Laurie Penny

Pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist

So, it turns out feminism is a CIA plot to undermine the left

My eyebrow-raising encounter with a media studies professor at Occupy Wall Street.

By Laurie Penny Published 29 February 2012 20:36

I'm having a major political rethink this week, because it turns out that all along, feminism was a CIA plot to undermine the left. Don't just take it from me. Mark Crispin Miller, author, professor of media studies at NYU, and host of New York's Notes from Underground book event, raised the issue himself when challenged about the all-male, all-white, all-over-forty lineup of his panel on The Future of Occupy Wall Street. Later, a young woman in the audience told me that it felt, to her, no different from watching an all-male lineup on the Hill debate the future of abortion rights in America on television that morning.

To give Miller his due, he did open the whole event with the sort of shrugging, cutesy apology for the homogeneity of the panel - which included David Graeber, Nick Mirzoeff and Andrew Ross - that has become routine at speaking events whose audiences are likely to care. All the usual excuses were trotted out, as questioners for the audience, including myself, pressed the point: it was very last minute. We couldn't find any women, or young people, or people of colour at short notice. We just put the panel together from our friends and from academics we knew.

The thing is that we've heard all of these excuses for the marginalisation of women, ethnic minorities and young people in debate spaces so many times before, and they are often tragically sincere in their intent, and they all have obvious retorts:

Why does the fact that the event was called at 'short notice' matter? (Are there any speaking events that aren't?) Were you asking women and people of colour along at the end, as an afterthought? Why aren't you asking them first, as a natural part of the process of inviting speakers?
If you can't think of women, people of colour and young people to talk about your chosen subject, that says more about what you're reading and who you're associating with than it does about the participation of people who are not old white professional blokes in any particular sphere. In this particular case, I could easily name you half a dozen women and people of colour living in New York City who know more about 'The Future of Occupy Wall Street' than at least three out of four of the people on that panel, and I've been here a fortnight.
If you're just selecting speakers from your friends and colleagues, don't you find it problematic that your friends and colleagues are overwhelmingly middle-aged white blokes?
No, having one woman/minority/young person in your lineup and five doesn't make it all better. Speaking as someone who is regularly invited to be the one woman and/or the one young person on a panel of older white blokes, it makes something twist and ache inside to know that you are valued not primarily for what you say but because of your particular demographic: they could put any of over a billion women under thirty on the planet in your place and feel that they had achieved the same effect.
No, inviting that one woman to chair your debate rather than participate in it doesn't make it all better. This is such a common get-out tactic, and it's a special sort of offensive, because it shows that organisers understand the importance of having a female person present in the debate, they just can't quite bring themselves to allow her to voice her own opinions - her job is merely to manage and make things pleasant for the men as they talk. Seriously. I'm sick of watching panels where the one woman's only role is to facilitate discussion between men, to handle rude or unruly questioners, to lay out the dialectical doilies and retreat into the background when she is not needed.
For fuck's sake, why exactly is it so hard to make space in political discussions - even on the nominal left - for people who are not middle-aged, middle class white men?

Well, between us, the women in the audience extracted the normal platitudes from Miller, but it's always worth asking again, because just occasionally people crack and say what they actually think. In this case Miller utterly lost, as the Americans like to put it, his shit, and - well, just watch the video. The significant quote is:

It's interesting to note that Ford and Rockefeller and the other foundations with strong CIA connections started giving grants in the early 70s to study race and gender. It was a sudden move towards identity politics by these organisations and the theory is that the reason they did this was to balkanise the left and to prevent it from pursuing any kind of a class or economic analysis. Without denying the justice of what you're saying, this is not an irrelevant theory. I don't think, anyway.

My favourite part of the clip is what the other three panellists do when Miller launches into his eyebrow-waggling rant about how 'identity' politics is a plot to distract white male academics from doing the real work of talking about class and economics whilst entirely ignoring the race and gender issues with which they are inextricably intertwined. Mirzoeff looks away. Graeber picks awkwardly at his shirt. Ross writes in his notepad, possibly the words 'honestly, I'm not with this guy.'

