minorities as Israel regularly does.
I remember during the Myanmar troubles, our local Buddhist centre was open as usual, no problems there: the synagogue was daubed with "Free Palestine".

There was a big anti-China moment, oh, twenty five years ago now, where Free Tibet was the most popular thing for campus activism. It was very very faddish and all of the cool people were into t, lots of pseudo-Buddhist stuff too.

China just doesn't give a shit though which is maybe why it hasn't maintained the same momentum. They aren't going to budge, and while the government may deal with them they don;t ally with them really.There are quite a few people in the west connected to Israel, including people and organizations who have some ability to lobby government. It's possibly more compelling to fight an enemy that you can engage with in some sense.

Yeah but you get a choice of deaths, and they all sound exciting. Much like pissing off Kim Jong Un in North Korea, you get an exciting end like a pack of dogs or an anti-aircraft gun.

@LongLizStridesAgain

This is why when humans were more tribal, there was a big taboo specifically against being the recieving partner

That's interesting. I always assumed it was a dislike of gender non conformity or of a man being submissive; as in, if you have seen it, the scene in The Sopranos when they get so angry that Vito was, "catching not pitching".

Yes that us interesting. Like all religious rules, they have a basis in health and safety from 1000 years ago, like not eating pork ir shellfish because of the risk of good poisoning etc. Its like taking the Health and Safety at Work Act as the Word of God on 1000 years time.

Makes a good case for how warped progressives have become. Deserves its own thread imo.

This is why when humans were more tribal, there was a big taboo specifically against being the recieving partner, the 'bottom' in anal sex (you see this in other ancient cultures too like ancient Greece) because, of course, if you'd done that and gotten a nasty viral infection, you might then infect your wives and concubines and damage the tribe.

This reads like justification after the fact. There's no way they knew anything about "viruses". People don't even have a good understanding of infection, now. Proof is the fact that so many people blindly accepted the mask mandates (now accepted as being utterly useless).

As for AOC condemning terrorism, well good for her. Remember though, she's from New York. If she ever came out against Israel, that would be the end of her political career. All her funding would dry up and the money is all Dems care about.

I actually feel like we’re sitting ducks atm

And we’ve done it to ourselves

The left hegemony in institutions is entrenched

We lack the levers for change

Looking at threads tonight it’s depressing

@LongLizStridesAgain

”This is a very astute comment. Yes, the Far Left and especially the Progressive Far Left believes that women can only have equity if they suppress or ignore many of the biological functions and traits that make them women, and behave as much like men as possible.

The Progressive Far Left also has a problem with 'toxic masculinity' (whatever the hell that is) and dislikes and ridicules many of the things that men, especially working class men, often enjoy. It also dislikes the traditionally masculine spheres of the military and heavy manual labour.

The Progressive Far Left would ideally like it if all differences between men and women were denied and men and women were as similar as possible - a kind of grey, characterless androgynous hodge podge in spectacles, clutching a copy of Foucault - but with women bowing to men's leadership and desires, and making the sandwiches, and accepting 'polycules', of course.”

That is a brilliant comment. Thank you. You have so articulately explained exactly what the progressive left believes and why progressive leftism with its view of men and women leads directly to where we are now.

What I find so funny is how many people there are on this site who are so obviously on the progressive left or intend to vote for progressive parties and are against what is happening now and are in total denial about how their liberal guardianista politics lead us directly to this point.

women used to die quite frequently from utis and kidney infections. They might not have labelled them viruses or infections but they certainly experienced hem and other kinds of inconveniences.

such cynicism about “dems” like the gop aren’t exactly the same in their money grubbing.

And yes the left have a lot of problematic beliefs as discussed. But I hope this thread isn’t a rallying cry for the right who, in terms of economic and social policy, are currently doing more to harm the working classes, women and marginalised groups than left wing pontificating currently can do pr could do in the future. The right are destroying human rights and chasing populism. If there was a right wing misogyny post it would be revealing the many problems caused by the party that has been in power for the last 13 years and is largely actually responsible for where we are now.

I can’t see any sign of this thread being a rallying cry for the right, just an intelligent and illuminating discussion.

If the last 13-14 years had been Labour, and a Tory govt was being ushered in, I'm sure women here would be dissecting their policies.

The fact is that's it's Labour proposing weakening the female sex class, and so much of this policy is informed by the misogynist utopian progressive Left movement. That's why the spotlight is on them. And not helped by watching the activist Left tie themselves up in knots over Hamas brutality.

It's not a rallying cry for the Right at all, that quite makes me shudder.
How people who support groups like Hamas can describe themselves as on the Left at all, defeats me.

Well said.

What we are doing is rightfully critiquing what passes for the Left these days. The Left many of used to identify with.

Just because you critique something it does not follow that you are its supposed opposite.