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.

US funding is so high for Ukraine EU / U.K. will struggle to pick up the burden

If posters want to worry about something I’d also include Trump taking US out of NATO

Hopefully just posturing, but concerning in any case

The NATO business was also something that the Left decided was the fault of Ukraine and NATO. No matter that there was little talk of NATO expansion, and what has happened is that Russian aggression has caused the expansion of NATO, because Finland, who had agreed not to join NATO forvthexsame of peace have decided that Russia may well decide to take back bits of Finland that they had 200 years ago.If the US pull out of NATO I would not be surprised if Russia also decides Poland is part of Greater Russia too. The war may stop, but only once Russia has taken out half of Ukraine, Poland and anyone else who they decide is actually Russian. I read an article by Matthew Syed a few months ago, where he made the point that perceived pacifists often end up blaming victims for their own invasion. Because if only they didn't fight back, there would be peace. They are doing the same with Hamas and Israel. And you could say similar when it comes to trans rights, taking a weaker and historically marginalised group (women) and defending trans rights activists' ( mainly middle aged, straight white men) aggression against them. Because if only women shut up about it, there would be ' peace'.

@EasternStandard

”The one thing that has caught my attention that does concern me is Trump’s views on NATO”

It’s well known. Google it. Trump is an American nationalist, he doesn’t want the American tax payer to underwrite the defence of the western world and he doesn’t want the American soldiers to die for it either. Trump makes complete sense from the point of view of an American wanting to put their own country first.

America withdrawing its security umbrella is a threat to the American lead liberal rules based world order but it’s no threat to an American who doesn’t want to police the world… And that’s the real reason the western elites hate and fear him, they just won’t admit it and instead say they’re opposed to him because he’s a misogynist or a tax dodger or for a whole heap of other reasons that they never cared about before.

you can take my opinions or leave them but I think the posters here who think Trump won’t end the Ukraine war if elected are living in cloud cuckoo land. Ukraine can’t fight Russia for long without American backing, it’s not like Europe can supply them instead. Ukraine would be forced to the negotiating table and have to surrender land under a legally binding treaty in international law. What was left of Ukraine also be forced to disarm and adopt a new constitution acceptable to Russia that would forbid them from joining military alliances or rearming. I have no doubt Donald Trump would do this. He’d just look at the situation and say war is costly and America isn’t funding it and end the war. The European leaders would be outraged no doubt but they don’t have the military resources to allow Ukraine to keep fighting Russia so there is nothing they could do.

@Angrycat2768 ”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.”

lol what? Starmer hasn’t changed his opinions at all. He’s just learned triangulation from Blair. Starmer will do what he wants to do and talk like he’s doing the opposite.

Possibly not. But he isn't the only one making decisions, and he may not think its worth the fight

@Rabaula27 I’m not disagreeing in fact I listened to an interesting programme here on that very question

The Briefing Room on R4 if anyone is interested

It’s that that put the spooks on me as NATO can’t continue as successfully without US, and US backs Ukraine far out weighing EU / UK

The American commentator rightly pointed out how concerned EU would. She’s not wrong, I am too

Andrew Sullivan addressed this question of the left supporting Hamas, and not just in a rather abstract way, today in his essay. I think he touches on some really significant points:

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/darkness-visible-46e?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=61371&post_id=137927858&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTU5MDg5MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTM3OTI3ODU4LCJpYXQiOjE2OTcyMTk5MzYsImV4cCI6MTY5OTgxMTkzNiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTYxMzcxIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.ikzJZBZwenrKRZeW2OMwtZRiMhEyLthMhKMxHxsBtWY&r=orfqi&utm_medium=email

An except I though contained the main points he made about why the left has responded like this:

Do you see now why some of us have been calling out this “social justice” movement for years? It should not be a shock to know where BLM stands. Their founder, Patrisse Cullors, urged us “to end the imperialist project called Israel” as far back as 2015. And from the perspective of critical theory, Hamas is obviously in the right. CRT emphatically places the rights and dignity of the individual far below the right of the non-white masses to defeat “white/Jewish supremacy.” Of course they support Hamas. Palestinians are merely punching up — and that exonerates them of any moral culpability. Just as African-Americans cannot commit a hate crime, so Hamas definitionally cannot commit terror.