The next day, I had a Twitter exchange with Miller, in which he directed me to the theory he was referencing, which is apparently the work of someone called Daniel Brandt. In the essay in question, Brandt's groundbreaking ideas about the duplicitous, damaging role of women's rights on the left include frothing paranoid spittle-flecks like this:

One yearns for the good old days, when issues were big, women didn't want to be imperial spies, and idealism and ethical indignation were accepted from nonvictims. In 1977 the CIA notified eighty academic institutions that they had unwittingly been involved in -- surprise! -- mind-control research...

The Women's Liberation Movement may be considered as subversive to the New Left and revolutionary movements as they have proven to be a divisive and factionalizing factor.... It could be well recommended as a counterintelligence movement to weaken the revolutionary movement." This was from an August, 1969 report by the head of the San Francisco FBI office.[4] Within several years, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations were pumping millions into women's studies programs on campus.

OH NO, THE CIA ARE USING WOMEN'S STUDIES TO CONTROL YOUR MINDS. THIS IS SERIOUS, CHAPS. For the love of god, someone investigate Planned Parenthood and Abortion Rights UK right now! All that faff about a woman's right to choose might be an attempt to distract the white working class from issues that matter to real people! When I asked Miller to clarify his comments, he responded with the following TwitLonger essay (it's on his Twitter feed, for anyone to read):

Struck by how much time we'd spent on our (the panelists') race and gender, I made the point to note Brandt's argument that, in the Seventies, the student left may have been subtly guided toward race/gender issues as a way to get the movement not to deal with class or economics -- which, if they'd kept that focus, might have led to an alliance with the labor unions.

According to that argument, in other words, the rise of what we call "identity politics" was engineered to drive a wedge between the left and working-class whites, who now perceived the academic left as focused on "diversity" instead of economic justice; and this estrangement also made it easy for the right to woo white workers by playing on their racism and sexual anxieties (which had already started happening under Nixon, and which would soon help put Ronald Reagan in the White House).

By now, of course, the left's race/gender reflex -- what rightists call "political correctness" -- is so well-established that nobody even thinks to ask how it arose. Your persistence in attacking us last night struck me as an opportunity to raise that question, which I think is a good one, and worth pondering.

I could see, however, that it really pissed you off -- and it's clear that you're pissed off about it still. I'm sorry it offended you, but there it is.

In other words, I'm sorry you're upset, little lady, but you can't cry away the truth. The academy - which is, of course, where all the important liberal politics really gets done, rather than workplaces, schools, factories, town squares and the streets - had 'identity' politics and 'political correctness' foisted upon it by non-profits with CIA connections.

Never mind that the students of the University of Columbia, for example, went into occupation in 1996 to demand an ethnic studies department. They must have been funded by the secret service too. It's all a plot to stop the real left - which absolutely doesn't include any women or non-white people - from changing the world.

My mistake: I had assumed it was kneejerk, paranoid throwbackery.

Special Offer: Get 12 issues of New Statesman magazine for just £12

Tags: Occupy Wall Street feminism

More from Laurie Penny

119 comments

Thu, 2012-03-01 19:34 — Dickie1

Spud "There are rumours that they've been promoting particularly malleable and impressionable Oxbridge graduates with 'leftish' leanings and getting them influential positions in the mainstream media, TV appearances etc"

There's another rumour that someone who works for a well-know-tabloid had been sent out under various aliases to write the same thing again and again.

He starts off with: "Awww yea, like that's really....etc." Then he throws in a few leftist sounding accusations about 'the bourgeois middle-class pretenders' and at some point he will mention the fact that he has a white van, because that means you're a genuine working-class person. Somewhere in between he will throw in the word 'solidarity' just to sound like a trade-unionist.

Thu, 2012-03-01 19:35 — duck soup

@Stuart Eels
The BBC has plenty to do with this debate.Laurie was highlighting the fact of gender,ethnic imbalances on discussion panel line ups.I was seeking to draw attention to the same kind of bias by the BBC towards unionism on their panels in Scotland.You might not agree.And that's fine.But better to debate than be rude.

