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.

But the progressive Left are partly responsible for the Right. By their smug sanctimonious attitudes they have alienated people who would otherwise naturally vote for social Democratic parties. These people either cannot bring themselves to vote or actively vote for populist like Boris Johnson. When you tell women to be kind to men dressed as women and that you dont care about their rights, and tell the working classes that they are stupid and racist you can't expect them to vote for you. That allows the Right to do what they want to do, because people don't want to be patronised, belittled and vilified by people telling you that they are better than you. Luckily the Labour Party are more willing to put their radical wing in a box than the Tories are to deal with their loony Right wing.

Can you describe, or explain, what specific Tory policy you would say is misogynistic?

Like I said I hope it’s not a rallying cry, even though I don’t like the misogyny of the far left and can critique it at length, I would never vote for a right wing party.

And most peple on this thread are left leaning. It doesnt really matter what the Right do. They will do what they do. They are what they say on the tin. What I would like is a credible party to vote for, without the fear that they will take away my rights as a woman or mock me for expressing concern for children being sexuslised in the classroom.

I believe you'll have to wait for a Badenoch Cates Braverman led Tory party to vote for in 2028/9. There is really going to be a divergence in the appeal of the two main parties, for the first time since Thatcher squared up to Michael Foot in the early 80s.

No way do the Tories lose big next year (which I think they will) and they decide on the usual Cameron type compromise leader. One of these three forthright women will lead the party and really appeal to so much of what GC women will need after 4-5 years of Starmer policy drift on gender (and race etc).

I know this isn’t an AIBU post but YANBU OP. As someone who was brought up as a dye in the wool conservative I was adamant I would never again vote Tory after the shambles of the current government. I was prepared to let slide the whole gender debate but after hearing various voices defend Hamas despite the stories of children and babies being butchered and all the whataboutary I honestly can’t see myself voting Labour next year now. Which means I won’t be voting for anyone.

I hope that won't happen. I am planning in voting Labour ( maybe naively) hoping that the tide is turning on this, and that the harm will become too much for any government to justify. I can see even Stonewall and Mermaids desperately trying to backpedal at the moment trying not to be sued out of existence.

@Angrycat2768 I so agree with you. The sheer idiocy of the left is paving the way for the return of Trump in America - terrifying!

@sunnyseed - fortunately, Corbyn isn't the Labour leader anymore, and Starmer is not a Hamas apologist.

@RebelliousCow “What we are doing is rightfully critiquing what passes for the Left these days.”

What passes for the left these days? Nah, the left have always been such. At least they have in my lifetime anyway. All that’s happened is you don’t like this particular policy, but as other posters explained far better than I could this is where progressive ideology was always gonna lead.

This is such an interesting thread. One of the best I've read on MN.

Finding the insights from those who grew up in Marxist cultures particularly helpful – reminding me how easy it is to take aspects of my Western heritage for granted.

I find I'm having to rethink so much at the moment, particularly in politics (including identity politics) and faith. I value having a thoughtful space to engage with others' perspectives. Ta.

@PotteringPondering I think a lot of people, not just feminists, are re-evaluating their politics at the moment. Especially people who previously considered themselves left wing. Things have gotten so bad that the veil is lifting.

The left haven’t changed since at least the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, they were always thus but people didn’t seem to see it.

The progressive left’s view of men and women was always going to lead to the debate that is raging now. PIE in the 1970/80’s wasn’t a one off, it’s something some sections of the left have always had sympathies for. Some sections of the left have always harboured anti-Semites etc…

The greatest trick the left pulled was reframing morality and convincing people that their opinions weren’t just correct but moral, morally correct. It was only possible because traditional religion was in decline at the same time leaving a moral vacuum to be filled. Many people just want to be good and just took it for granted that the left were the moral side in the political debate and identified with it without really understanding what the left was and is.

Agree that PIE wasn't a one off, nor are some of the unfortunate comments recently about Hamas or antisemitisim in the party in general.

All that, and the debate about reality (biological sex) aside, I simply don't understand what Labour will offer economically which is different from the Tories.

