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?"

There has been a few politically partisan posts on here, which is not helpful to the single issue cause of the rights of women (as against genderism)

women make up fifty percent of the population so it is of no surprise that there is a variety of political opinions, based on socio economic and tribal allegiances.

I have my own views and allegiances i am not politically neutral.

But i firmly believe we need to set aside what might be deemed left or right values, and an analysis on who is culpable for past errors or omissions.

We are here because we all agree we need to stand together against the pernicious attacks on women’s rights, and the objectification, prostitution, and capitalisation of women's bodies.

And we must in unity reject women who criticise other women involved in this goal wherever they politically reside.

I am not mad on everything KJK says, not mad about some of her supporters. But she has stood out extreme and loud and gathered ordinary women to give a voice.

JKR has the protection of her wealth and is much milder and has used her wealth and power for our good but rather belatedly

Kemi Badenoch, wiped the floor with the nitwits on the women and equalities select committee but who has no concept or connection with poor or marginalised women (not that i have noticed anyway).

Rosie Duffield only to give up when labour came to power.

Then there are the more ordinary, unknowns who have become known (by us anyway) through a variety of professions, or ordinary jobs who have led legal challenges and at great personal cost.

The women who fight in the real world who have now collectivised and organised in the courts of justice and in setting up campaign groups. It is clear they are networked and are our front line

And some of us may be part of that in the real world. And some of us are just keyboard warriors. Nothing wrong with that.

So i think i am saying this cause has gained momentum very rapidly, and we need to stop pointing our guns at each other and turn them on the real enemy which is

Men proliferating in disregard or hate beliefs against women and women’s rights.

I agree and have taken this link from another thread in case anyone missed it:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10894160.2024.2356496

The fact that we come with a wide range of political opinions is making it very hard for the TRAs to target us. It is a strength, not a weakness💪

Same here. I’m concerned with women’s and children’s rights, not prancing around saying “Oooh look how woke I am” while children suffer medical experimentation and women’s single-sex rights get swept into the bin.

Sex and Gender in Trump’s America
https://www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2025/2/6/sex-and-gender-in-trumps-america

In some of the earlier posts on this thread there were comments about how AGCL infiltrates other groups - and in fact the last article but one by WPUK before they closed down (because its followers weren't left enough!) was by someone from AGCL and was not well received for its hectoring tone.

And somewhere in this thread I joked about how AGCL was also now embedded in FiLia and would they end up closing that..

Here is FiLia's latest blog, which may in itself be worthy, but is sad to see it references for its position are nearly all AGCL.

Almost as though the many other women who are writing well thought out positions on SBR and Trump, dont exist.

I saw recently that FILIA were starting a group for women in unions and the leader was WPUK co-founder, and supporter of Dr Hayton, Kiri Tunks.

I think I would almost have preferred some sort of public merger statement or something!

Its strange though that women who are from a more left, party activism, have so readily taken up with what is (IMO) a politics lights, feminism as a consumer product venture.

Completely at odds with the fundamental premise of Women's Liberation ie a loose network of small autonomous groups who on occassion may meet up or work together.

Luckily there are now groups who are echoing that form of action eg WRN.

It's a hell of a business model. Join a group, take it over, the group dies as everyone else leaves, move onto the next group. Maybe pick up one or two new recruits along the way.

There are some Trotskyite groups that behave exactly like this.

It's a hell of a business model.

Its more like an act of revenge.

We infiltrate because you are popular and we cant make people listen to us.

But when we speak through you people stop listening again.

So once you have been shut down we will have to move onto the next popular one.

Because we will never accept that we shouldn't be listened to, so if no one will voluntarily listen to us, we will have to force them to hear us spread our message by pretending to be something else.

I think it's been apparent since the Cardiff FILIA, with the weird anti KJK workshop, that WPUK were taking over FILIA.

And this is relevant because of the WPUK/ AGCL overlap.

I read this article by Victoria Smith and it reminded me of this thread

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-backlash-against-a-feminism-that-never-was/

Great article

was that the most recent Filia? Curious to see if it all falls apart due to standard leftist infighting…

I think unfortunately Victoria Smith may be a popular writer, but like many writers who claim to write about feminism only re-gurgitates what other writers say eg referencing Laurie Penny is a dead give away.

The back lash against Women's Liberation was about a cultural backlash ie it had all gone too far, which wasn't said about other Liberation movement eg PoC and L&G.

And the underlying sexism of the patriarchy let many MRAs think they were right not to have accepted any part of women's liberation.

And there is no doubt they promoted 3rd Wave feminism (actually a product of queer politics) as being the acceptable face of feminism. ie the partriarchy was only too happy to have 70s feminists written off as being old and out of touch and embrace the sexually liberated, sex work positive, men can become women (ie all men's rights issues) as the new feminism.

ie the growth of trans culture only happened because it suits MRAs. What better way to control women than have male women tell women who really is a woman and then set the agenda. ie it is a continuation of the backlash against Women's Liberation.

