Sexism and socialists

Socialist Resistance -  Women’s Liberation Dayschool

 

 

Your chance to discuss the issues raised here in more depth.

 

University of London Union, Malet Street

Saturday 24 November @ 11am

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This began life as a comment by Piers. It opens up a big variety of questions so I’ve decided to upgrade it to a posting. I don’t have time to tidy it up until later so you’ll have to check the references.

On Stuart King’s comment about GG’s review of Kylie Minogue

The implication of Stuart’s comment is that all right thinking socialists in Respect should be outraged by George’s comments, should denounce it and while we’re about it isn’t this just the sort of thing one expects from a formation like Respect.

Certainly others have raised such points on the SUN site - mainly stick-beating SWP leadership supporters demonstrating the same agile skill in swivelling round from uncritical adulation to sectarian criticism as a young car thief executing a hand-brake turn. Stuart - if I’m not mistaken - at least cannot be faulted for his unrelentingly consistent opposition to both Galloway and the whole idea of broad parties.

There are two issues that arise here. What attitude do we take towards this article and what, if anything we should do about it.

Should we allow ourselves to become some surreal reflection of the right’s caricature of leftists and feminists as a moral police force enforcing pre-ordained “political correctness” in public life? Patrolling the dark alleyways 24/7 with trenchcoat and torch - shining a light in the dark shadows, exposing misdemeanours and rooting them out wherever they are found?

Of course Stuart is not suggesting anything of the sort. I’m being provocative. The reason why that approach is not only a false caricature of the left and women’s movement but wrong is that it would be based on moralism and individualism. It takes the perfectly correct slogan “the personal is political” to an extreme gutting it of any connection to the social, economic, ideological and political context and causes of oppression and exploitation. It is also wholly disproportionate in its focus on the individual, it is authoritarian and for all these reasons it is wholly counterproductive.

There is nothing inherently wrong with discourse about women’s bodies even in a way that objectifies them. Women engage in this all the time among themselves - including in a sexualised and disparaging or negative fashion. It’s quite possible for men to share in that discourse. Whether this is lending support to oppression and exploitation depends on the context, the audience, what is said, how it is understood etc. Spoken and written words are never abstract.

If I see a semi-naked woman’s form on the side of a bus advertising some product, I don’t prudishly avert my gaze. It may be impossible anyway. However much I might oppose such advertising, as a heterosexual male, I may find a particular image attractive. My thoughts and feelings can’t be policed. In a limited way I am also being exploited - all advertising takes our natural desires (for food, comfort, happiness, a nice tune or beat, escape from the drudgery of daily life, free time with our nearest and dearest - but mainly for sex) and exploits them to persuade us to buy products.

I don’t engage in male banter about such images - but it is hardly surprising that men do express their reactions to them vocally. The main problem is the advertising industry and its exploitation of women. The banter is also a problem - because it reinforces this culture and because women are oppressed by it - but it is not the cause and how when and whether this is taken up as an issue is a question of context, degree etc.

But if my analysis is accepted then a “holier than thou” moralism is hardly going to get anywhere. A single raised eyebrow is sometimes the appropriate response. A flaming row sometimes is. It is a matter of judgement.

For all that, I think this review (and not having the full link I haven’t read the whole piece and may be wrong if there is other material that places it in a different context) from GG is sexist claptrap.

I disagree with Andy’s comments on the SUN blog that Kylie Minogue market’s herself as an objectified body therefore it is OK.

She is perfectly entitled to do that and people are perfectly entitled to be entertained by it. Furthermore, my impression is that she, like her mentor Madonna, are not in fact engaging in quiet acts of social criticism - by play-acting the image of the post-60s media commodification of the airbrushed fantasy female. But that doesn’t mean that all who consume this share the same understanding. Pop Art originated in and largely propagated a similar critique of mass commodity production and the role of advertising and the media in it’s consumption (as the excellent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London shows). It is unlikely that Warhol-collector and Tory Charles Saatchi shares that critique.

