Scholar and feminist activist Jasmine Curcio addresses this polemic and the domination of men in leftist politics, especially around issues pertaining to feminism:
“And so many years on, feminist discussions around the left continue to be subtly dominated by men and their perspective, with the aid of theoretical frameworks that marked disdain towards feminism in decades past. Men have become gatekeepers of feminist discussion, and many debates take place with ignorance, disdain, and sometimes subtle tactics of bullying. Phenomena that lie outside of the bourgeois-proletarian contradiction are not really taken on board as material facts, but either made to fit with constructed orthodoxy or they are discarded.”
Paradoxically, when women point this out, the reality of sexism bites back and they are regarded as “bitches,” “whores,” and even shut down both on social media and in public forums.
2 comments
August 27, 2016 at 9:21 am
Sha'Tara
So true. If women shut men out of their discussions, they’re bitches, abused or ignored. If men shut women out of their discussions, normalcy reigns, all’s well. In today’s reality, the only way a woman can hold her own with men, she has to become like a man (or worse) in spirit, and in talk, e.g., Hillary Clinton / Margaret Thatcher. Even those who keep a semblance of femininity have to wield the tools of the partriarchal order. Therefore the conclusion: that the patriarchal order has to be allowed, helped, to destroy itself entirely before anything creative and constructive should be attempted. With the development of nuclear weaponry and other weapons of mass destruction humanity began it’s trek of death. Whether the weapons are fired or not will make no difference in terms of results. We’re walking the long and last walk of death and we may as well face it. To tweak and tinker (support the lesser of evils) will only prolong our agony. It’s always darker (and colder) before the dawn and we’re still some hours from the dawn.
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August 27, 2016 at 9:33 am
The Arbourist
@Sha’Tara
If you were trying for a sunny and optimistic piece, I think you may have missed the mark. :)
I hope that it is possible to beat back the power of men and patriarchy, we should not doom all of humanity for the actions of a few.
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