Episode 63: Should Feminists Work With the Left? pt. 2 (leftwing men are not leftwing regarding women)

We put forward a central problem for feminists working with the Left, specifically, that leftwing men are not at all leftwing when it comes to women and women's issues. Suddenly, leftwing men, who dominate the Left both in numbers and ideologically, are no longer social constructionists, but total naturalists and genetic determinists, immediately when it comes to women. We give our experiences of leftwing men discussing much more seriously, and with far greater care, the rights of animals than women's rights. We also put forward our case for socialist policies that would transform society for the better for women, and point out the only leftwing men who sympathise with these also tend to have sympathies for radical feminist analysis. Leftwing men are typically not even social democrats regarding the issues of women. This episode also includes how you should not bring your whole self to work, womb envy, the greater alienation women live under, the lie of male provision and protection, and the need for the state to bypass men in providing salaries for housework as a bid to end the possibility of women's dependence on the family. We conclude that the suggestion from some feminists that feminists should work with the Left, is actually asking us to work with the equivalent of the far-right on women's issues. We cite a historical example to support that conclusion by discussing how the far-Left in Germany during the early 20th century did not support the right to vote for women, claiming women's suffrage should only be a concern after the revolution. Today, if the vote were removed for women, we speculate that most socialist men would overwhelmingly dismiss it as a bourgeois concern.