Feminism, drowning in political disunity

There is so much divergence in political values and social attitudes right now it’s hard to cling to anything stable. I don’t just mean the gaping chasm between the left and right, precipitated by the disintegration of centrist populism, I mean even between individuals and factions who ought to consider themselves allied.

We see this preponderantly on the left, where entities are increasingly fragmented, rather than on the right, whose current theme of unifying signals a frightening resurgence of cooperation across the spectrum of conservatism. This is being demonstrated in the UK, where progressive Conservative MPs are backing Brexit – the culmination of a hard-right Eurosceptic objective, across Europe where almost every country has seen gains among far-right anti-immigrant parties, in the US where Republicans endorsed a president whose chief strategist was the white supremacist Steve Bannon (currently uniting the far-right globally) and in Russia, where moderate opposition to Putin’s regime appears virtually non-existent.

On the other side of the fence, left-wing liberals, part of whose raison d’etre is to fight for equality, are just as likely to fight among themselves over issues of race, gender and sexuality.

Next week I’ll look at race and sexuality, but for now I’ll use gender to demonstrate the divisions.

The examples are from within my own social circles, which could be broadly described as liberal, metropolitan, middle-class and privileged (though not excessively so), with some under-educated working-class intellectuals (a strange expression but not an uncommon breed). These examples can be seen replicated in social groups – and on social media – across the world.

In conversations with male friends it is apparent that very few are on board with feminism. That’s not to say they are anti-women, but their conceptualisation of feminism is far removed from those of my liberal educated middle-class female friends.

Examples from conversations include pronouncements that the #MeToo movement has gone too far, that Weinstein’s victims benefited from those predatory sexual encounters, that women at a well-known international media company are deliberately favoured in recruitment processes, that a prominent Trinidadian feminist is a professional man hater, that Ronaldo didn’t call sexism like Serena did when unfairly penalised, and that women comedians are not as funny as men.

The debates these comments generate are too tedious and circular to detail, but it’s worth pointing out that the bold pronouncements do become more nuanced during the ensuing debates.

The last example, about female comics, prompted me to share the story of a man who defaced a floral tribute to the 22-year-old Australian comedian Eurydice Dixon, who was raped and murdered while walking home after a gig. The vandal, an anti-feminist, drew a penis on the tribute to protest the media’s reporting of the case, which he said “turned [her death] into a women’s rights issue … blaming it all on men.”

I shared the story with male friends to demonstrate that while violence towards women exists (and boy does it exist), feminism is still essential. It was met with silence, which I interpreted as a small victory.

The point to take from this particular divergence is that the messages and ideas of feminism are not getting through.

If my male friends are, in most regards, socially progressive (they are vegan, left-voting, cosmopolitan etc) then what do socially regressive men think of feminism?

Well, we don’t have to imagine. We saw it played out in Washington as would-be Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh – accused of sexual assault by several women – received the backing of the p***y-grabbing president himself.

“It’s a scary time for young men,” Trump told reporters, after mocking Kavanaugh’s chief accuser, Dr Christine Blasey Ford. A typically fallacious assertion given that hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults committed in his country every year are overwhelmingly by men on women.

But the Women for Trump banners, waved by his female supporters show that it’s not just men struggling with feminism. Republican women described Kavanaugh as a “hero” after his confirmation hearing and said the process was a “travesty.” One called Blasey Ford’s testimony “laughable” and “a total deception”.

The solidarity of the right writ large. Had a Democrat-nominated judge been accused of assaulting women, left-wing liberals would have backed down and withdrawn support long ago.

It’s time for the left to unite on the fair treatment of minorities and the championing of causes like feminism.

If one sees politics as a spectrum from good to bad, as I do (right-wing, where the spectrum ends at fascism, equals bad, and left-wing, where it ends at socialism, equals good) then sexism, racism and homophobia, have no place on the “good” end of that spectrum. We cannot oppose Trump but espouse his sexist views.

At the same time, feminists must examine what is alienating about the movement. I feel included within the feminist fold, but many feel excluded and even attacked. To put this all down to over-sensitivity, masculine insecurity, misunderstanding or culture clash undermines the work still to be done.