Sat, 2012-03-17 19:51 — LindbergMarley

The facts are that socialism (esp the economic part) has never convinced Labour voters, never mind a majority of working class men and women in the UK - all opinion polls which asked that question since the 1960s confirm that, and all election results since universal suffrage in 1928 confirm that, with one exception the election of 1945 - for for reasons I explained earlier. http://www.lifeinsurancehq.org/

Thu, 2012-03-01 19:53 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

Mitch

scraping the barrel there sunshine...you think it'd take a 'professional'? ...ever considered the possibility that it's..erm..waddaya call it, again...er...true. I know that'd count as a bit of an anomaly around here...but it would explain it all.

Mon, 2012-03-05 10:34 — gerry (not verified)

Spud - I dont want to keep prolonging this thread, but I am a person who doesnt deny fact or truth simply because it is inconvenient, or because I dont like the facts...

Again, my case - based on the facts of electoral results, voting reasons, and opinion polls, which I have studied as an interest of mine for many years - is that right wing parties always had a significant vote amongst the working class, varying from 15-40% in most C20 elections...added to that, many working class people who voted Labour never saw themselves as "socialist" but rather (esp in the case of working class men)as voting for the "party of the working man" in almost tribal sense.

Even this allegiance was weak in the face of crisis, however - in the 1931 election, for example, the overwhelming majority of working class people voted for the National Party, largely made up of Conservatives..this party ruled the UK for 14 years! And Labour was reduced to just 54 seats..and this, after universal suffrage!

Tories, and Tory-Led governments were in power for most of the twentieth century after universal suffrage and estimates are that wokring class women in particular (in the South, West, Midlands esp) were the main reason for that dominance - even if their husbands were "union" men!

So Spud, dont just accept what I say...accept the facts, and these are facts, I'm afraid...

Labour did not abandon the working class - the truth is that Tories attracted huge % of working class votes since universal suffrage - accepting the welfare state in 1950, building lots of council housing in the 1950s and early 1960s, right to buy in 1979 which pollsters tell us attracted 2 million EXTRA working class voters, and on and on...

Your case is wholly wrong and based on ideology, not the facts, Spud...

And that completes the history lesson!

Thu, 2012-03-01 06:08 — pessoa

The 'CIA backed feminism' line has been running for decades. I believe the iconic songwriter Phil Ochs may have first accused Gloria Steinem of being a plant, long before the (socialist feminist) Red Stockings group expose of her in Village Voice. It has been the case that both the older workerist and revolutionary wings of the US left remain suspicious of second wave feminism; I am surprised to hear this conspiracy from the more PC conscious contemporary left.

Thu, 2012-03-01 07:18 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

Abdoujaparov

I'd love to tell you but I've just received a number of disturbing emails, containing veiled threats, advising me to stay off this thread. I've been trying to work out who they come from but they're untraceable...although they all seem to come from a large building in Langley Virginia.

Thu, 2012-03-01 08:00 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

I don't know by this theory is regarded as ridiculous anyway. If the CIA didn't engage in any of the activities mentioned it: a) probably wishes it had thought of it b) might as well have done considering the state of the Left.

And we're forgetting, of course, MI5's activities in this country. There are rumours that they've been promoting particularly malleable and impressionable Oxbridge graduates with 'leftish' leanings and getting them influential positions in the mainstream media, TV appearances etc. The intention is to get them to unwittingly discredit the left through sheer idiocy and incoherence.

It tends to work like this..the 'mark' sends off a column to some liberal organ covering the hot identity of the moment; a crack team of sub-editors led, it's rumoured, by Ian Hislop and Richard Ingrams then 'spart' it up a few notches and it's put out as a column or blog. Apparently, there's one especially 'committed' young writer who doesn't need editing at all; in fact, several times, they've had to tone it down quite substantially. This writer's identity is a closely guarded secret...all I know is that she goes by the alias "Ms Moneypenny".

Thu, 2012-03-01 08:12 — DK (not verified)

Luddite, John Bull, and A Load for Feminists have all posted clear and unequivocal examples of hate speech. When is the NS going to moderate these comments?

As for Laurie's article, the point is that if feminism was "divisive" for the left this is because the left remained distressingly sexist in far too many ways. Of course the usual enemies would try to exploit this in all the usual ways, just as the FBI used the equal rights movement in the American south to drive the white working class there to the right. But that doesn't mean African-Americans should have accepted segregation out of class solidarity, or that women should smile demurely and wash the dishes while hubby makes the revolution.

Thu, 2012-03-01 09:06 — Slavjav (not verified)

It's the political economy, stupid!

