Actual gender critical left

[JumpingPumpkin]

I read this on their FB page today. I'm under no illusions as to whether Trump is genuinely supportive of women's rights (I don't believe he is), however I don't see how any of this was going to get resolved with the insane left in power.

There was no indication that any rollback was going to happen with Biden/Harris. I'm just wondering if anyone can comment on this as I do feel Trump is going to be a disaster in other areas.

"Ruth Serwotka:

"I'm not disappointed or shocked to see a large number of women who claim to be 'gender critical' embrace Trump and his billionaire oligarchy. It was written in the politics of many of them years ago.

Repeatedly I and other socialist feminists pointed out the ultra right wing drift, the myopic, endless focus on one thing to the point of banality, the reactionary evolution towards the Proud Boys and the shift towards upholding of traditional gender norms that implies.

Many of these women have become the enablers of a new age of reaction in America and elsewhere. They're currently on Musks social media platform cracking stupid jokes about the world not being in the grip of lunatics. They're celebrating as a victory that Trump has declared the existence of only two sexes (as if he's a deity).

There is zero focus on the fact Trump knows for sure which is the better sex, or his complaint that malign feminine energy, otherwise known as feminism, has brought America to its knees. No worries for our GC's. Nothing to see. Let's say we've won!

Well, biological sex is real for sure, but women have won nothing with Tumps election and could well lose everything, especially reproductive rights.

As matters progress I'm interested to see whether the "GCs" will unravel in the face of mass deportations of women and children, or enforced child bearing or the loss of freedom for lesbian and gay sexuality. Will they admit their hapless, clueless niavety or will they finally go down as red hot fascists in the end?"

AGCL seem to spend most of their time attacking other women for doing feminism wrong, but I don't want to dismiss all the good work and organising that they've done, so happy to hear more about it.

I've been waiting for this article for about 15 years. So much common sense I could weep.

I'm already seeing this argument quite a lot.

I've been asking "Isn't that true the other way round? That by insisting on a maximalist position - eg. sport, the right wing has been enabled?"

So far only response has been "f*ck off."

RoyalCorgi the EqA with it's woolly language and unclear definitions is one of the issues that has led to the current shit show, that and the GRA both brought in by Labour Governments and both of which Labour claim to be incredibly proud of. Labour knew the problems that would come down the line, they with the GRA and they ploughed on regardless. They knew it was a misogynistic, homophobic and sexist Law, they knew it would have a negative impact on women and their rights and they'd made damn sure that they protected the right of primogeniture for males.

I too am sick of this constant - Left Good, Right Bad rhetoric, its childish and shows a lack of ability to think.

See similar with some Labour supporters on here and many who also now moan the current government polices get criticized as if somehow no one should dare as if they are just the "good guys" and their polices aren't adversely affecting people's lives.

It's so damn tiresome.

Great post!

When asked to describe what the qualities, or values, associated with thinking and perspectives that could be considered more to the 'right' - many, who consider themselves to be of 'the Left' simply come up with negative value judgements. There seems to be no understanding of the actual foundational principles or values that inspire 'right wing' thinking. These value judgements are predicated entirely on good/bad polarised thinking, and as such, are entirely emotive.

I agree that gender ideology stems from typical Left wing thinking styles and patterns of the sort you mention. In fact I'd say gender ideology is the natural outgrowth of the sort of equality feminism which seeks to reject anything to do with perceived feminine roles. Which perceives being a woman only in terms of oppression - in which women are forever victims of patriarchal oppression and male violence.

It is assumed that capitalism and 'patriarchy' go hand in hand and fighting one means fighting the other. Women have to be 'liberated' from both. Liberated to be, effectively, non gendered beings - with no features which distinguish them from males - other than different body parts.

Gendersim has really thrown a spanner in the works, and caused something of a crisis for those who cling to Left identities. Rather than re-assessing the whole shebang - they instead have to insist that Gender ideology has nothing to do with Left wing thinking, or Left wing patterns of perceiving the world.

I agree, it is tiresome, and frankly, this Labour government has so far been a disappointment from start to finish. If the Tories were doing this (getting rid of winter fuel allowance, building a third runway etc), Labour supporters would be furious.

