Holy crapola--they were repeatedly assigning a man to room with a young woman because he requested it, although she didn't. How on Earth did they think that was appropriate.
Can people can be called "leftists" when they support transgender ideology, which openly espouses the erasure of women as a sex, the nullification of women's sports, elimination of the raison d'etre for women's shelters and rape crises centers, while ignoring the crimes, abuse, threats, silencing and censure trans activists frequently impose on women and girls. In addition, some of these people also support the sale of women's and children's bodies in prostitution as well as the consumption of pornography for entertainment. This transgender view of women as non-existent beings or having non-existent interests as a sex, is an expression of extreme right-wing views, which disregard and silence women like the Taliban. Any group of people like trans activists, who pile-on to discriminate against women, who are the largest group of oppressed people the world over, whether we're talking about one of the 5 thousand women murdered in the USA every year, or one of the million women raped in S. Africa each year, or the fact that, around the globe women get paid less than men, cannot be considered of the left. Those, like trans people, are NOT about equality, fairness or justice; they are about hanging on to male privilege, male supremacy and using regressive stereotypes to confine and control women's options and voices. How can such people be considered "leftists?" This is the strategy of covert-right actors hiding behind a smokescreen of phoney liberation politics; cynical poseurs who rely on emotional manipulation. These are the actions of a covert-right and they should be called-out as such - never to be conflated with leftists. I consider myself a leftist; always have. I think this is an honorable position that should never be confused with the deceptions of a covert-right.
What do you consider to be "the left"? Are you referring to people who base their analysis of social problems on class disparities and conflict, I.e., Marxists? I have known a lot of Marxists and a few of them were also feminists, but it was a tiny minority.
I participated in the civil rights movement and subsequently in New Left activism during the 1960's. With a few exceptions, both the civil rights movement and the New Left were very male dominated. When I tried to get involved in community organizing or other core activist functions, I was marginalized and assigned tasks like stuffing envelopes. While I was stuffing them, various individual male activists who were present in the office repeatedly told me that I couldn't possibly understand how it was for them as men, being threatened by the draft. It was such a relief when the New Left fell apart at the start of the Seventies, and the feminist movement welcomed female activists to contribute their skills and voices to our own cause.
Are Democrats leftists? They certainly don't support women's rights, with the exception of abortion.
Every "radical" political movement I have ever been a part of, with the exception of the Second Wave Feminist movement, treated women as second class people. Now, a lot of young people identify themselves as feminists, but most of them privilege the needs of men over those of women. I do not see a "leftist" movement out there anywhere that focuses on the rights and needs of women as women.
I am open to other perspectives on this topic and welcome informed disagreement.
Modern liberals are actually authoritarians. They’re not about individual liberally and personal choice but all about confirming, obeying authority and falling in line.
I agree with the use of the term "authoritarian." It accurately describes the nature of the mass movement that is currently in power in the U.S. The participants in this movement are definitely not "liberal" in the classical sense of that term.
I disagree with the position that misogynist movements, organizations and individuals are by definition "not left." I interpret Betsy Warrior's post, to which I responded above, to make that claim. I may be wrong in my interpretation, so I will state more generally that I emphatically reject any claim that misogyny is a synonym for "being on the right." Misogyny has been around for many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of human history. Patriarchy is the default system all over the planet and has been for as long as we know.
The linguistic categories of "left" and "right" have very short histories and lack
cross-cultural presence as well. The groups that are so-labelled are also of very recent origin. Furthermore, the movements that used to be known as the "Left" were based on Marxism. So is Russia still "the Left?" Or China? I think it is time that we stop using the terms "left" and "right" to describe any current political movement, because the terms no longer have well defined meanings in terms of economic and political policies.
Sandra, Yesterday, in the comment sections of Kara's Women's Hour interview with Vaishnavi Sundar, I wrote a long response on the same topic. I've reproduced it below. It has a slightly different focus but arrives at the same place you do:
It may be impossible to reach a new consensus on what it means to be on the "left.” In my case, I was essentially born a leftist due to my grandparents' and parents' involvement with labor organizing. Sometime in the 20th century, something happened to leftist politics. Or maybe it was always there, but we didn't notice because of our fervor for justice and equality and being on the correct side of history. Leftism is idealistic. If it has a flaw, it's the belief that human nature, which leans towards selfishness, tribalism, and a craving for utopia, can be altered through social engineering without pissing off half the population and creating deep resentments.
