Angry Wimmin

[Louloubelle]

So go on then... do tell.

well they attacked a lesbian fetish nightclub for 'promoting slavery' which was kinda ridiclous as it was just women deciding thery were bored with looking ugly and deciding to wear sexy clothes. Some women wore spikey dog collars and some paraded around with their girfriends on leashes but this was evil in the kerazee world of the deptfrod dykes

using sex toys like dildos was also wrong as it was just 'emulating the patriarchy'

they actually physically attacked women entering the club and threw red paint over them. they were like a cross between the saudi morals police and the spanish inquisition. just completely barking

that was the depressing thing about a lot of theose wimmin, anything sexy was wrong. You had to be miserable and have boring non penetrative sex or you were a traitor and evil

the other thing that the deptford dykes did was to go and beat up paedophiles. Not paedophiles who had been found guilty in a court of law, just anyone who they thought was a paedo

 

[Ryazan]

Could you expand on that?

As for moving forward, in some ways there has only been a trickle effect. Feminism, or those forming some kind of women's struggle are not allied or the goals they are reaching for beneficial to all women in terms of equality. There are working class feminists, or socialists who don't describe themselves as feminists, through tactical reasons, or to get away from the definition as alluding in many people's minds to the liberal middle class. But all the same, they do not view women's struggle as being secondary, but integral to any decent worthwhile change. It is the politcal agendas of certain middle class feminists, which do not share the same goals as those who are working class that are criticised, not any emancipatory views on women in the general sense, but things that can specifically divide working class people further. It is more fruitful for working class people to develop solidarity with one another along sexual lines, for working class men to be aware and to take seriously women's oppression. It is far better for working class women to forge stronger links with their working class men along these social and poltical lines, than to do so with some middle class feminists who seek no wider social reforms except for the benefits of poltical and social change to their own statuses, but no major threat to their own class position, and then to just allow scraps to be thrown down later.

Sine the 19th century, and into the 20th century there has been a strong bourgeios women's movement in antagonism with, and sometimes open conflict with a smaller and weaker working class women's movement attached to labour struggles. Working class women, that have also had to put up with attacks from men within working class labour struggles. A side of women's politics and social change that is not really acknowledged to a large extent, even today.

The universiality of women's experience is a myth.

The majority of women don't have careers. Even if they have a "right" to one. Why is that?

 

[Belushi]

Theres certainly stilla lot of discrination against women left in society, but I'm astounded that anyone ever thought the way7 to comba it was to force yourself to become a lesbian, abandon your male children and only keep female pets.

 

[han]

Wouldn't have been so bad if she had been having a great time, however she seemed to spend hours every day having long boring conversations about 'our relationship' with her various tearful girlfriends, I mean it was all so horribly miserable.

oh dear

I missed this, it clashed with bookgroup, boo.

 

[laptop]

As for moving forward, in some ways there has only been a trickle effect. Feminism, or those forming some kind of women's struggle are not allied or the goals they are reaching for beneficial to all women in terms of equality. There are working class feminists, or socialists who don't describe themselves as feminists, through tactical reasons, or to get away from the definition as alluding in many people's minds to the liberal middle class. But all the same, they do not view women's struggle as being secondary, but integral to any decent worthwhile change. It is the politcal agendas of certain middle class feminists, which do not share the same goals as those who are working class that are criticised, not any emancipatory views on women in the general sense, but things that can specifically divide working class people further. It is more fruitful for working class people to develop solidarity with one another along sexual lines, for working class men to be aware and to take seriously women's oppression. It is far better for working class women to forge stronger links with their working class men along these social and poltical lines, than to do so with some middle class feminists who seek no wider social reforms except for the benefits of poltical and social change to their own statuses, but no major threat to their own class position, and then to just allow scraps to be thrown down later.

Bloody hell. That could have been written in 1975 by a Leninist who was simply pissed off that their party's claim to have the One True Way had been trashed.

No idea whether ryazan subscribes to the "nothing except a 'class analysis' must be allowed" position. But almost those exact words were used by those who did...

 

[han]

Theres certainly stilla lot of discrination against women left in society, but I'm astounded that anyone ever thought the way7 to comba it was to force yourself to become a lesbian, abandon your male children and only keep female pets.

Totally agree with that. It wasn't necessary to go THAT far.

