Splintered Sunrise has a post on his blog about the invisibility of women and how oppression has a tendency to silence women (and the comments on that thread are interesting). And funnily enough I can relate to Myra Tanner Weiss’s words. Women can recount the times they have been ignored, silenced, patronised, marginalised and rendered invisible on a general to a more personal interaction. And as Weiss maintains it is a product of the patriarchal order and male dominance.
That is why the comments are interesting on that particular post as it highlights uncomfortable truths for some men who would prefer to deny or ignore that women are marginalised on the Left. They don’t see it therefore it doesn’t happen. I once wrote an article for the F Word a couple of years called Left Behind mainly as a way to articulate my own personal and political experiences of engaging in the Left. Some of positive, some of negative. How did I perceive my time spent organising, socialising and building relationships with lefties? Or do I, as Edith Piaf once sang, Non, je ne regrette rien ?
The article I wrote on the F Word generated much discussion on many feminist blogsites (but not, interestingly, leftie ones) and I came across other women who had a mixture of experiences with the Left, good, bad and some positively crap. Incidentally, just briefly, that also brings me to how separate feminist and leftie blogs are. The politics are similar yet never the twain shall meet. Again, my own belief is that feminism has met with hostility on the Left over the years, the leftie world (both virtual and real) is male dominated and also, maybe, a lack of influence of socialism in feminism.
On the surface, the Left presents itself as a comradely safe place where men and women in collaboration build alternative and progressive politics but scratch that surface and you are faced with the same fraught power relationsips and oppression that exits in patriarchal capitalism. The Left is not hermetically sealed when it comes to women’s oppression and will reflect those power relationsips that exist under patriarchal capitalism. I also believe a lot hostility and defensiveness towards the treatment of women exposes a deeper crisis in leftie organisations and entrenched sexism (both individually and collectively). It not just about taking a collective responsibility, it is also about personal awareness and responsibility as well, and education.
Finally, if you don’t listen to others who have different experiences from you, especially if the other people are facing opression that you are not facing yourself, then how are you going to learn anything new?
Posted by harpymarx 