Freedom, especially freedom of speech, which the Democrats seem to be in the process of eradicating through age-old techniques of fear mongering and shunning, is an existential human need. Lately I've heard progressives use the word disparagingly, as if spoken with quotation marks around it. According to some progressives, “freedom” is code for "insurrection" and “racism.” I fear that the Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves.
Right-wing Sen. Mike Lee and I agree that trans-identified male rapists don’t belong in women’s prisons. Great! But then he celebrates the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Not great! Left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes just the opposite on both those issues. What to do?
I can't think any longer in terms of overarching philosophies and ideologies that may be helpful in certain contexts but not in others.
Q. Who put progressive professor Allison Stanger in the hospital with a severe neck injury because she agreed to have a civil conversation with conservative political scientist Charles Murray, who wrote “The Bell Curve”?
A. Unhinged, violent, anti-free speech, left-wing students at Middlebury College.
It wouldn’t hurt if we took a good look at what it means to be on the “left” and whether it’s a term we need to keep. Same on the right, BTW. Let’s keep what’s noble and good, and dump the rest. I’m talking in terms of values, not platforms.
Anointing Trump as the universal boogie-man as an excuse to suppress our fundamental freedoms, is a corruption. People on the right say that people on the left suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I would call it an obsession, a roadblock to objectivity and unity.
We live in a diverse country, which is why I love the U.S. As the grandchild of Jewish immigrants who would not have survived if they'd stayed in eastern Europe, I'm grateful that I grew up in this magnificent, crazy country. In honor of my heritage, I do volunteer work with immigrants: asylum seekers and refugees. Every one of them loves this country. They don't see race, they don't see politics. They have no interest in identitarianism. They have a feeling of possibility that was denied to them in their countries. (The long-term effects of colonialism and war mongering are ongoing.) They’re no strangers to hardship. Their stories are often tragic. And yet, they celebrate every breath they take here. Because freedom.
I think that everybody has to navigate this conundrum for themselves, and come up with a working plan to navigate the weird times we live in. SPEAKING JUST FOR MYSELF, I seek foundational values, and have relegated “left" and “right" to the trash heap of history.
The complicity of the coaches is a disgrace, and it appears to occur across the board in women’s sports. Isn’t it their responsibility to take care of and protect their athletes? Coaches know better than anyone that the performance gap between males and females is intrinsic and highly significant. What would happen if all coaches at every level of competition collectively wrote a female athletes’ bill of rights and refused to participate in a system that destroys the level playing field, disadvantages all women and, depending on the sport, guarantees that women are going to be injured, sometimes severely, due to the superior size and strength of males?
I wonder how the Olympic boxing coaches felt this year, standing by passively and watching their female athletes get pummeled and humiliated in front of the world. How do they sleep at night, knowing they stood by and said nothing?
Good for her! It must be hard to come out against a current teammate. SJSU’s reaction to cover up and force the hard choices onto the students is outrageous.
The nerve, to threaten the women on the team if they speak the truth. Such BS. I am so glad Brooke Slusser has the backbone to stand up for herself.
I kinda wish the women in women’s sports would show up to compete wearing something that illustrates a “no dicks on the sports floor’ stance. A dick with a line through it?
Allowing males in female sports because they feel like women is absolutely insane, no matter how you slice it. To deny, reality, history, biology, rights, and then DEMAND everyone else play pretend is beyond the beyond. It reminds me of North Korea, and how the people have to pretend that Kim Jong Un is a divine leader from god, or else. Women were ruled by their biology for thousands of years until the 1960's. To now be forced to play pretend that we're all just one omeba is psychotic. I hope they win, and I hope Trump wins to end this inane, unfair policy.
Holy crapola--they were repeatedly assigning a man to room with a young woman because he requested it, although she didn't. How on Earth did they think that was appropriate.
He was stalking her in her own room.
The left believes it's the job of women to be subservient to men.
IKR! Just like the right.
Women and girls catch no breaks. It ain’t the right or left, it’s the patriarchy and all those who bow to it’s eternal power.