But I would say that the reason that we have as much equality as we do today for women (and lesbians, though we still have a long way to go) is because people fought a hard battle in the eighties.

Because people were loud and proud and angry they got things done - and we are reaping the rewards of what they did. So although I don't think it's necessary NOW for people to be angry feminists or angry lesbians to get equal rights (cos we are much further down that road), it certainly was then - otherwise they would just have been ignored.

Think of the suffragettes!

 

[golightly]

well they attacked a lesbian fetish nightclub for 'promoting slavery' which was kinda ridiclous as it was just women deciding thery were bored with looking ugly and deciding to wear sexy clothes. Some women wore spikey dog collars and some paraded around with their girfriends on leashes but this was evil in the kerazee world of the deptfrod dykes

using sex toys like dildos was also wrong as it was just 'emulating the patriarchy'

they actually physically attacked women entering the club and threw red paint over them. they were like a cross between the saudi morals police and the spanish inquisition. just completely barking

that was the depressing thing about a lot of theose wimmin, anything sexy was wrong. You had to be miserable and have boring non penetrative sex or you were a traitor and evil

the other thing that the deptford dykes did was to go and beat up paedophiles. Not paedophiles who had been found guilty in a court of law, just anyone who they thought was a paedo

Ah yes. I remember this happening. The programme did touch on some of the more extreme activism that was carried out. Some of the interviewees admitted to being involved but declined to say what they'd done.

There were some aspects of the movement that were, in their own way, nasty and oppressive. The interviewees largely acknowledged this. I have to say that it was inevitable that there would be women who'd abuse their power in a seperatist movement. Personally, I don't have an issue with the nuttier aspects per se because, as long as it does not become harmful, it challenges in a way that reasonable discourse never can.

 

[Ryazan]

Totally agree with that. It wasn't necessary to go THAT far.

But I would say that the reason that we have as much equality as we do today for women (and lesbians, though we still have a long way to go) is because people fought a hard battle in the eighties.

Because people were loud and proud and angry they got things done - and we are reaping the rewards of what they did. So although I don't think it's necessary for people to be angry feminists or angry lesbians to get equal rights, it certainly was then - otherwise they would just have been ignored.

Think of the suffragettes!

The Suffragettes? There can be a bit of a one sided history of that time when women are concerned. Have you ever heard of Sylvia Pankhurst? And not her liberal and opportunistic mother and sister.

 

[revol68]

Bloody hell. That could have been written in 1975 by a Leninist who was simply pissed off that their party's claim to have the One True Way had been trashed.

No idea whether ryazan subscribes to the "nothing except a 'class analysis' must be allowed" position. But almost those exact words were used by those who did...

funny i thought most of the Leninists fell over themselves to embrace identity politics?

Anyway his point is still valid and the reason I would never call myself a feminist is cos it is a label devoid of all meaning and anything it manages to convey is a stereotype of puritanical whingers.

Plus feminism has for too long took a one dimensional view of sexual politics, men are either superflous, complete cunts or at best "earnest cheerleaders", whilst gender issues are moved to a binary sphere of womens issues we miss out the ways in which men are oppressed, brutalised and stunted by patriarchy.

 

[han]

The Suffragettes? There can be a bit of a one sided history of that time when women are concerned. Have you ever heard of Sylvia Pankhurst? And not her liberal and opportunistic mother and sister.

What's one-sided about the representation history of that time? Just interested!

I can't think of anything wrong with what Sylvia Pankhurst did, personally....

 

[Ryazan]

Bloody hell. That could have been written in 1975 by a Leninist who was simply pissed off that their party's claim to have the One True Way had been trashed.

No idea whether ryazan subscribes to the "nothing except a 'class analysis' must be allowed" position. But almost those exact words were used by those who did...

Class is all to me, although I am not a Leninist. I have much to disagree with that form of poltiical organisation, and given it is perhaps inconceivable that socialist change can be envisaged with this method I prefer to look for alternatives. Kollontai was on the ball though, despite her poltical decsions and involvement with the Bolsheviks.

On class based oppression and how this ties in with women's subjugation people from Angela Davies to Clara Zetkin have said it and keep saying it.