I might vote for them if they seemed to be offering something hopeful and radically different (with detail, and evidence). Some of what's gone wrong in the UK is partly Labour's fault (e.g. PFI) and I haven't seen a single truly left wing proposal from Labour. Are they going to renationalise the rail network? Water? Electricity? No. At the moment we have all the disadvantages of private markets for these things and none of the benefits because it's not a free market.

I've seen literally no suggestions about how they're going to fix the broken state school sector to the benefit of children. Toothbrushing policy is such an insult and speaks to a fundamental lack of even the most basic grasp of the situation. Spending half a day in a school or even just attending a governing board meeting or talking to a couple of teachers would quite quickly give them valuable insight on the stupidity of that particular policy.

All I see are policies designed to appeal to a primary school level of understanding - it's insulting to voters, we're more clued in than that and definitely live in the real world, something Labour policy makers clearly don't do. I sort of feel that the collective wisdom of Mumsnet could come up with better policies than they've got. Their dreadful menopause policy, their dreadful toothbrushing in schools policy. It's all laughable, we could do better - we DO better on a daily basis. Are all the policy makers right out of uni? What happened to 'lived experience' (in the real world) being important? Or does that only matter when we're talking about transgender issues.

I just have zero confidence the economy would improve under Labour. I have quite a lot of confidence that they'd likely tank the economy like Truss, their ideas are so simplistic.

I feel I should caveat my 'primary school level of understanding' with the fact that when I mentioned toothbrushing in school my 6 year old thought it was insane with an 'ewww gross' and 'child X would definitely try and stick his toothbrush up his nose... and everyone elses'. So not even a primary school level at times...

Ask the Russian and Ukrainian civilians who is more terrifying - Trump or Biden.....

There was no war under Trump. Whereas Biden hadan active role in creating the war, and profiting off it. Biden has more blood on his hands.

Putin pretty much told us why he startled the war under Biden. He thought if Trump won a second term that he would pull America out of NATO and a NATO without America would be nothing for Russia to fear. He was waiting to see if this would happen before invading.

Trump is one of the few American Presidents in modern times that hasn’t started a war. He’s essentially an isolationist. I think that’s why the European leaders are terrified of him and hate him. They’re terrified of America withdrawing the US security umbrella that most of Europe lives under and Pax-Americana ending.

If Trump wins again I have no doubt that he will end the Ukraine war simply by telling Ukraine that he won’t keep sending military aid indefinitely. The USA have given over 100 Billion Dollars to Ukraine in military aid already and if that were to stop Ukraine would have to negotiate with Russia. The fighting would stop but the cost to Ukraine would be huge, they would permanently lose territory and be forced to amend their constitution to stay militarily neutral forever. Millions of Ukrainian citizens would find themselves living in a greater Russia. But the war would stop. I really think Trump would do this.

She wasn't saying they knew about viruses. She's suggesting that there were many rules in societies that came out of observations of what kinds of things tended to lead to disease or other problems.

People forget what life was like before the 20th century, and even up until the mid-20th century to some extent. Sex was, for obvious reasons, tightly associated with pregnancy. And it was also a very real vector for incurable diseases, including ones that would affect the babies that were born. VD used to be one of the major causes of blindness.

There were some pretty strong reasons that a society might like to encourage some kind of sexual exclusivity, and children were deeply important to the health of the community in many societies too.

I might vote for them if they seemed to be offering something hopeful and radically different (with detail, and evidence). Some of what's gone wrong in the UK is partly Labour's fault (e.g. PFI) and I haven't seen a single truly left wing proposal from Labour. Are they going to renationalise the rail network? Water? Electricity? No. At the moment we have all the disadvantages of private markets for these things and none of the benefits because it's not a free market.

I think a lot of this may be why they have embraced id politics.

They know they can't do most of the things that people might expect of a left wing government. They have no more money for services than the Tories do, and they know there is no money machine. Blair's fudge is not going to work now, and the days of just running into debt are gone.

In order to differentiate themselves they need something else. So they adopt these id politics ideas and use them to claim a moral standing over the Tories who don't embrace that thinking.

Yes there’s very little in it. A couple of very low benefit (if that) policies (VAT and non Dom) and gender ID

The one thing that has caught my attention that does concern me is Trump’s views on NATO as @Rabaula27 also says

They make up such a large part of it EU / U.K. are right to be concerned

I’m not sure if anyone has a more positive take, I’d be interested

It’s worth noting how belief in utopias leads many people on the hard-left into conspiracy theories.