The specifics of AGCL is far more to do with a time when Marxist feminist would feel it their duty to tell Women's Liberationists they shouldn't, couldn't have a movement that put women front and centre. This was not proper liberation as it did not (according to their methods) challenge the more important oppressions of race and class. ie women should only talk about their own rights within the context of race and class. Not to do so showed you are nothing more than a superficial white middle class dilettante.

Nobody should ever quote Laurie Penny except to point and laugh. Laurie can't simultaneously insist that she's not a woman and also that she's some kind of authority on feminism.

I almost agree on the Marxist feminists - having to admit that some of them were a big influence on me once upon a time, and a few are still dear friends - there's a certain type of socfem way of doing politics that's unhelpful. Which is partly because lots of them are superficial white middle class dilettantes.

I was thinking of the Independent Workers Union in Ireland. When it got started back in the early 2000s its aim was to organise the unorganised, and lots of those unorganised workers were women - care home workers, hairdressers etc. What they wanted was support for gaining better pay and conditions. What they too often got was socfems turning up to treat them to discussions about the patriarchy.

Which they may have been open to in a different context, but in the context of the union what they wanted was class struggle, and the supposed Marxists couldn't see that.

The IWU these days is one of those institutions that still exists but everyone has forgotten about, like MySpace or the Conservative Party.

The thing about AGCL seems similar to me - a kind of micro-milieu who are absolutely convinced their way of doing politics is the only correct way, and who we could safely ignore if they didn't keep infiltrating groups that have some utility.

She's critiquing Penny, not just referencing her.

I don't think Penny would read that article and think she comes out of it well.

When those she criticises claim that Trump and others exploited the bad politics of her side, they don’t mean the “too righteous and feminist and anti-racist and noble” politics of her side. They just mean bad politics.

Yes, this is what I was getting at. But on reflection, I don't think that was quite what the original poster meant - perhaps more suggesting that VS only critiques or supports ideas from other writers. They don't regard her as someone with new ideas, just a discusser of the ideas of others. She is certainly very much an academic in her take on the issue. But I love her nonetheless.

She's critiquing Penny, not just referencing her.

She's a totally irrelevant creation of a male media that loves to have some air head say the stuff they think.

And, yes, somebody who just writes and pontificates is not a women's liberationist.

I am not interested in feminism, which is little more than aspiring to be like a man.

Women's Liberation is about destroying the patriarchal systems and values.

It is really worth thinking why an article printed / published by a news outlet has been published. It is rarely because it is giving a voice to the women who are working on the frontline.

It is all about creating froth and sparkle to keep the little ladies from worrying about what is really going on.

Why do you think KJK started let women speak. It wasn't just about men silencing women. It was / is also about giving a voice to the women that the self appointed voices of feminism constantly talk over.

was that the most recent Filia? Curious to see if it all falls apart due to standard leftist infighting…

It was in Glasgow.

FiLia isn't left wing, it isn't really feminist in the political sense. Its more like feminist entertainment inc, or as someone once said the poor women's WoW where commercialism has made feminism just another event to go to because its in the papers.

I suspect AGCL / WPUK see all these uncritical consumers of party bites of feminism as being exactly the sort of organisation they can hide behind whilst pursuing their political agenda. Confidently knowing that FiLia will be so star struck as having them as part of the team they will not oppose anything.

As suggested on others threads I think WPUK gave up being public because those darn GC feminists kept on interacting and challenging the left perspective. ie they prefer to be pure than popular.

But being the unseen puppeteer means they wont get labelled in public but may just capture some innocent women into signing up to their pure left agenda.

WoW = Women of the World which started on the South Bank in London and now organises in other UK - ie feminism as an art event.

In certain left wing environments the jargon phrase (IIRC it's a quote from Lenin) was "patiently explaining".

Which often became a kind of bitterly satirical meme because being "patiently explained" to probably meant an apparatchik getting in your face and screaming at you for not following the party line.

That's the testosterone version. AGCL, being women, prefer the female passive-aggressive style of ostentatiously not naming the people they're obviously snarking about.

But still the assumption is that they get to do the explaining and the rest of us are here to be explained to.

This is all true. Gay marriage is the lgb issue where Trump has been ambiguous overall, though apparently supportive now.

Tbf to him, he does seem to have always supported civil partnerships.

Latest on happenings over in the AGCL Facebook group:

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/bbc-producer-claimed-charlie-kirks-widow-was-zionist-handler/

Latest on happenings over in the AGCL Facebook group:

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/bbc-producer-claimed-charlie-kirks-widow-was-zionist-handler/

Well, that's a shocker.