 

[han]

Plus feminism has for too long took a one dimensional view of sexual politics, men are either superflous, complete cunts or at best "earnest cheerleaders", whilst gender issues are moved to a binary sphere of womens issues we miss out the ways in which men are oppressed, brutalised and stunted by patriarchy.

That's a bit extreme! Yes, that certainly applies to Radical Feminism. But Feminism comes in all different shades, and the middle of the road, to which most Feminists adhere, is simply about equality of opportunity with men.

Not too much to ask for, is it?

 

[revol68]

That's a bit extreme! Yes, that certainly applies to Radical Feminism. But Feminism comes in all different shades, and the middle of the road, to which most Feminists adhere, is simply about equality of opportunity with men.

Not too much to ask for, is it?

so we we can have feminism of the wing nut variety or the feminism which demands to be equally oppressed as men, fantastic.

I mean Maggie Thatcher is seen as a fucking feminist by some.

Really the term is meaningless, even more so than socialist.

 

[Ryazan]

What's one-sided about the representation history of that time? Just interested!

I can't think of anything wrong with what Sylvia Pankhurst did, personally....

Sylvia Pankhurst. She endaevored to bring working class women into poltical strength and articulation within the labour movement and also the far left. Her mother and sister were never that radical. Pankhurst is a hero of mine. Her founding of the East London Women's Federation to bring attention to the plight of the disgusting poverty women had to endure, and to bring organisation to these women to fight for rights, and not to be used as pawns like her liberal family members did for the vote, but little else in the way of huge social change, or patronised mascots like Annie Kennie was. Her oppostion to the Great War while her mother and sister rallied political energy around the war effort. Helping to form the CPGB in 1920, despite her breaking away in disillusionment with what happened in Leninist controlled Russia.

See the difference?

 

[golightly]

One of the things that struck me about the programme was the disparity between the women's visions for the future and their capacity to make the changes they want. One moment they were talking about using jif plastic lemons as weapons and the next they were talking about men and women living on different sides of the equator.

 

[revol68]

Yeah and it was the early wimmins libbers who gave out white flowers to shame men who didn't go join in the imperialist slaughter.

If you ever read some of the arguments put forward for womens right to vote you'd see why Emma Goldman spat on the term feminist.

 

[newbie]

Bloody hell. That could have been written in 1975 by a Leninist who was simply pissed off that their party's claim to have the One True Way had been trashed.

That's about the right date, fwiw. The claim in the programme 'it all started in Leeds in 1978" was mystifying. There was a whole street of radical separatists over my back wall, in Stockwell in about 75. A lot of those arguments, including the demand for political lesbianism, were played out between them and the 'patriarchy supporting' women who lived in our street well before '78.

But like the squatting programme last week, it was all a bit superficial and too dependant on the views of the few who'd talk to the programme makers.

 

[Ryazan]

Yeah and it was the early wimmins libbers who gave out white flowers to shame men who didn't go join in the imperialist slaughter.

If you ever read some of the arguments put forward for womens right to vote you'd see why Emma Goldman spat on the term feminist.

Yep. Weakening the working class by cheering on the sending of their men off to die, and in that situation make the poverty of their widows even worse.

Hmmm. I am not an anarchist, although I do respect Emma Goldman. Despite her involvement with Lenin's party, and although she arrived late on, Alexandra Kollontai wrote some fascinating essays and speeches. Some which, although they have lost their immediate context, their core arguments still carry validiity today.

 

[laptop]

Again, I missed the beginning - was there a dicussion of what "radical feminism" actually means?

I'd describe it thus: some women went back to The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and pointed out that male Marxists had forgotten the first bit, conveniently privileged the second as the only explanation for anything and - in the case of Leninists - decided that the third was really rather a good invention.

More simply, radical feminism simply argues that the roots (radices) of oppressive structures lie in the sexual division of labour, esteem and power.

But that was (and is) to deny the universal explanatory power of class.

More simply, it's heresy to the class fundamentalists.

So these conveniently took the tabloid definition of "radical", and set about dissing feminism in general to defend their own faith. Of course there were bourgeois feminists - just as there were bourgeois marxists. And laughing at the "equator" idea was a bit rich from those who justified the elimnation of the kulaks...

 

[revol68]

Again, I missed the beginning - was there a dicussion of what "radical feminism" actually means?