Can people can be called "leftists" when they support transgender ideology, which openly espouses the erasure of women as a sex, the nullification of women's sports, elimination of the raison d'etre for women's shelters and rape crises centers, while ignoring the crimes, abuse, threats, silencing and censure trans activists frequently impose on women and girls. In addition, some of these people also support the sale of women's and children's bodies in prostitution as well as the consumption of pornography for entertainment. This transgender view of women as non-existent beings or having non-existent interests as a sex, is an expression of extreme right-wing views, which disregard and silence women like the Taliban. Any group of people like trans activists, who pile-on to discriminate against women, who are the largest group of oppressed people the world over, whether we're talking about one of the 5 thousand women murdered in the USA every year, or one of the million women raped in S. Africa each year, or the fact that, around the globe women get paid less than men, cannot be considered of the left. Those, like trans people, are NOT about equality, fairness or justice; they are about hanging on to male privilege, male supremacy and using regressive stereotypes to confine and control women's options and voices. How can such people be considered "leftists?" This is the strategy of covert-right actors hiding behind a smokescreen of phoney liberation politics; cynical poseurs who rely on emotional manipulation. These are the actions of a covert-right and they should be called-out as such - never to be conflated with leftists. I consider myself a leftist; always have. I think this is an honorable position that should never be confused with the deceptions of a covert-right.
What do you consider to be "the left"? Are you referring to people who base their analysis of social problems on class disparities and conflict, I.e., Marxists? I have known a lot of Marxists and a few of them were also feminists, but it was a tiny minority.
I participated in the civil rights movement and subsequently in New Left activism during the 1960's. With a few exceptions, both the civil rights movement and the New Left were very male dominated. When I tried to get involved in community organizing or other core activist functions, I was marginalized and assigned tasks like stuffing envelopes. While I was stuffing them, various individual male activists who were present in the office repeatedly told me that I couldn't possibly understand how it was for them as men, being threatened by the draft. It was such a relief when the New Left fell apart at the start of the Seventies, and the feminist movement welcomed female activists to contribute their skills and voices to our own cause.
Are Democrats leftists? They certainly don't support women's rights, with the exception of abortion.
Every "radical" political movement I have ever been a part of, with the exception of the Second Wave Feminist movement, treated women as second class people. Now, a lot of young people identify themselves as feminists, but most of them privilege the needs of men over those of women. I do not see a "leftist" movement out there anywhere that focuses on the rights and needs of women as women.
I am open to other perspectives on this topic and welcome informed disagreement.
Modern liberals are actually authoritarians. They’re not about individual liberally and personal choice but all about confirming, obeying authority and falling in line.
I agree with the use of the term "authoritarian." It accurately describes the nature of the mass movement that is currently in power in the U.S. The participants in this movement are definitely not "liberal" in the classical sense of that term.
I disagree with the position that misogynist movements, organizations and individuals are by definition "not left." I interpret Betsy Warrior's post, to which I responded above, to make that claim. I may be wrong in my interpretation, so I will state more generally that I emphatically reject any claim that misogyny is a synonym for "being on the right." Misogyny has been around for many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of human history. Patriarchy is the default system all over the planet and has been for as long as we know.
The linguistic categories of "left" and "right" have very short histories and lack
cross-cultural presence as well. The groups that are so-labelled are also of very recent origin. Furthermore, the movements that used to be known as the "Left" were based on Marxism. So is Russia still "the Left?" Or China? I think it is time that we stop using the terms "left" and "right" to describe any current political movement, because the terms no longer have well defined meanings in terms of economic and political policies.
Sandra, Yesterday, in the comment sections of Kara's Women's Hour interview with Vaishnavi Sundar, I wrote a long response on the same topic. I've reproduced it below. It has a slightly different focus but arrives at the same place you do:
It may be impossible to reach a new consensus on what it means to be on the "left.” In my case, I was essentially born a leftist due to my grandparents' and parents' involvement with labor organizing. Sometime in the 20th century, something happened to leftist politics. Or maybe it was always there, but we didn't notice because of our fervor for justice and equality and being on the correct side of history. Leftism is idealistic. If it has a flaw, it's the belief that human nature, which leans towards selfishness, tribalism, and a craving for utopia, can be altered through social engineering without pissing off half the population and creating deep resentments.