From the right, political beliefs are fairly easy to understand, as they are based on the foundation that individuals and societies are driven by self interest, and, collectively, self interest pushes the world to be a better place. So, parents will choose the best schools for their children, and the competition this creates drives improvement in the school system. Disagreement is easily explained by the fact that self interest comes into conflict. The self interest of a rich person is to pay as little tax as possible, whilst the poor person might want more tax, and more benefits paid. People who think like this will see their intellectual opponents as wrong, but don’t necessarily need to see them as bad.

Conversely, there are a lot of people on the left who see their political beliefs as self-evidently correct, and necessary for building a utopia. And, a utopia, of course, will make the world better for rich people as well as poor people. You can see your political opponents as wrong … but that line of thinking only goes so far, and an easier (though obviously wrong) explanation is that the policies of utopia fail because they are being undermined by capitalists, Freemasons, the WEF, Rupert Murdoch, or whatever secret group you want to focus upon.

So Labour is just Tory economic policy more or less with a side order of condescension and attempts at totalitarian control even over issues as basic as biological sex.

Not really that appealing.

I don't understand why everyone keeps saying 'but we need Labour in for the economy'. There is absolutely no evidence things would be different, far from it - they keep issuing statements that they're not going to change tax laws etc. And seem to have a Trussian level understanding of economics.

Yes, Rishi is also unappealing in many ways but he did inherit an economic shit show and stopped things getting worse.

I don't want to vote for any of the main parties (still hoping I'll have an independent/ party if women candidate) but if it's a choice between pretty much the same economic policies and a party that lets me state men can't be women and doesn't support the police arresting me for taking a photo of a sticker vs the opposite then I know who I'll vote for.

You can guarantee, though, that most of Labour MPs who are vocal supporters of Gender Self Id will also be Hamas apologists. There is a definite over-lap. That includes my Labour MP. Not a chance I'll be voting for her.

To an extent - but the advent of american identity politics and its capture of the British Left, and the further fracturing - with the likes of Owen Jones and many Labour MPs being natural Corbynistas and Momentum followers - lies at the root of the current disillusionment for many of us.

I know the Left has always been prone to factionalism and extremism. I've witnessed that myself from close involvement with Leftist circles, and I live in Liverpool where the Militant Tendency once took control.

don't understand why everyone keeps saying 'but we need Labour in for the economy'. There is absolutely no evidence things would be different, far from it - they keep issuing statements that they're not going to change tax laws etc. And seem to have a Trussian level understanding of economics.

I think fir me, maybe its just that rewarding abject failure by putting the Tories in again would allow them to carry on as usual or even worse, while allowing the Left ( who really hate Starmer) the chance to take over Labour again. I woukd have said KS would have had a better chance of improving relations with the EU, which would improve the economy without them even doing anything, but Sunak seems to be quietly rowing back anyway on that. I think there is an outside chance of electoral and Constitutional reform with Labour whereas there is a cat in hells chance with the Tories. I agree they need to be more radical, and renationalise the railways and water. They are both disastrous. There is also a chance that because they don't have as much of a nimby contingent they may build more houses. But that is all probably hope over experience on my part.

The war wouldn't stop if Trump is elected. It might pause, but even this is unlikely. Remember this is the same war that started in 2014 restarted. Remember Russia claims a large amount of territory still in Ukraine hands. So they might stop rebuild their army and attack again in a few years. Which is why Ukraine has no reason to stop fighting until they have a better defensive position i.e recapture a bunch more land or they are in serious trouble of defeat.

However whether or not Trump cuts US support for the war [he has form for backtracking and remember ultimately this war is very good for US business and Trump is all about money] it doesn't mean other countries won't continue to support Ukraine. I mean Putin and others have threatened Poland and other countries. Why not stop Russia now? Why wait till it is stronger? They obviously don't want peace except on their terms i.e Ukraine defeat.

I can't see UK, or much of Europe abandoning Ukraine right now, it will depend on situation in summer 2024 if it is still stalemate next year then it may be different.