Thu, 2012-03-01 09:07 — Philippa Chapman (not verified)

Come and live in the UK! We're not perfect yet, but we regularly have female/minority/ethnic/etc panelists and spokespeople. Heck, one of our archbishops is John Sentamenu and you must remember Margaret Thatcher [even if you disagree with her politics].

Fri, 2012-03-02 16:29 — Buckskins (not verified)

"Mr. Divine
01 March 2012 at 09:09

And what about the bloke who touched your knee right at the end! I've seen him before. No way."

Relax, he was reaching for her cock.

Sat, 2012-03-03 17:42 — Dickie1

"...disputing Ms Laurie's assertion that it's the "workplaces, schools,..." etc.

No I'm not, not unless you consider identity politics to be important, which I don't. Mind you, I think it's rubbish for different reasons to our beloved (especially by Mr Divine) author.

So Spud, what do you make of this:"Later, a young woman in the audience told me..." Is it one of those made-up people who fit the narrative?

Thu, 2012-03-01 09:18 — McMac (not verified)

Mmmmm.

Finding the most ridiculous argument against feminism you can, and then holding it up as an example of arguments against feminism is a cheap trick.

My argument against feminism is that it is sexism as ethos, ‘science’, art and lifestyle that gains credence through using ‘equality’ as a stalking horse. The last thing feminism wants is equality.

LP uses it to fire her self righteous indignation and automatic moral high ground on any subject while simultaneously using discriminatory epithets against anyone who isn’t young and female.

Mon, 2012-03-05 12:25 — Briar (not verified)

Given that most of the left wing sites I visit totally ignore feminist issues as beneath their manly notice, or actively attack women as "baby murderers" if such issues are raised, I would say the gentleman has over-rated the ability of such issues to distract the (mostly male) users of such sites. Though it perhaps explains why many women feel marginalised in the debate, and why "leftists" have lost the ability to talk to people outside their bubbles.

Thu, 2012-03-01 10:02 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

This is very funny. I love your expression at the end of the clip. Sums it all up! Your eyes! Lovely.
Everytime I see you I think you're great. You look really really .. oh lots of things Laurie. Cuddly for starters. I could cuddle you for ages. And just so sharp. Where did you get that outfit from?

What about the bloke in the black jumper.. ants in his pants or what!

And the selection process.. err I wasn't feeling too hot so I asked a couple of me mates.

What I find really funny is the body posturing of the blokes, they're like nerdy uni style of movement.

Sat, 2012-03-03 18:19 — gerry (not verified)

Spud/Luddite - you two are really funny in your analysis...

Most working class people in the UK never supported socialism, except perhaps in the 1945 election...and it is true, across Europe and the US, a huge % of working class people support right wing and even far right parties, and often support hard-line policies on social issues, immigration etc

But the main reason for this is not that "they have been abandoned by the Left"..a really patronising attitude which irritates the hell of this working class person (me)..

Many working class people, of all races, simply find right wing parties ideas, policies and values more attractive to them...and as I said in an earlier post, on an economic level "socialism" has never actually worked..anywhere on the planet!

And personally I am glad that left and centre parties have embraced the modern world - ie diversity, feminimsm, gay issues, green issues etc.

I draw the line at (some of the) Left's sickening embrace of totally reactionary forces like Islam and islamists (take a bow, Ken L..) but many lefties like me are now vocally and finally calling time on that horrific alliance...and personally I am also very anti-EU, and do not believe there should be any more mass immigration to the UK...

But being pro-diversity and feminism and gay rights may not be popular things to be, Luddite and Spud, and the "left" may have paid an even bigger electoral price for it everywhere, but I think Laurie is 100% right...this old delusion of a "unified white working class batrayed by womens rights and civil rights" is just that..a historical lie.

Thu, 2012-03-01 10:09 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

And what about the bloke who touched your knee right at the end! I've seen him before. No way.

Tue, 2012-03-13 00:48 — sid viscous (not verified)

Weird conspiracy theory aside, don't play dumb to what the panelist was telling you. You were totally distracting from a class discussion with identity politics. Ignore the people attacking your presumed economic status. They're idiots. But at the same time, don't ruin your reputation with drummed up outrage. And don't attend attend a panel on OWS if you don't have anything to say about the issues they deal with.

