Upcoming events in London
Download as PDF: cslondonleaflet
Including our studies of Capital and Revolutionary Strategy, ‘Jesus- revolutionary resistance fighter or the son of God?’, annual conference of Hands Off the People of Iran, and our own conference in February.
Are the pictures representative? Do you truly not have any members other than bearded men?
haha – touché comrades?
Harsh.
But not quite fair – as Vicky knows. This leaflet was actually put together by one of our female comrades.
Yes, the mythical female membership that Chris keeps telling me about…I’ve met Tina.
And your point is, Vicky…?
Nice one
My point is quite obvious, Carey: CS has woman troubles.
Vicky,
there are other women, besides Tina, who are involved in CS. But yes we do have “woman troubles” as you put it. So long as the women involved in CS make up less than 50% of it we will have “woman troubles”.
Unfortunately – and this is not to focus attention away from ourselves – this is a generalised problem across the bulk of the left.
If your point had been to say that having such a leaflet without having a single picture of a woman in it does not help make CS more inviting to women, then I would have had to agree. It is a small thing (and there are dangers of tokenism if you go too far) but it would make it better.
If you have any positive suggestions as to how CS can solve it’s “woman troubles” then that would be great.
Comradely,
Dave.
Straight out of the Bill Jeffries school of how to positively and constructively engage with the ideas of another organisation Vicky. Racist misogynist Jim Crow Kautskyians that we are.
“My point is quite obvious, Carey: CS has woman troubles.”
You mean there aren’t as many women in our organisation as there should be? Congratulations for breaking new ground in obliquely stating the obvious.
Wow, Benjamin, nice point, or at least it would be if I’d called your organisation “racist misogynist Jim Cros Kautskyians”, or for that matter ever made a reference to CS/CPGB as anything to that effect. I think you inadvertantly have a racist majority position on Palestine/Israel in the CPGB (which is quite apart from calling you racists- I think outside of this conflict and fascism, you are a remarkably good organisation, in terms of principles) and I think you successfully put off 90% of the female left with macho posturing (deny it if you like, but bear in mind I am in a relationship with one of your members, and can easily testify that I’ve been the victim of this) and a very aggressive style of arguing. Incidentally, I was initially being light hearted, but since Benjamin and Carey wish to descend straight into sarcastic aggression, I guess that’s at an end.
Dave is completely right to say the bearded photo doesn’t help attract women- Benjamin, on the other hand, has called me ridiculous in facebook conversations when I talk about the macho image of the CPGB, so I guess I shouldn’t expect any especially honest attempt to engage from him. Patriarchy is a massive problem on the left; but most organisations manage to gain a few more female members than CS and the CPGB. Why is that? I would put it down to the way you enter into political discussion- veering between agressive and, as in Ben and Carey’s post, being immensely patronising.
That’s all.
Patriarchal and macho eh? There’s me thinking I was just responding to snideness in kind, but there you have it.
I didn’t say the bearded photo doesn’t help attract women. That’s the best one!
Just that a bit of balance is generally good.
Joking aside, I am not convinced by your argument here Vicky. Neither your general argument, nor your assessment of the exchange above.
As I say, we are certainly not trying to say that there isn’t room for improvement here. But I don’t buy this “macho posturing” thing at all. This is not to say that we do not argue “aggressively”. We sometimes do. Unlike most groups on the left we tend not to duck out of important arguments for the sake of convenience (or worse). We also feel that the left is often so dreadfully wrong that it needs to be shocked into seeing things differently. The sects will not be gently nudged out of their erroneous ways.
If it wasn’t for this approach I doubt would be in the position where you are telling us that we “are a remarkably good organisation, in terms of principles” (our positions on Palestine/Israel and fascism aside). And fighting hard for principles is certainly not exclusive to men! Also, I don’t think that women are necessarily more likely to be put off by this than men. Some people are turned off by it though, and we too would rather not be in the position of having to fight for these principles within the left from a small minority – but this is where we are.
CS started from the position of having few women. This certainly doesn’t help. Having a higher proportion of women already involved would likely make more women feel at ease in CS. But I am not aware of any of the female comrades who come to our London meetings mention that is an issue for them.
As for the above exchange. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere useful. Having read over it just now, it looks like Carey is right about “responding to snideness in kind”. I’m sure it was “light hearted” snideness on your part, and our comrades would probably have been best not to respond “in kind”. But you are wrong to say that “Benjamin and Carey wish to descend straight into sarcastic aggression”. Carey’s first comment was simply to ask what your point was, and Ben didn’t bother to get involved in the conversation until four days after your first post. Whether you think their comments were marked by “sarcastic aggression” or not (I don’t see the aggression here myself) then they descended straight into it.
I hope our blog style comments feature doesn’t create this kind of exchange too often. I’d rather have a more serious political argument, aggressive or not.
Patriarchy is endemic in society, we live in a patriachal society, so any group or organisation is going to reflect that culture to some extent, but it’s effects can never be diminished so far as that/this system continues. When the world is turned upside down the western nuclear family will be overturned, and no more patriarchy.
Vicky is right that the lack of women in our organisation is a problem that we have to deal with, and look at ways to change that around as soon as possible. Vicky was just pointing that out in a light hearted way, i don’t think there was any need for it to descend into this.
I think if we do come across as aggressive, patronising and macho, then that is a problem and is something we should consider and think about. We should be self-critical and reflective. If we alienate comrades like Vicky (who agree with 90% of our politics) or other women in the movement then we have to ask ourselves why?
Vicky,
Am all for being light-hearted. Actually the initial post was quite a good one – harsh but not entirely fair as Dave puts it. But I really wonder about what can be gained from talking “of the mythical female membership of Tina” in terms of political clarity or exploring differences between us with the view of overcoming them positively. It is not only untrue, but really is a bit daft.
Hence my frustration with comments that really do not help overcoming the pathetic state the left as a whole finds itself in.
As Dave points out, I think comrades are conflating political sharpness, rudeness and agressiveness as being male or macho qualities, which is just wrong. Think of old Rosa for example. She called a spade a spade and drew clear political lines.
What I would suggest Vicky, is that we shift this discussion onto politics and maybe the ideas discussed in Nick’s article on feminism as to provide a context for this silly accusation of being macho etc. That would move things on a bit…
Communist Greetings
Ben
P.S. If you agree with 90% of what we say and do then why not join, take up the fight for those 10% of ideas and positively contribute to the rearticulation of Marxist ideas? In terms of the leadership of CS, I think at a push Dave and I would agree on 85%, a figure probably even lower (80%) between James Turley and I. What matters is the coming together of Marxists into a project which can contain those differences, not letting silly individual points hold back that genuine unity!