From my point of view, it's easier to talk about broad principles. As a person who thinks of herself as left-wing, I believe in: proper funding of health, education and public services such as parks and libraries; a minimum wage; a welfare safety net for people who need it; protections for people at work, including health and safety regulations, statutory maternity pay, minimum annual leave and so on; plenty of public housing for those who need it; anti-discrimination legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of sex, sexuality, race or disability.

Those all used to be considered fairly fundamental left-wing ideas. I am not going to stop believing in these things just because so many people who call themselves left-wing have turned out to be a bunch of tossers.

I agree, it is tiresome, and frankly, this Labour government has so far been a disappointment from start to finish. If the Tories were doing this (getting rid of winter fuel allowance, building a third runway etc), Labour supporters would be furious.

Yes they would so I'll add hypocrisy to tiresome.

From my point of view, it's easier to talk about broad principles. As a person who thinks of herself as left-wing, I believe in: proper funding of health, education and public services such as parks and libraries; a minimum wage; a welfare safety net for people who need it; protections for people at work, including health and safety regulations, statutory maternity pay, minimum annual leave and so on; plenty of public housing for those who need it; anti-discrimination legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of sex, sexuality, race or disability.

And I agree with all of that and yet I am, according to AGCL, a far right fascist due to my stance on women's and children's rights and Gender Ideology.

That interesting. I've seen other articles talking about the over arching left world view - that you have to be for everything left thinks- forced teaming of separate and often complicated political areas. So if you on left you have to think same about Gaza, climate change and gender and if you don't your not on the left.

I saw an friendly interview with a left wing writer known to write for communists paper and a prominent Corbyn supporter where he was annoyed and getting ribbed because like many of left he had issues with Europe. Guardian labeled him right-wing as he wasn't pro Europe - New York times picked article up relabeled him far right. Apparently we need to watch out for the far right Marxists.

He blamed poor journalists standards - and he right there's been a decline - but I think there's also underlying assumption that everyone on left has to think same on all issues - as if like article says they agree with people on right or even centre they need to change their views.

In RL I can agree on some polices and not others - it's what most people do TBH.

I mixed it up with WPUK - the Ruth Serwotka references I think.

There appear to be far too many of these women scolding everybody else.

Transvestitism is a male sexual thing that isnt in any way political. Its likely that high ranking conservative and labour supporters had a great old time together in their private clubs.

The ideology is developed in progressive academia. The law is driven by elite international organisations. Both are removed from real life.

Labour were sucked in because they have forgotten class analysis, conservatives because they have forgotten tradition (maybe even Christian concepts) and moved towards libertarianism.

Both parties never gave a thought to how it was going to work in real life.

I'd really like people to think more carefully about their use of the word 'fascist' (and 'nazi' for that matter). Overuse of a term risks 'boy who cried wolf' scenarios. I think it might be too late, though.

UK has a recent history of fighting a hot war against fascism on european soil. Children are still taught about it at school, culture addresses it (eg BBC Rise of the Nazis), we have national commemorations. I think many of us are aware of and try to guard against the possibility that valid discussions on immigration, for example, might tip over into far-right ideas.
We are less aware of historical left-wing slides into authoritarianism. I think it was Jordan Peterson who suggested that, because we came to an agreement with Stalin at Yalta, we weren't likely to then teach our kids about the evils of Stalinism. I think we were less well-prepared for an authoritarianism that came from the left and AGCL need to project their horror at what the left has done (sterilising children FFS) onto the right. Denial.

I may be talking bollocks, but it's just a thought. Fantastic thread. Thanks for all the thoughtful posts.

Well, indeed.
As I have said before, I come from a family that was given a solid kicking by some unpleasant fascists during WWII. As a result, I know the whiff of fascism when I smell it. I haven't spotted a lot of it recently, despite all the 'fascists!' screeching that goes on. I'm not saying there isn't any, just that a lot opinions that used to be relatively mainstream or perhaps on the hard right now get called 'fascist' when they're not.

Which means, of course, that actual steel toe-capped fascists slip under the radar.

And as @AliceNutterWasAWoman says, we have gone easy on Left authoritarianism. It's okay to say you're a communist (when it ISN'T okay, in polite society, to admit to even a tiny leaning towards fascism or confess to a fondness for El Duce). It's quite trendy in some circles to have posters of Che Guevara on the kitchen wall and to proudly call yourself a 'Leftist' as if you're wearing some kind of halo.