Fri, 2012-03-02 17:40 — Harry W (not verified)

Laurie, I think you misunderstood a lot of what this discussion is about. Stuff about feminism and ethnic minority rights being a CIA invention may be farfetched (to say the least) but it shouldn't distract us from the point that, some time in the mid-to-late 1960s, the political Left became distracted from the 'big issue' of showing how social democracy was a better route to peace and prosperity. Instead the arugment came to be about women's and ethnic minority rights. Of course, those are important issues and should be right at the heart of any sensible left-wing political programme but the point is that left wing politics did become so involved in infighting and having the 'right' views on hot-button issues that, in the end, it had nothing to say politically when the New Right came along. Look at the disconnect between the Labour Movement and the miners in 1984 for example. This point was also made (and made better) but Tony Judt in his last book.

Thu, 2012-03-01 10:18 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

Its speech that isn't very nice.

Tue, 2012-03-20 22:38 — Red Morlock (not verified)

Of course students at Columbia and Barnard want identitarian studies--these are two of the US's private schools for the economic elite. Yes, race and gender are important and should be studied, but ultimately, they're not as important as class, which is why capitalists prefer race and gender explanations of power.

Fri, 2012-03-02 18:45 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

"Laurie - good articel, ignore the more neanderthal responders like SpudMiddeleton and Luddite.."

You write in clunky awkward prose like that and call me a Neanderthal? I've had this for years, gerry; silly liberals trying to make the claim that my dismissal of their individualist utopia stems from a lack of sophistication; or no appreciation of nuance. It's the old relativist fall back when confronted with universalist demands: too simplistic and blunt; unable to respond respond to the varying demands of different groups or cultures. There's never any acceptance of the principle that some things are just plain wrong, or plain bad...everywhere and forever. I don't believe in 'local truths' or separate cultural epistemologies. I no more accept the notion of 'gay ethics' or a 'feminist ontology' than I'll credit the concept of 'Jewish physics' which once had such currency on certain parts of the continent in a particularly regrettable era of it's history.

"Romanticising the working class is ridiculous...in the UK, the majority of working class people, esp working class women, have NEVER been convinced in favour of socialism"

erm...how about 1926? 1945?...fuckin ludicrous statement...it's like saying the working class has always rejected fairness, solidarity and being treated with dignity.

"nothing to do with feminism, or diversity, but another reason why many white working class deserted nominally left/progressive parties..."

Oh...I see it was that way around was it?...I notice you call them 'nominally' left/progressive. You're right, they were only so in name. The working class abandoned them because they'd become something else entirely; parties that continued and extended Thatcher's agenda while appealing to the middle class but always with a veneer of identity politics to suck in the liberal idiots.

Thu, 2012-03-01 11:32 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

Oh come on John Bull, that isn't very nice. I mean who has got anything to say? Tell me one person who has anything worth saying? Nobody says anything unique. It's all a rehash of what has been said before.

Thu, 2012-03-01 21:19 — Dickie1

Yea Spud, but it's a conspiracy, so it doesn't need to be true.

I can't believe you agree with this professor of media studies just because he says things Laurie Penny is opposed to. Didn't you once urge me to follow the argument not the personality.

And as James says: "If one removes that faff about a CIA plot and other such nonsense, the chap has a point."

So if you remove the cornerstone upon which he rests his argument you can just about put up with it i.e. it is just about plausible that people have been wasting time arguing about the wrong thing - that's always been possible, for as long as there have been arguments.

Thu, 2012-03-01 12:08 — Steve Lockett (not verified)

Professor of media studies. Is that a REAL job?

Fri, 2012-03-02 18:58 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

gerry

How, anyway, can you support any cause which prioritises individual identity and liberation while neglecting the well-spring of all inequality and discrimination: the economic? Economic fairness and equality of opportunity across all classes have to take an absolute priority. Without that all other inequality is just meaningless. All you're doing is freeing up opportunities for various groups within existing economic bands.

Look how the civil rights movement in the US fared. They liberated black people to the point where they have full recognition and equal rights to stay poor, live in the worst housing, receive the worst education and live 10 years less than everybody else...their hard-won rights must be such a fuckin consolation, no? To liberate people, you liberate them economically.