I'd describe it thus: some women went back to The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and pointed out that male Marxists had forgotten the first bit, conveniently privileged the second as the only explanation for anything and - in the case of Leninists - decided that the third was really rather a good invention.

More simply, radical feminism simply argues that the roots (radices) of oppressive structures lie in the sexual division of labour, esteem and power.

But that was (and is) to deny the universal explanatory power of class.

More simply, it's heresy to the class fundamentalists.

So these conveniently took the tabloid definition of "radical", and set about dissing feminism in general to defend their own faith. Of course there were bourgeois feminists - just as there were bourgeois marxists. And laughing at the "equator" idea was a bit rich from those who justified the elimnation of the kulaks...

think your talking out yer ass here, radical feminism gets torn to shreds because it posits a homogenous idea of "womenhood" and has a long history of shite political positions.

 

[Jim]

As a bloke surrounded by feminists in the eighties it was a bit scary to read some of the stuff that was going around. I remember one book chapter by the Leeds womens group (or something like that) that described men as the phallic imperialists and that women who had sex with men were colluding with the enemy and being colonised from within. I was very sympathetic to feminism but as a bloke I couldn't really sign up to this sort of thing. Also there were a few women who looked at you as a piece of dirt just becaus eyou were a man. I felt this was deeply wrong at the time, but I suppose at least it makes you feel what discrimination is really about.

I lived in newcastle at the time and Viz comic was in its infancy. However the reason they got away with outrageous sexist stereotyopes like Millie Tant (pictured above) was that they did touch a button with many people not just lesbian hating sun readers.

 

[laptop]

think your talking out yer ass here,

I am not. You do know that the word "radical" means "to do with the roots", don't you?

radical feminism gets torn to shreds because it posits a homogenous idea of "womenhood" and has a long history of shite political positions.

Here you merely display the behaviour I described - either ignorantly or deliberately misrepresenting, in order to dismiss.

Actual radical feminists never claimed that women's experience was homogenous. Those who did were wadicals.

 

[Ryazan]

Again, I missed the beginning - was there a dicussion of what "radical feminism" actually means?

I'd describe it thus: some women went back to The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and pointed out that male Marxists had forgotten the first bit, conveniently privileged the second as the only explanation for anything and - in the case of Leninists - decided that the third was really rather a good invention.

More simply, radical feminism simply argues that the roots (radices) of oppressive structures lie in the sexual division of labour, esteem and power.

But that was (and is) to deny the universal explanatory power of class.

More simply, it's heresy to the class fundamentalists.

So these conveniently took the tabloid definition of "radical", and set about dissing feminism in general to defend their own faith. Of course there were bourgeois feminists - just as there were bourgeois marxists. And laughing at the "equator" idea was a bit rich from those who justified the elimnation of the kulaks...

Have you actually read Origin of the Family?

As for your naive anti-Communist rant vis a vis the demonisation of women's struggle by Marxists, or those involved in working class politics is insane! And of course the Ukraine famine. As far as I understand of that time, the CP did not act on a programme of anything akin to genocide, nor did the Stalinist government have a specific real enemy/victim in the way you have alluded to . Even bourgious dickhead historians like Robert Conquest aknowledge that in their own twisted way . The term Kulak is a spurious one, and even those wanting to defend the agricultural policies in the Soviet Union at that time would find arguments made against them by Marxists in the view that a class of seperate peasant exploiters really existed to the level that some people claimed. If you believe that there was a large peasant class above other rural workers (thank fuck Stolypin got shot) that had to be wiped out, then you might as well swallow other propaganda and lies spread by the Stalinist regime, in regard to the food needy crash industrialisation of the country, and the collectivisation of agriculture. Those that died or laboured in camps often were just ordinary people.

 

[laptop]

Where did I say that those who were defending the elimination of the kulaks knew what they were talking about?

They may well have defended what didn't happen. They probably hadn't read TOotFPP&tS. I have, though a long time ago.

But they were mostly concerned to bring discussion back onto their turf, as you do above.

And thereby they sought both to ignore awkward practical questions about the conditions of life of women now - diverse conditions, but conditions due to their being women - and to shout down awkward theoretical questions about the roots of oppression.

 

[revol68]

I am not. You do know that the word "radical" means "to do with the roots", don't you?



Here you merely display the behaviour I described - either ignorantly or deliberately misrepresenting, in order to dismiss.

