{"id":28950,"date":"2014-11-30T00:03:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T05:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28950"},"modified":"2014-11-29T18:42:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T23:42:21","slug":"even-the-marxists-think-laws-protecting-women-are-paternalistic-and-patronizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/11\/30\/even-the-marxists-think-laws-protecting-women-are-paternalistic-and-patronizing\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the Marxists think laws “protecting” women are paternalistic and patronizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Britain’s Weekly Worker<\/em> — subtitled “A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity” — Yassamine Mather<\/a> argues that the demand for “safe spaces” is insulting to women and denies their legal and moral equality with men:<\/p>\n

In her speech to LU conference the Communist Platform\u2019s Tina Becker, arguing against the proposed \u2018safe spaces\u2019 document, said it was patronising and bureaucratic. What did she mean by these two adjectives?<\/p>\n

The idea that women in leftwing organisations need \u2018protection\u2019, as opposed to \u2018empowerment\u2019, is what is patronising. No doubt Felicity Dowling\u2019s extensive work in dealing with child abuse cases and fighting for children\u2019s rights is commendable. However, time and time again when she speaks about safe spaces she starts with abused children, before moving swiftly to the need for safe places for women, gays, blacks in society and, by extension, in the organisations of the left. I disagree with such a classification of women, gays and blacks as weak creatures — actual and potential victims who constantly need \u2018protection\u2019 from the rest of society.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, as adults they need a progressive culture that encourages them and everyone else to challenge sexism, homophobia and racism. Comrades in Left Unity are not weak creatures: they are conscious individuals who recognise capitalism as their enemy — that is why they are in politics. They do not need protective legislation of the type social workers use when dealing with vulnerable children.<\/p>\n

Here the example that comes to my mind is the struggles of Iranian women over the last 35 years. They had to fight misogyny not only at home, but in every aspect of social, political and economic life. The state claimed that their \u2018safety\u2019 was best maintained by segregation — in the home, or beneath the hijab in the street. But women rejected this from the first days of the Islamic Republic. They took to the streets and fought against misogynist legislation and, although there are still many battles to win, they have made great strides against all odds — to such an extent that the women\u2019s movement in Iran is by far the most significant social movement of the region. Would they have been able to achieve this if in their battles against misogyny they had retreated to \u2018safe spaces\u2019? Of course not. On the contrary, it is precisely the \u2018safe spaces\u2019 provided by the clerical regime that they are rebelling against.<\/p>\n

On the left the most effective way to fight sexism and racism is to make sure we battle against privileged positions and the abuse of power, against secrecy and cronyism. It was not lack of safe spaces that led to the disastrous situation in the Socialist Workers Party. It was secrecy, the power of those in authority, their ability to use \u2018confidentiality\u2019 to suppress reporting. A \u2018safe spaces\u2019 policy cannot protect women from a \u2018comrade Delta\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Natalie Solent<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Britain’s Weekly Worker — subtitled “A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity” — Yassamine Mather argues that the demand for “safe spaces” is insulting to women and denies their legal and moral equality with men: In her speech to LU conference the Communist Platform\u2019s Tina Becker, arguing against the proposed \u2018safe spaces\u2019 document, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,53],"tags":[780,198,987,287,388,43],"class_list":["post-28950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-politics","tag-communism","tag-equalrights","tag-feminism","tag-iran","tag-secrecy","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7wW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28952,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28950\/revisions\/28952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}