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Intersectional Feminism
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Identity Politics and the Loss of Class Structure
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To be honest Adam I wonder if such clever seeming arguments distract from the fact the idea of a woman president scared the patriarchy. Well meaning men used as Foyles women thinking injustice and double standards are normal.let me put it this way Hillary Clinton was accused of many things; guilty or not had she been a man would she had lost through lack of support. I think not why because the man who stood againt her admitted far worse indegressions against women and it was not questioned or thought to diminish his suitability.
This all has to go beyond simple and singular answers: Patriarchy, misogyny and sexism are a cause of the election outcome, but what percentage? 90%?
20%?
One can also argue that the election outcome was affected by "Will never, ever pass!" on single payer healthcare; $12 (US) minimum wage (a majority of workers on that being women); the celebrity endorsements; George Clooney's "Yes there is too much money in politics: Come to my 150-350k per plate exclusive dinner party to help support Clinton!"
I can go on and on.
As this is why I started this thread/discussion is to find answers to that complexity of causation and where and how to develop solutions to them.
Simple answer Adam if misogyny played sufficient part to elect an admitted sexist then we need to be working on that. And the fact many women saw his behavior as less important than other factors.In essence it is an attitude we are trying to change one of prejudices, simple bigotry nothing more.
Ross wrote: "Simple answer Adam if misogyny played sufficient part to elect an admitted sexist then we need to be working on that. And the fact many women saw his behavior as less important than other factors...."
Did misogyny play a significant roll?
What verifiable (operative word here) evidence would that be based upon?
It can't just be one singular issue alone: The election results from state to state (save a few: "bible belt" and some western ones; where the democratic party never does well) were within 1-3 percentage points. Speculation: If misogyny played a significant roll, would not those percentages have been further apart? And, I'd argue, if Jim Webb or Martin O'malley had gotten the democratic primary nomination; went with the same campaign strategy that Clinton did, that either would have lost worse (like milquetoast Al Gore in 2000, losing his home state of Tennessee). That Clinton, being a woman and her aggressive speech style, helped that outcome.
Now instead of self-reflection as to why the election went the way it did (also BREXIT and upcoming ones: France) Putin has become a fictional 60's Bond villain.
As this topic heading states: Intersectionality.
We need to focus on reality.
Adam wrote:"did misogyny play a significant roll"I am sure it was indeed key to the result; What I am proposing is from an extrapolation directly from the result. Misogyny played a significant part because the clear sexism displayed by the candidate was not sufficient when being opposed by a woman to prevent his election. Indeed 53% of women voted for him. This again is suggestive of a misogynistic environment even women do not see his behaviour as unusual.
The sexism I am saying was at play here is embedded in the culture, seen as the norm. Another example would be from the UK a party called UKip had a leadership election as is the way (Thankfully) women were in the group running.
The result a woman was elected. However she stood down 18 days later as she was unable to get any support for a single policy she advocated. They had another election and a white man won. The relevance of this is, not only did not one raise much objection to this turn of events but the woman stayed with the party.
This idea of men being better and women seeing it as somehow natural has mostly been discredited but still it stubbornly remains coming to the surface when ever circumstances allow and people do not act deliberately to oppose it.
On the general subject, I'd just like to say that while class struggle remains the primary problem - and ought indeed to be held as our first priority if we're to seek change - it is no excuse to lock out intersectionality. I've heard plenty of economic leftists re-iterate that identity politics and "political correctness" divide the left, but personally, I think that's their own fault for not acknowledging the multi-sided nature of oppression and the role they may or may not play in perpetuating it, despite being oppressed themselves through class. This multi-sidedness of oppression was also - or indeed, especially - during Marx's time, so I hardly pay the "Marx didn't fight for your pronouns" line any heed. I can't say I wholly blame them though. It is, after all, difficult to hear that the oppressed masses can also be oppressors themselves; cognitively speaking, it almost makes sense to reject things like identity politics, feminism and other movements that do not address issues that concern you (that is, assuming "you" refers to someone who is cis gendered, male, white, or any combination of the above).I'm not saying these people are right, of course. Indeed, many of them I've spoken to were very unpleasant to converse with (even online, where you have plenty of time and room to convey your thoughts civil-like), but I hope my point is clear.
Just meant as a word of advice to any economic leftists here: be as polite and constructive as possible when talking to such leftists. It's already difficult enough for them to believe you, getting angry isn't going to make it any easier for them.
Tim, I have to be honest I found the tone of your commitments a bit patronising. If you have had unpleasant conversation with liberal groups in the past try talking to some men's rights groups sometimes.
And as to your assertion Feminist, taking an example, have a problem with privileged white cis men. That is correct since they are consciously or not are a large part of the problem.
Left or Right it is the person not the philosophy that sets the tone of the debate.
I'm sorry, Clinton has an "aggressive speech style"? Are you serious? We just watched 18 months of debates and speeches and commercials...and she was CONSISTENTLY standing there quietly while men talked around her. When passionate about a topic, she made it clear but I don't think anyone would describe a man doing the same thing as "aggressive" speech. Regardless, Tim, I'm not really sure what you're getting at with this discussion. You seem to want to question everything all at once...for what purpose? When it comes to the election, we can theorize all day about what happened, but there's no way to know for sure. Misogyny was clearly a factor (probably a huge one), but so were many other things. None of us have the privilege of knowing for sure what went through every voter's mind.
You ask for solutions...but to what? Class will always be a part of politics. Same as religion, education, gender and human rights, and anything else people use to define themselves. These things aren't arbitrary words, they're experiences that color our political views. And they're what give us our individuality. As a society, when everyone comes to the table (something we need to work on badly) that gives us a diverse set of views so that we can pass laws that benefit the most people the best way possible.