Actual radical feminists never claimed that women's experience was homogenous. Those who did were wadicals.

yes i'm well aware of the meaning of "radical" as to get to the root, you patronising pick. My point is that radical feminism takes gender inequality as it's root and never moves beyond it, hence it is ahistorical and posits a rather static concept of patriarchy, one which forever paints women as victims.

And I think we can safely safe radical feminism as it has been expressed concretely and not in your dictionary understanding has posited some very reactionary ideas about gender and has always homogenised womens experiances hence alot ofthem felt the need to attack women who disagree with their analysis as slaves to patriarchy. In fact Mackinons whole theory was posited on transplanting Leninists ideas of ideology onto gender.

 

[wtfftw]

I think the programme could have been a series tbh. I'd like to have seen more on where it all went wrong and identity politics.

 

[Louloubelle]

I think the programme could have been a series tbh. I'd like to have seen more on where it all went wrong and identity politics.

me too

it wasn't just wimmin that got into the identity politics thing
I remember being at a meeting of the Islington AFA. People weere reporting back on their experiences of escorting bengali school children to and from school after a series of racist attacks by the fash.

An elderly white women (a bus driver IMMIC) repoprted that she had been followed and threatened by a gang of fascists and was scared of being attacked. Her voice was breaking as she spoke and she was clearly terrified. At that point a caribbean woman started to scream at her that she should count herself lucky that she wasn't black as black people were subject to racist attacks all the time. The woman was shouting and screaming atthe first woman for some time until the first woman broke down in tears and actually apologised for having mentioned being scared in the first place. Nobody challenged the caribbean woman, as it just wasn't something you did back then, unless you had more 'oppression points' yourself.

Very sad and ugly.

 

[Ryazan]

Where did I say that those who were defending the elimination of the kulaks knew what they were talking about?

They may well have defended what didn't happen. They probably hadn't read TOotFPP&tS. I have, though a long time ago.

But they were mostly concerned to bring discussion back onto their turf, as you do above.

And thereby they sought both to ignore awkward practical questions about the conditions of life of women now - diverse conditions, but conditions due to their being women - and to shout down awkward theoretical questions about the roots of oppression.

Elimination. Lies, propaganda....

With slavery, which attained its fullest development under civilization, came the first great cleavage of society into an exploiting and an exploited class. This cleavage persisted during the whole civilized period. Slavery is the first form of exploitation, the form peculiar to the ancient world; it is succeeded by serfdom in the middle ages, and wage-labor in the more recent period. These are the three great forms of servitude, characteristic of the three great epochs of civilization; open, and in recent times disguised, slavery always accompanies them.

when monogamous marriage first makes its appearance in history, it is not as the reconciliation of man and woman, still less as the highest form of such a reconciliation. Quite the contrary. Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period. In an old unpublished manuscript, written by Marx and myself in 1846, [The reference here is to the German Ideology, published after Engels’ death – Ed.] I find the words: “The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children.” And today I can add: The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamous marriage was a great historical step forward; nevertheless, together with slavery and private wealth, it opens the period that has lasted until today in which every step forward is also relatively a step backward, in which prosperity and development for some is won through the misery and frustration of others. It is the cellular form of civilized society, in which the nature of the oppositions and contradictions fully active in that society can be already studied.

Awkward questions. The Origin of the Family...I am flouncing...

 

[laptop]

And the fact that that latter passage is in Engels and is nowhere applied in Marxism is precisely the point.

As anyone who'd read my first post without a red mist coming down would appreciate.

 

[Ryazan]

Engel's study 'Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State' was done so by applying Marxian concepts. What the hell you are on about in regard to, and I paraphrase, "that was Engels but not Marx", I really do not know.

If you are referring to the Soviet Union in terms of women's role after Leninist control of the revolution had taken place, then reinforcment of the nuclear family well into the Stalin period, it could be argued, was due to finding a family structure best suited to the continued industrial development of the country. But, if you care to know, then there was opposition to women's continued oppression in the home and with the family before that had taken hold, (through less easy to use divorce laws, alimony and the rest) was done so, even by Leninists, in part after fearful reaction at what had happened in regard to attitudes and the use of sexual relations, marriage, divroce, abortion, and women's status through literacy, education and roles as workers in the socialist state, during the 1920's came into the open among those in the party.