This is despite the fact that you don't have look very far for the mountains of corpses (a low number is 65 million) and the vast networks of prison camps produced by communist regimes.

Haven't all of those things been established now, though?

The NHS is now struggling, even in a state of collapse...but that isn't just down to lack of spending on it. It is more to do with a fundmental structural issue in that it is now expected to do far, far more than it ever was on its conception; and the demands, and the and costs ( new drugs, new machines etc) keep escalating.

I agree about civic maintenance and housing though,.......as a country we no longer seem to have any pride in maintaining the built environment, and the quality of aesthetic appreciation, workmanship and skill is just not there any more. And, of course, housing costs are just too much. Society cannot be functional if people are struggling to put a decent/acceptable roof over their head.

The problem with Labour rights/legislations are that they can too far and start to strangle business. The Left tends to view business, generally, in a negative way - as a public service provider ( to which it attaches a public sector mind set) rather than as a wealth and employment generator. Where I live the Labour council sees private business almost entirely in pejorative terms. Many councillors don't seem to believe that companies should make profits.

The Labour government has just passed a new law meaning that all employees are entitled, from day one, to sick pay. That is unrealistic. Surely employees should have to serve time and show they are up to a role and that they are reliable before they are entitled to such compensations? And so on.

Too much regulation and burden is a disincentive to entrepreneurship - but without entrepreneurship and people willing to put in the time and the personal cost/risk in starting or developing a business the economy cannot develop and there are fewer jobs. Equaliity and regulation demands can simply multiply themselves.

Isn't that part of the issue.....that for the Left 'progress' towards 'equality' is a never ending journey towards an ideal, utopian goal - which probably doesn't exist, and never will.....because people are not all equal, there will always be differences. Outcomes can only be the same if the state takes total control of everything and imposes upon people.

I read an interesting analysis the other day that predicts social class is now again becoming more of an indicator of political consciousness.......but that the social class that previously supported the Left and saw it as the home of their interests, increasingly no longer does.

The values of large sections of the previous base are no longer reflected in the culture or preoccupations of the Left parties.The Left has increasingly become about the politics of race and 'gender', and about concepts such as 'open borders', and 'International Socialism' ( Jeremy Corbyn, for example) thinking around colonisers and colonised and so on. In which the Left can seem to despise its own society.

For me the point is not whether you call yourself left or right as quite honestly (well in the UK) most people aren't either.

The issue for me is that far too many women's groups now seem to think being a feminist is just about telling another group of women who say they are feminists they are wrong.

ie compare AGCL seem to exist for this reason, whereas Labour Women's Declaration (from what I have seen) are focused on trying to get a particular section (political party) to acknowledge women's rights.

Think of all the energy, time and words that what sometimes seems like the majority of women who say they are feminist has gone into being "critical".

Whereas if every are of our life there were groups of women working as Labour Women's Declaration does, how many institutions would be being challenged. And challenge from within. Although this way of working can be harder than sitting at your keyboard going tut, tut, ad ininitum. And of course serves men as it has always done, getting women fight each other rather than men.

This way of working if far closer to the grass roots basis of working of Women's Liberation. For instance if every town / city had a group of women monitoring local councils decisions how many funding cuts may have been stopped. (I am saying this as many women's DV projects are having their funding cut just on the basis they are too expensive.)

So whilst is an historical way it might be interesting as to who did what when, what we need to deal with in the here and know.

We cant let (romanticised) loyalties to parties be the block to working out how to make an impact in the here and now.

There's a guy called Adam Przeworski who was writing about this in the 1980s. I think me and Matt Goodwin are the only people who've read his book.

His basic thesis was that Left parties have always been a coalition between the organised working class and radical PMC types. But as radical PMC types increase in numbers and social weight, they colonise the Left parties to the point where the working class finds them uninhabitable.

I think we can say by now that Labour is an expression of the class interests of the PMC.

It also explains the rise of the populist right. Lots of conservative parties have acquired a working class electorate that they don't know quite what to do with.

See also, I suppose, the AGCL style of doing politics. KJK, even if she never said anything right wing, would still be right coded to them, because she's an instinctive populist trying to rile up ordinary women without credentials.

I think even main stream media know and write about how the assumptions about traditional right and left alliances no longer exist.

So we are beyond that point. ie Labour won on a vote smaller than Corbyn's, who didn't win.