Yo, it's some good discussions here. I want to highlight that misogyny almost no doubt had an important role in this general election cycle, but let's not make the error of thinking it was the only problem.Clinton was an extremely flawed candidate, she didn't run a great ground campaign, Russia, Fake news, gerrymandering, a very successful image campaign by the Republicans for the last decade or so. All factors.
But let's also not equate everyone who voted for Trump as a racist or sexist. Clearly they should probably have more concern for those issues, but many are poor, white and feel left out in the fast moving urbanization and globalization of society. And to many extents they have. Poor infrastructure budgets, rising healthcare and food costs, the exponential speed of technology, and urbanization taking away the smart and young workers (in their communities). All of these are real problems faced by real people that also happen to be white. And when it seems that Corrupt Clinton is just doing her big city liberalism and ignoring them just because their white, these people don't feel like she represents them.
There are of course huge race and class and sex issues. But that can't take away from the legitimacy of the issues faced by the largely white, uneducated, and left behind Americans that live in large swaths of the Rust and Bible belt. We shouldn't just simplify them to labels.
Ross wrote: "Tim, I have to be honest I found the tone of your commitments a bit patronising. If you have had unpleasant conversation with liberal groups in the past try talking to some men's rights groups so..."
My apologies. I failed to specify that I was referring to economic far-leftists, that is to say, Marxists, socialists and anarchists, not social democrats or liberals. Hope that clears things up a bit.
Sorry Tim, nothing worng with diffrent view points where I am from socialist, marxist even anarchist have there pĺace. We are fortunate to live in free democratic countries. Your assumption those on the opposite politcal view are inherently wrong is fine for you but not everyone feels the same.I have known some very enlightened Marxists, even talked to a feminist Trotskyist nice woman.
Having your own views is great, why we are here but assuming we all share them is not in the spirit in my view.
Ross wrote: "Sorry Tim, nothing worng with diffrent view points where I am from socialist, marxist even anarchist have there pĺace. We are fortunate to live in free democratic countries. Your assumption those o..."I'm not really sure what exactly your meaning is. I'm especially thrown off by the example of the feminist Trotskyist, because what I meant to say was addressed to feminist economic leftists when talking to other economic leftists who do NOT support things like feminism, because I originally thought the subject of this thread was to discuss whether class struggle (which I consider to a trademark term for far-left discourse) and identity politics are overlapping or conflicting concepts. I realise now, however, that I misread the title of the thread, as I thought it said "class struggle" as opposed to "class structure".
Anyway, I don't reckon I can offer much to this thread, so I'll just retreat from it.
I'm not sure if I get the issue of this thread right. Most people here are talking about the US-elections. I have read the article which Adam has posted at the beginning and therefore I don't really get the point.The article is mainly about media manipulation of a speech by Bernie Sanders. And in my view the article is about the relationship of intersectionalism and class. The author states that Bernie Sanders prefers to connect intersectionalism or "identity politics" with class issues, whereas for Hillary Clinton the two things are opposed to each other.
So the question is for me: How is intersectionalism connected to class issues? Are they really contrary to each other or is it better to reflect them together?
After the US-elections there has often been claimed that "white" workers voted for Trump because they have had enough of "identity politics". I can't understand this argument and I don't really think it explains anything. Why should one feel neglected as a worker because of "identity politics"?
If you think this way, then you don't see that the working class is not "white" but it consists also of people of color (and women). Black and white workers actually have many things in common because they are in the same social position and they are all oppressed and exploited by the capitalist system. So why should you identify yourself as a "white" worker and distance yourself from others who are people of color?
And moreover, as a white, hetero, male worker you have nothing to loose only because women, LGBTIQs and people of color get their rights. But it seems, at least as the argument goes, that workers who voted for Trump have exactly that feeling - they fear to loose something when progress is made with equality. Actually I think this argument has no logic.
I think to reach progress in society it is needed to connect intersectionalism with class issues. Capitalism, as an economic system, is the basis of our living conditions. It makes a big difference if you're rich or poor / entrepreneur or worker. And I think the oppression and exploitation of the workers can not and will not be overcome within capitalism because as long as we have capitalism there will always be the oppression and exploitation of the workers. So in my view, an alternative to capitalism is urgently needed.
But will the end of capitalism also mean the end of racism, sexism and homophobia? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Racism, sexism and homophobia are connected to capitalism because they are mechanisms of oppression and the ones who have the power within capitalism today are white, hetero men. It's because of the historcial dynamics of capitalism and its close relationship with patriarchy and colonialism. So it may be an important first step to end capitalism but more needs to be done to finally end racism, sexism and homophobia, too.
I would like to go on lengthy (and as best that I can manage: educational) diatribes. But every time (including now) I just can not bring up the will to do so: I figure what is the point?I started this to, again, try to bring discussion past, as why we do so, reading. To get (at current) 161k members of this group (all of them, and with hope: Beyond this group) way more politically aware and active.
As to something I have stated in the past: "The smallest spark can start a raging inferno." Metaphorically speaking.
And the monkey pushes the button.
Even if true nothing compared to the calibre and action of the opponent. Not even sworn in and causing havoc will you recover from that.
Ross:As I have stated before.
The Clintons are the slow slide.
Trump (draining the swamp into his cabinet) is the quick drop.
Hopefully with the id in US office, and the events and political strife occuring in the UK and other countries, this will light a fire under people's arse.
Since I am not good and long and involved conversations, I'll start with this article by Katie Halper:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/article...