Once you see the world in this way — as groups of the oppressed and oppressors, with the oppressed always justified in their resistance to the oppressors — the rights of individual Jews, or whites, or Asians, or even dissident non-whites are irrelevant. It’s all about “power structures” and “systems” and “context”. All morality is relative to privilege. There is not a trace of universalism among the woke left, not a single objective measurement of morality except what is justified in response to “oppression”. And ideas matter. Grewal, the Yale professor quoted above, responded to this week’s bloodshed with admirable woke clarity: “There is no question who the oppressors are [and] who the oppressed are. And somehow people are confused by this. White supremacy never stops being shocking to me.” The actual victims of the Nazis are now their equivalent.

It has been gratifying to see some liberals this week wake up to what critical theory really is, and who their alleged allies actually are. This is Judith Butler, a campus goddess, and the critical gender theorist behind much of the madness of the alphabet cult, speaking at an “Anti-War Teach-In” at Berkeley in 2006:

"Understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important. That does not stop us from being critical of certain dimensions of both movements. It doesn’t stop those of us who are interested in non-violent politics from raising the question of whether there are other options besides violence."

A leftist can be critical of “certain dimensions” of Hamas — its brutal theocracy, its subjugation of women, its murder of gays, its Nazi-style anti-Semitism. But they’re still on our side! They’re still battling whiteness. “Extremely important” to remember that. And it is not up to us to condemn their violence, remember, just to explore “options besides violence” ourselves. And you wonder why our leading universities couldn’t quite clear their throats this week? That’s how deep the rot has gotten in academe. I’m increasingly ashamed to be a Harvard alum.

It's extraordinary, isn't it, the level of ignorance. As if every Israeli is white, or even Jewish. I don't know if they just wilfully ignore the Arab Israelis or the Mizrahis. Perhaps nuance is too much for some people who are so blinkered.
I saw quite a sad post from a Black Israeli woman who was upset that the BLM movement didn't support black women like her at this time.

I don't think people's actual skin colour is so much the point in this type of thinking, except when it is. "Whiteness" in their thinking has an abstract quality to it and it involves quite a lot of things that seem odd.

Well, whatever you think of the pros and cons of Sunak and Braverman, the identarian Left only see the "wrong" kind of brown.

What I'm so amazed at is that you could not as a Rightist white use anywhere near the same tone about any black or brown person whom the Left revere. Or any PoC, period.

My DM put a meme on the family WhatsApp that said something like ' in the 70's there were signs saying ' no dogs and no Asians, and now there is an Indian in No 10' and my DH who is very leftist said ' Look at that rubbish your mother has said' . I said that actually why is that wrong? I disagree with what the Tories have done over 13 years and the man is a Brexiteer but in one generation a PoC is Prime Minister, and that is something to be proud of over and above him being rich, or a twat or a Tory.

So Hamas are progressive to them, but they would probably think a leftie isn't pure enough if they have the "wrong" definition of woman.

Strange that Hamas can be forgiven for terrorist murder etc. and probably also having the wrong definition of woman.

I have suspected that one reason for the emphasis on "white supremacy" by the American far left, is that it's a new tactic to attack capitalism.

As in, if you just openly advocate for "anti capitalism" it hasn't worked that well. So dress it up as "anti racism" work to say that white supremacy needs to be dismantled, and part of white supremacy is the capitalist system. If you don't agree with their economic policies you are then on the "racist" side.

What did your husband say to that, Angrycat?

One of the other things that I've seen several people not about the identity politics types is that they don't seem willing to admit that there is any kind of historical progress around things like race. John MsWhorter talks about meeting people who claim that being black in 2023 is just like being black in 1923, or 1823, which is clearly ridiculous. Like Colin Kaepernic comparing working for the NFL to slavery.