Is that democratic representation?

Just as most people say what was assumed to be the "world order" in fact doesn't work eg UN etc., more and more young people aren't interested in democracy or trust it.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/youthanddemocracy

Part of Trump's appeal seems to be that he is saying he doesn't need to bother with all these processes. He is reverting to the Victorian or earlier model of if you are in power, whether through money or votes, you are in charge.

Although none of this is relevant to why women who proclaim so loudly they are feminist, seem to think that means attacking other women. Or maybe that too is a sign of the fact we actually feel powerless, so other women are easier to campaign against.

I think AP's points sound reasonable, I also think the decline in the industries that the masses traditionally worked in helped render the working class invisible, and robbed them of a political voice. So tired of being ignored they're (we) are turning to the populists because they are at least listening. Although I'm not convinced they're anymore interested in the concerns the working classes have, than the main stream political parties do.

Refering back to the report about young people, I think the other part of this is the high level of (some, all?) young people believe in having an identity and only interacting with others live you.

It isn't about some over arching political belief or objective. It is about a subjective response and basing decisions on what feels best, affirms who they think they are.

So this is a new tribalism.

Half of Gen Z – those aged between 13 and 27 – want Britain to be ruled by a dictator. This is just one of the “deeply worrying” conclusions from a study that has revealed that our young people have startlingly different attitudes to what most people assumed they had.

... a third thought Britain would be better “if the army was in charge”, while almost half agreed that “the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”.

“the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gen-z-democracy-dictator-leader-politics-britain-b2686960.html

and https://archive.is/xLhWN

Seriously did they learn nothing from Harry Potter, I bet if they did the study again and asked if they wanted 'He who should not be named' in charge they'd all change their tune. 😂

I'm conservative, a lesbian, a staunch feminist. I've been mostly a Republican, one time Libertarian, recently an Independent, now Republican again and I was dead keen to vote for RFK Jr.
My ideas evolve, I'm not in thrall to an ideaology and my moral virtue is based on my actions; not which party I vote for.
Trump, RFKJr, Tulsi Gabbard were all Democrats at one time. So I find it weird that Dems and the left are going on about the Far Right!

Seriously did they learn nothing from Harry Potter

I think really all this reflects is that young people, like a lot of older people, dont follow politics in detail and / or are alienated by my side right or wrong posturing.

So I really only posted to say it is maybe too easy to get caught up in scoring points with loud mouths, rather than having a conversation on what might be mutual points of agreement.

Of course this isn't helped by the fact that the media loves to report loud mouths rather than the more mundane and difficult process of working out what is probably the long slow decline of the UK which essentially lived of the wealth of the empire up until WWII and never worked out what to do after that.

Unique research by the Children’s Commissioner’s Office found that young people who took part in last summer’s riots were not primarily driven by social media misinformation or racism but by curiosity of the events, deep distrust of the police or the lack of opportunities in their community.

... children’s motivation for taking part, challenging the prevailing narrative that young people’s involvement was orchestrated by deliberate misinformation spread through social media linked to racist and right-wing influencers.

While these factors played a potential role, they did not appear to drive children’s actions.

Instead, many children’s involvement in the riots was spontaneous, not thought out and opportunistic. The report found that they were not primarily driven by far-right, anti-immigration or racist views. Children spoke about their curiosity of these events and their animosity towards the police.

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/news/press-notice-deep-distrust-of-the-police-and-lack-of-opportunity-as-drivers-in-childrens-motivation-to-take-part-in-last-summers-riots/

Another aspect (IMO) is that so much of life as reflected through the media is about "events" and wanting to be part of them (and get on tv). eg all those people who turned up a the river bank where that poor woman disappeared, or happy to play the loyal subjects at Royal events, or have the opportunity to break the rules because adults are doing it.

I suspect many think I have gone off topic, but just trying to say if the commone issue that brings us on to FWR is in fact women's rights, should we be distracted or get caught up on whether it is left or right wing.

Discussing how to appeal, influence politcal groupings is different from saying if you believe this or that then it means you are right wing.

Although as suggested up thread (or maybe it was another thread) I think having Trump published EO that appear to support women's sex based rights will mean many will turn against them. Not because they are politcally aligned but they think he is a tiny bit demented and so him saying it makes it a demented thing to say or believe.