2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders did NOT ... NOT say ditch identity politics !!! [View all]forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)What they don't realize is the extent to which capital was built on the exploitation of women as well as black and brown bodies. Without taking into account that exploitation, their class analysis is woefully incomplete. This is why even the elevation of an economic center-leftist such as Hillary (or Obama for that matter) has revolutionary potential, because it pulls out more of that revolutionary potential in those same groups, seeing one of their (or our) own overcome structural racism.
Also sad to say (from personal experience with many male progressives) - a huge attraction for men on the Left, especially young men on the left, is the idea that religion and conservative values are restricting male sexual access to women, so by supporting progressive politics that seek to undermine patriarchal controls on female sexuality, they would garner access to willing girls and women "freed" from the shackles of their conservative parents. That is the key aspect of Bernie's early writings - ostensibly sex-positive and trangressive of restrictive mores, but written with a prurient eye toward the sexual possibilities of liberated women. And of course, while those norms are undoubtedly oppressive, destroying them not for the sake of female liberation, but for cynical pursuit of lust, is definitely wrong.
A lot of the veiled hatred for women on the male Left stems from the fact that their female "comrades" were too independent and didn't just put out on demand. Marx himself stated that the movement would take on characteristics of the oppressive wider society, and the New Left had that problem in spades.