Sat, 2012-03-03 22:07 — SpudMiddleton (not verified)

"unified white working class betrayed by womens rights and civil rights"

That's a straw man and you know it. There are two issues here; one particularly relevant to this country.

1) The appropriation of the Labour party by middle-class liberal politicians who proceeded to court a traditional Tory demographic and whose spurious claims to any sort of Leftish tradition were supplied by a commitment to 'progressive' politics, namely: identity.

2) Their abandonment of the cause of economic equality and social justice as their primary ideological goal in order to maintain Thatcher's legacy.

...along the way, they abandoned the working class by simply rejecting any policy or ideology which was of any benefit, interest or utility to them. I know the new pseudo-Left dispute this, but it's entirely disingenuous. A bit like a guy buying an old local, turning it into a wine-bar and claiming he hadn't wanted to alienate or discourage the old regulars; he'd just decided it was time they started drinking Chardonnay and eating paninis...then claiming they'd abandoned him.

And nobody on the left ever disputed the necessity of racial or gender equality...they just knew it was meaningless without social justice and economic fairness; without the latter two, you're fiddling while Rome burns.

Sat, 2012-03-03 22:18 — SpudMiddleton (not verified)

"So Spud, what do you make of this:"Later, a young woman in the audience told me..." Is it one of those made-up people who fit the narrative?"

entirely...in fact doesn't it refer back to her Santorum article..."In 2012, the morality of hormonal birth control is now a serious hot-button issue in the Republican presidential race. Last week, not a single woman was allowed to testify before a Washington hearing on reproductive rights"

..all this stuff is the reporting of a dialogue and narrative which takes place in her head...a little fantasy world in which she plays the beloved heroine...idolised by the young and oppressed...a state, ironically enough, she considers herself well-suited to talk about.

Thu, 2012-03-01 12:22 — Tim Avenell (not verified)

Just suppose that the premise of divide and rule is correct and that the established Left has been seduced by the pursuit of identity politics alienating many of it's traditional support.

Where does that leave middle class wannabe proles that have never had a proper working class job in their life e.g. like Ms Penny?

Duped, I guess

Btw keep up the posts,Spud - by far and away the most incisive and entertaining contributions on this site. If the NS had any sense, they would replace aforesaid Ms Penny with you

Thu, 2012-03-01 21:50 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

"I can't believe you agree with this professor of media studies just because he says things Laurie Penny is opposed to."

I don't believe him...but my 'inner troofer' does. If I was ever going to be swayed by a conspiracy theory, this would be the one; it suits my prejudices. And as someone once said "they're only conspiracy theories till the truth comes out; then they're historical facts."

Anyway, agent Mitch...when did you join the CIA?

Thu, 2012-03-01 21:59 — Tim Avenell (not verified)

I felt a bit sorry for the professor of media studies patiently indulging Ms Perry and her rant about the make up of the panel.

If we were the Titanic sailing towards the iceberg catastrophe, Ms Penny would be more concerned about arranging the deck chairs than dealing with the more pressing matter of substance.

Another typical loony lefty in other words.

Mon, 2012-03-05 14:16 — JT (not verified)

Laurie, you don't understand anything about banking, finance, or economic analysis, so you aren't qualified to talk about 'inequality'. You're an embarrassment to the left. Miller hits the nail on the head. Leave the serious stuff to the grown-ups, whilst you bang on and on about 'wacism' and 'patwiarchy'.' Sad.

Thu, 2012-03-01 12:23 — DK (not verified)

@John Bull. This is hate speech: " most blacks lacked the capability to get into college in the first place, and that most of those who were there were affirmative action tokens."

Fri, 2012-03-02 19:26 — gerry (not verified)

Spud - I agree with all your 17:58 post, and would add that "socialism" and "communism" lost for good the economic argument decades ago, being allied in most peoples mind with failed state control, nationalisation, militant unions, Russia/China/Soviet bloc etc..not my opinion, but I accept that most people - even Labour voters - never believed that socialism economically could work, and yes there isnt a decent working "socialist" economy on the planet, nor has there ever been...

