Left-wing misogyny is alive and well

TWO YEARS ago I attended a meeting at a well-known bastion of the left-wing intelligentsia. There were a dozen representatives of the Malaysian media and three senior members of the Labour establishment. There were two Malaysian women, but the rest of those gathered were men. I was seven months pregnant and arrived slightly late and very out of breath. There were no chairs left, and slowly I huffed and puffed my way to the window sill, where I perched uncomfortably for the next 90 minutes. No one stood up to offer me a seat. When I remarked upon this afterwards to one of the Labour honchos, he shrugged off the criticism: “Chivalry is not part of Malaysian culture, I guess.”

Forget the Malays, I exploded, what about the male Britons present? He responded with a shrug: “I thought you women were interested in equality.” This was more than bad manners. The incident was indicative of the Left’s attitude to women in positions of influence: they are an irrelevance to be overlooked, an irritant to be brushed aside.

In my six years as deputy editor of The New Statesman, I came across many liberal misogynists. They felt that women had achieved equality and could therefore fend for themselves. These men believed that they had secured their own feminist credentials by seeing to the (alleged) narrowing of the gender pay gap, and supporting (even if only temporarily) all-women shortlists for political candidates. What did it matter if, when the political became personal, they treated women like dirt?

The liberal misogynists’ champion, it emerges, is Bill Clinton. According to a book published this week, the former President and his inner circle wielded their power to discredit and destroy the women he abused. In Their Lives: the Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine, the lawyer Candice E. Jackson examines accounts of seven women who claim that they suffered from Mr Clinton’s attentions and were subjected to intimidation and harassment once they dared to complain.

The catalogue of Mr Clinton’s conquests is well known, the crassness of his come-ons much reported. Yet until now no one had asked why it was that when Judge Clarence Thomas allegedly made his remarks about oral sex to a fellow lawyer, Anita Hill, feminist critics went for the jugular, while the former President, despite repeated allegations of far more serious sexual misconduct, went unchallenged by them. The campaign against the black conservative judge and the cover-up of the white President were orchestrated by the same powerful groups — feminists and the liberal media.

Ms Jackson, who describes herself as a libertarian feminist, shows how, because Mr Clinton was pro-choice, pro-equal pay, pro-state-funded childcare, he could count on the complicity of women (and men) who would normally have delighted in blowing the whistle on a male sexual predator. As with the similarly priapic and disreputable Kennedy clan, Mr Clinton’s track record on social issues protected him from being outed as a serial misogynist.

Are his British counterparts similarly shielded? Ask any woman MP, any female journalist on a left-of-centre newspaper, or a woman employee of the BBC or the British Council, and they will reply with a thundering “Yes!” Egalitarianism is so sacred in the contemporary liberal canon that its attainment overrides all other considerations. Using politically correct terms matters more than offering a pregnant woman your seat; fufilling the quotas is more important than being civil to a woman who has turned down your advances.

There have been several embarrassing incidents where male Labour MPs have made inopportune advances to female colleagues, or cracked sexist remarks about them; but when these stories are published Westminster women simply raise an eyebrow: one down, so many more undetected, uncensured, and free to go on. Some Westminster men counter that affirmative action has fuelled the sex wars in politics. Tony Blair’s backroom boys will run down the list of Blair’s Babes and snort about over-promotion and tokenism. The new Labourites moan and groan, exhibiting the same difficulty in dealing with women that old Labour stalwarts still admit to. The new lot, like so many of the old lot, simply don’t like women.

In 2002, the Fawcett Society published a revealing report about the party’s attitude to the second sex. At selection meetings, while listening to women candidates delivering their speeches, Labour activists admitted to ranking the women in terms of looks and wondering about their lingerie.

Perhaps such improper musings should be expected of a party whose roots lie in the predominantly male trade union movement. Labour’s culture remains intrinsically macho. This runs counter to the public perception of the party — but then, Labour misogynists can carry on hiding behind the figleaf of their party’s feminist agenda.

The secret of success in the new gender wars is to come from the approved corner. If you are a devout Muslim, liberals will see you as a potential wife-beater who longs to wrap your women in burkas. Christians fare little better — they are seen as dispossessing the daughters of Eve, whether by expecting wives to obey their husbands, or in barring women from bishoprics. But come from the secular liberal establishment and you can get away with maltreating women in a way that our supposedly unenlightened forbears would have found unacceptable.

The big question is whether the Left can go beyond paying lip service to feminism and reach a position where liberal misogyny belongs as firmly in the past as the Clinton Administration.

"...The man doesn't mind letting them sit in the sink and age a bit, either..."

Nor does he mind sitting the hard to clean pots and pans on the porch and letting the dog pre-clean them.....

You know, Feminism is crazy...and I am saying this as a woman. This is certainly not the way to equality. Realistically, any one person, male or female, needs to prove that they deserve the chair that they so blatantly desire. Hard work and a built up reputation provides that seat. Worry about yourself and no one else. Above all, respect is earned, and being late is not the way to this reward!! (As to my earlier comments on men now cooking...my spouse can cook a mean dinner...with little mess.He just doesn't like to cuz he works hard all day. JUST LIKE ME)
:?

I hate to say it, but this lady doesn't get much sympathy from me. She wants "equality" and "chivalry", which is a contradiction in terms.

Chivalry is one thing. Common courtesy is another. A woman who is in advanced pregnancy ought to be yielded some physical preference in seating, etc.

I think the test is whether they'd give a seat to an obviously ill man. If not, then they're just plain rude to everyone.

I always give my seat to the elderly or infirm. A pregnant lady would qualify. I might not be civilized but I have manners.

45 posted on 06/02/2005 7:12:42 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (I am not a romantic, I don't hero worship and no, as a matter of fact, I don't have a heart.)

LOL The feminists were all panting for Clinton themselves actually, and were dying for the Presidential Kneepads.

49 posted on 06/03/2005 12:47:32 AM PDT by Robert_Paulson2 (Please don't squeeze the Koran. I gotta go to the bathroom.)

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