Freedom, especially freedom of speech, which the Democrats seem to be in the process of eradicating through age-old techniques of fear mongering and shunning, is an existential human need. Lately I've heard progressives use the word disparagingly, as if spoken with quotation marks around it. According to some progressives, “freedom” is code for "insurrection" and “racism.” I fear that the Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves.
Right-wing Sen. Mike Lee and I agree that trans-identified male rapists don’t belong in women’s prisons. Great! But then he celebrates the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Not great! Left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes just the opposite on both those issues. What to do?
I can't think any longer in terms of overarching philosophies and ideologies that may be helpful in certain contexts but not in others.
Q. Who put progressive professor Allison Stanger in the hospital with a severe neck injury because she agreed to have a civil conversation with conservative political scientist Charles Murray, who wrote “The Bell Curve”?
A. Unhinged, violent, anti-free speech, left-wing students at Middlebury College.
It wouldn’t hurt if we took a good look at what it means to be on the “left” and whether it’s a term we need to keep. Same on the right, BTW. Let’s keep what’s noble and good, and dump the rest. I’m talking in terms of values, not platforms.
Anointing Trump as the universal boogie-man as an excuse to suppress our fundamental freedoms, is a corruption. People on the right say that people on the left suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I would call it an obsession, a roadblock to objectivity and unity.
We live in a diverse country, which is why I love the U.S. As the grandchild of Jewish immigrants who would not have survived if they'd stayed in eastern Europe, I'm grateful that I grew up in this magnificent, crazy country. In honor of my heritage, I do volunteer work with immigrants: asylum seekers and refugees. Every one of them loves this country. They don't see race, they don't see politics. They have no interest in identitarianism. They have a feeling of possibility that was denied to them in their countries. (The long-term effects of colonialism and war mongering are ongoing.) They’re no strangers to hardship. Their stories are often tragic. And yet, they celebrate every breath they take here. Because freedom.
I think that everybody has to navigate this conundrum for themselves, and come up with a working plan to navigate the weird times we live in. SPEAKING JUST FOR MYSELF, I seek foundational values, and have relegated “left" and “right" to the trash heap of history.
So true. I’ve been saying this all along. They’re actually far right.
Agree! Just despicable.
Great call out Kara to name Brooke! THANK YOU Brooke for your courage!
Agree!
The complicity of the coaches is a disgrace, and it appears to occur across the board in women’s sports. Isn’t it their responsibility to take care of and protect their athletes? Coaches know better than anyone that the performance gap between males and females is intrinsic and highly significant. What would happen if all coaches at every level of competition collectively wrote a female athletes’ bill of rights and refused to participate in a system that destroys the level playing field, disadvantages all women and, depending on the sport, guarantees that women are going to be injured, sometimes severely, due to the superior size and strength of males?
I wonder how the Olympic boxing coaches felt this year, standing by passively and watching their female athletes get pummeled and humiliated in front of the world. How do they sleep at night, knowing they stood by and said nothing?
💯💯💯💯💯
Follow-up: I opened Reduxx.info today and found this. Not surprised, but good for him!
https://reduxx.info/oregon-track-and-field-coach-fired-after-asking-state-officials-to-protect-single-sex-sports/
Good for her! It must be hard to come out against a current teammate. SJSU’s reaction to cover up and force the hard choices onto the students is outrageous.
Congratulations! Brooke
The nerve, to threaten the women on the team if they speak the truth. Such BS. I am so glad Brooke Slusser has the backbone to stand up for herself.
I kinda wish the women in women’s sports would show up to compete wearing something that illustrates a “no dicks on the sports floor’ stance. A dick with a line through it?
Allowing males in female sports because they feel like women is absolutely insane, no matter how you slice it. To deny, reality, history, biology, rights, and then DEMAND everyone else play pretend is beyond the beyond. It reminds me of North Korea, and how the people have to pretend that Kim Jong Un is a divine leader from god, or else. Women were ruled by their biology for thousands of years until the 1960's. To now be forced to play pretend that we're all just one omeba is psychotic. I hope they win, and I hope Trump wins to end this inane, unfair policy.