That, Spud, is also why many working class men and women rejected so-called left parties..they knew it was all a charade, like Clause 4

But I couldnt disagree more with your earlier post: the ONLY election where what could be termed "socialism" was popular was 1945, in the unique collectivist wave of the end of WW2..even socialist Commonwealth parties and Communists did relatively well!

But you ignore the fact that, since universal suffrage, most women have voted for the right (exceptions the elections of 1945 and 1997), with working class women more likely to do so than ever...so yes, socialism has NEVER convinced the majority of working class people in the UK..Blair's genius was that he understood that instinctively and so built an alliance in 1997 around "fairness" and "decency"...classic "social democratic" and "liberal" values!

It is depressing, Spud..true: no party of the left (or right) can offer a programme for economic equality. Nobody really believes that you can have an economically equal/just (and free) society!

Sat, 2012-03-03 23:05 — Craig Ranapia (not verified)

Ah, yes, "identity politics": Anything that makes heterosexual (mostly) white middle-class cis-males uncomfortable. Diddums.

Thu, 2012-03-01 12:44 — Tim Avenell (not verified)

@John Bull

The reason that Ms Penny is a regular invitee to TV and radio panel discussions is not as you seem to suggest that even vapid airheads need a voice but because they shrewdly recognise the huge demand from the public for an authoritative voice on pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist.

Nice choice of word, that last one.....twist.......what does it mean exactly?

Thu, 2012-03-01 22:37 — Malatesta (not verified)

When I saw this video of the event the first time, my reaction to "Laurie Penny" was a visceral annoyance at her clear ignorance of this issue at hand.

And now, I discover she has access to the New Statesman website to peddle her ignorance to a wider audience.

She clearly is clueless about the well documented history of Gloria Steinem's close work with the CIA, and their various funding groups in founding Ms Magazine. This is all documented in the The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America, by Hugh Wilford.

Is this to say that there aren't legit radical women's groups, of all colors working for a better world? No, of course not, but to dismiss the state's attempts at division is naive, and well, clueless.

Laurie Penny exemplifies precisely the middle class politics of identity that destroys left movements that are based in a radical critique of capital. It's the oldest white-guilt-trip divide and conquer strategy used by the powerful, and often unwittingly by privileged white girls, a la Gloria Steinem. And in this case, looking to advance their journalistic careers by chattering on without a clue of the actual history of social movements.

It's truly pathetic that people like you get access to mass media, and by people like you, I mean privileged little white girls that are clueless of the complexities of social movements, and our enemies that are working diligently to destroy them. You and Chris Hedges would make quite the pair.

Fri, 2012-03-02 19:58 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

"That, Spud, is also why many working class men and women rejected so-called left parties..they knew it was all a charade, like Clause 4 "

...and I maintain that the "so-called left parties" rejected them, ignored them and eventually stigmatised them as a racist, sexist homophobic rabble...on the basis of small numbers of easily led morons who were attracted by crypto-fascist groups who at least showed a bit of fuckin interest in them...and Clause 4 was an ultimate goal; the aim of an affirmed gradualist movement. It was rejected as a signal to Middle England that the Labour Party had changed allegiance. It gave them an option; a way out of continuing to back a clapped out Tory party which had run its course without aligning themselves with those 'nasty socialists'.

"But you ignore the fact that, since universal suffrage, most women have voted for the right (exceptions the elections of 1945 and 1997), with working class women more likely to do so than ever...so yes, socialism has NEVER convinced the majority of working class people in the UK"

OK, but even I happened to buy that argument, it's even more the case that they have never bought into identity. Identity has been a top-down ideology, forced onto the communities who'd always been involved in the 'business end' of cultural assimilation. Handing a job to the nice Asian girl you were at Cambridge with and thinking yourself broad-minded and progressive is of a very different stripe than dealing with large scale immigration into your local community. The Integrationist approaches which had served so well for generations had of course been ripped up by the liberal elites; no doubt for their lack of nuance or failing sufficiently to 'celebrate difference'. This is the sort of thing that your left/progressive parties had to offer; that and an unremitting devotion to the market...and that, like it or not, represents the complete abandonment of the working class.

I know a guy who walked out on his missus and three kids a couple of years back; moved in with a woman he met at work. These days he tells it as though his wife kicked him out...'rejected' him...'didn't understand him'. And that's the only sense in which the working class 'rejected' the left.