I'm not sure what that's all about, but it seems to be a common way of thinking on the left now.

What did your husband say to that, Angrycat?

He said it wasn't an achievement for Asians if a multi millionaire from Winchester became Prime Minister. But I think it was Jess Phillips who said when she was growing up she disagreed with everything Margaret Thatcher said, but she never, as a girl believed a woman couldn't be Prime Minister because she saw her there every day. ( He's White, university educated with middle class university educated family going back generations, I'm an Indian second generation immigrant, yes with a middle class Indian background)

As I said I'm not a Tory but I do think Labour need to ask themselves why it seems so easy from women, Black and Asian prople to get to the top of the Tory Party but it is seemingly impossible for them to get to the top of the Labour Party.

Strange that Hamas can be forgiven for terrorist murder etc. and probably alsohaving the wrong definition of woman.

Iran who bankroll Hamas are seen as great because they basically give any man who wants it sex change surgery. They sweep under the carpet the throwing of Gay people off buildings, because that is the reason they are so open about trans. Better to be trans than gay.

Thank you everyone BTW. Ghis thread is very therapeutic! I can't discuss this irl.

So many excellent posts on here, expressing what I feel, and clarifying the whole issue. Thanks, everyone.

Identity politics has been an absolute disaster for the left. I find it really repugnant that so many people of colour have said the worst racism they have experienced is when they have expressed views not in line with the received left position.

I have also never really understand terms like the gay “community”, what does Owen Jones really have in common with Julie Bindel for example? Surely a white working class woman in a minimum hours job probably has more in common with a white working class man than a high earning privately educated woman who comes from generations of wealth and privilege.

And as for Iran, I wonder do the left think the women there who are currently fighting the compulsory wearing of the hijab are Islamophobic?

I did enjoy the spectacle of the Harvard student group (is there a more privileged group on earth) enthusiastically backing Hamas’s actions last Saturday and then desperately back pedalling when a group of hedge funds asked for their names so they can ensure they never employ them.

Thanks to all the knowledgeable contributors to this thread I feel that I am undergoing a rather low key epiphany.

I consider myself fairly well educated but am beginning to feel the scales fall from my eyes. I am ashamed to say that I had fallen for the whole "left good, right bad" rhetoric, right up until the whole gender ideology mess.

The reaction to the current crisis in Israel and Palestine has further woken me up to some of the hypocrisy of so many people.

I hope this thread continues ...

@HarleyStreetHeathen I really recommend forums where “right” and “left” representatives are pitted against each other in a constructive way. I find it amazing how often my agreement switches from one to the other depending on the issue. Rod Liddle and Suzi Boniface on Times Radio on Saturday mornings is one I enjoy.

There are a lot of podcasts like this although Alistair Campbell / Rory Stewart and Ed Balls/ George Osborne are imo examples of forums where people are presented as having diverging views but actually agree on pretty much everything !

Thanks @Teddleshon - may give those a listen, although not sure I have the stomach for Ed Balls and George Osborne as I find them equally insufferable!

Thanks @Teddleshon . I have a Times subscription but don't bother with Times Radio for some reason. That sounds interesting. Hardliners on the Left and Right have a lot more in common than they like to admit- as we see with the support for Islamist regimes ( who I would consider pretty Hard, if not far Right) and the British and American hard Left.

Omg I agree on Ed Balls and George Osborne, the latter probably wins in insufferability though 😁

Cmon! Of course they all agree. If there was genuine disagreement, they wouldn't allow us to vote.

It's not called the LibLabCon UniParty for nothing.

These Centrist Dad podcasts aptly demonstrate one thing. That politics is a sham, that we'll be served a shit sandwich every 4-5 years, the only choice being do you want white or brown bread.

Does anyone think we'll ever be offered a genuine binary choice? On women's rights, borders, divergence from NetZero?

I'm making no value judgement, but the main parties agree on trans rights, on migration, on NetZero.

And these self satisfied politicos from apparently different parties absolutely all get on like a house on fire on their broadcasts.

Remember that when you go out to vote.