George’s comments appear to endorse the exploitative objectification of women’s bodies. They are not in a context that in anyway qualifies or questions this, are in a very public media expressed by an elected high-profile politician and therefore carry particular weight.

What, if anything, should we do about it?

By definition I wouldn’t be bothering to write this comment if I thought it was wrong to criticise. On the contrary - not coming from the handbrake turn tendency - I have always thought that such criticism is natural and normal. But the tone of Stuart’s comments and certainly the explicit content of many other comments, particularly on the SU blog, indicate that northing short of a ritualised immediate condemnation is called for. Most of this is entirely cynical - motivated from a pre-ordained opposition to Respect and Galloway - and sectarian.

But the problem is deeper than that. It relates to the issue of whether and if so how you build a broad socialist alternative to Labour.

If, like Permanent Revolution and their erstwhile comrades Workers Power, you believe that it is written on tablets of stone that thou shalt not build any political organisation other than a revolutionary Marxist one, then of course whenever anyone building a broader party works with an individual whose socialism is of a different variety they will always be guilty by association unless immediately differentiating themselves.

But by definition, if your aim is to build a broader party of the socialist left then it is inevitable that you will co-exist with many who’s personal and political outlook shows that they are prey to the ideology and illusions of capitalist society. 99% of the working class are reformist and are not about to break from this perspective. We are not in a pre-revolutionary situation.

Those on us who experienced life on the left in the Labour Party - during its vibrant days from the late 1970s to early 1990s - had a daily experience of the contradictions and difficulties this involved. Of course the context of building a left of Labour formation today is different. But the implicit demand for routine denunciation is a sectarian non-starter - better to be more honest about it and stick with your tablets of stone.

There are a wide variety of other ways in which these types of issues can and should be addressed.

The most important is developing a culture and practice of accountability in the general sense. Something those of us in SR have been spent years campaigning around in respect. I don’t for a minute expect this particular leopard to completely change his spots. But under the new Respect regime I’m sure that George will face obligations to be accountable. When speakers at the conference raised this he made a point of visible nodding in assent. This will be a complete contrast to the blanket opposition to accountability in the years of governance by the SWP-leadership. The point about accountability is not that, at all times, you control and determine what the elected representative says and does. It is that the latter is answerable to those who put him there - has to justify himself. As part of this process she or he can be publicly criticised or removed. But it is a process, not a mechanical relationship.

Secondly Respect will have a regular paper - this will give the organisation it’s own profile and cease the unnecessary, false and distorting appearance that GG’s words and actions were all that could be said about Respect’s politics.

The paper I’m sure will be an eclectic mix in the best sense of the phrase, that will take up issues like sexism and raunch culture in a varied and stimulating way that asks questions as much as posing answers. One can imagine a spread with views from Salma (who described herself at the conference as a liberated muslim woman), from old labour male figures like Jim Rogers former leader of Harlow Council Labour group, from Marxist feminists like Jane Kelly, from women trade unionists operating in a male-dominated environment like Linda Smith - as well as those outside Respect with a variety of views and experiences.

Thirdly socialists and feminists in Respect will continue to raise this issue in discussion and through our own publications and meetings. The current issue of Socialist Resistance has material on this and on Saturday there is an SR meeting on women’s liberation. SR is ceasing publication as a paper, but undoubtedly Socialist Outlook will continue and there will be other avenues to disseminate political ideas and debate of this sort - bulletins, pamphlets, leaflets and the like. Hopefully the ex-SWP comrades will start to organise themselves into a network. Maybe they will produce material as well or perhaps some common framework will develop for Marxists in Respect to work together.

The point is that there is a rich variety of ways in which this issue can and should be taken up. Direct and public criticism of public representatives and their words and actions will always have its place in that political culture, but it is by no means the only one.

Those who imply it is, betray (at the very least) a lack of understanding, if not an opposition, to the basic concept of building a broad pluralist socialist formation.

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