Sat, 2012-03-03 23:58 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

this isn't working properly

Sat, 2012-03-03 23:59 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

I sincerely hope Laurie Penny doesn't fall for any " Ms" nonsense. We're either a Miss or a Mrs. in my view. Never mind identity politics. What about the politics of integrity? Or is that a logical and technical impossibility, one wonders.

Fri, 2012-03-02 20:09 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

"It is depressing, Spud..true: no party of the left (or right) can offer a programme for economic equality. Nobody really believes that you can have an economically equal/just (and free) society!"

...and Nobody really believes it can't be a hell of a lot more equal and more meritocratic. Nobody ever expected an entirely equal society; just far more equality of opportunity and far less in the way of massive economic differentials between the classes...for slight differences in ability or responsibility...and they certainly didn't expect social mobility to grind to a halt or parental income to become virtually the defining determinant of future prosperity.

And they certainly didn't expect that we'd live in such a society and still think ourselves as civilised and progressive because, in the face of this neo-immiseration, a few liberal idiots got all happy-clappy,precious and self-righteous over cultural relativism.

Fri, 2012-03-02 20:17 — Agent Mitch (not verified)

"Nobody ever expected an entirely equal society;"

That's true. Even Plato thought wealth differentiation should be about 6:1, Orwell went for a more achievable 10:1

(Quotes from memory)

Sun, 2012-03-04 00:41 — Dickie1

Craig Ranapia

WTF RU on about? you can be a black transvestite lesbian bishop for all I care so long as we're all agreed about hating Tories. The only thing that makes me uncomfortable is Tories - so if you are a Tory gay transvestite black bishop then I have a serious problem. Even a straight ginger vicar is fine, so long as he's not a Tory. Now then the left: I dare one of you to say that I should like Tories while remaining Left - go on, I'm waiting...It can't be done, therefore there is a simple 'identity' problem to understand: that of Tories and of intelligent people (sorry, the Left).

For the record you can be a red haired (dyed) military coat wearing bisexual (possibly) privileged rookie journalist and I think you're fine, so long as you are not a Tory.

I think this is important because as the Tories have been hidden away in opposition for years, and only now are in a seedy coalition government I think people have forgotten who to dislike viz. Tories.

And now for another glass of beer.

Thu, 2012-03-01 13:25 — Caroline (not verified)

The main response from middle aged white able bodied men to the feminist/able-ist/racist/age-ist seems to be that our focus needs to be on economic and class issues. I agree, there is no doubt that class and economics are vitally important, they're central to politics and the thing that underpin those differences but that doesn't make it the only thing, and as Laurie says, how hard can it be guys? Yeah, you could say that this is boring, this is distracting from the real issues, this is stalling debate and you'd be right, so lets just sort it the fuck out and move on.

Sun, 2012-03-04 02:35 — Mr. Divine (not verified)

How about ex-Tories Agent Mitch?

Thu, 2012-03-01 23:58 — Dickie1

Spud "Anyway, agent Mitch...when did you join the CIA?"

Damn you! you rumbled me. I admit it. I was sent to draw attention away from the truth of the conspiracy by planting a counter conspiracy. Actually it's working well though, a few more years and the left will be unable to look up from th naval gazing position as their vertebrae will have fused together in the customary position.

Fri, 2012-03-02 00:04 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

"It's truly pathetic that people like you get access to mass media, and by people like you, I mean privileged little white girls that are clueless of the complexities of social movements, and our enemies that are working diligently to destroy them."

...and that, in a nutshell, is why this is my favourite Laurie Penny thread of all time.

Fri, 2012-03-02 00:14 — Spud Middleton (not verified)

Agent Mitch

I had you pegged way back as a double agent, matey. Only one thing to say to you: "The mackerel fly by the light of a harvest moon."

Thu, 2012-03-01 13:45 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

Tim Avenell----dunno-.

What I do know is that Stephen Gash and Scottish first are popping up on lots of threads and using them to spout their sense of betrayal and hurt. Scottish Independence and an English Parliament are not served very well by either of them.

If Laurie Penny is a little too head strong it's because of her age, hopefully she'll grow out of it and not turn into Polly Toynbee.

Hello Mr Divine, nice to see that you are keeping up the good fight.