Feminism Motion
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The basic problem with that resolution (which is hopefully in the process of being rescinded) is that it does not define “feminism”.
This has allowed both sides of the argument to put their own interpretation on the term — you to mean simply standing for equal treatment of men and women ( which would mean that — a good thing — most people are “feminists” even if they don’t describe themselves as such, which many perhaps most don’t); comrade Marcos and many others in the party to mean anyone who calls themselves a feminist. Clearly not everybody who calls themselves a feminist can be a member of the Party even if they also call themselves “socialists” or “Marxists”.
It is all very well those who support the resolution saying that’s not what they mean but they should have said so explicitly in the motion.
So, if the resolution is not rescinded, another vote will be required to define what the word “feminism” means.
Clearly not everybody who calls themselves a feminist can be a member of the Party even if they also call themselves “socialists” or “Marxists”.
I would go along with that and with clarifying what the term feminism means but ALSO the term “reformism” which is often sloppily bandied about.
That way we will hopefully see no, or less, repetition of the kind of idiotic comments that have recently appeared on this forum such as “that capitalist reform is known as Feminism” or insulting jibes such as “The Feminists of the Socialist Party should support her” (Kamala Harris) which call into question the socialist integrity of many good comrades in this Party and which is something I find infuriating and disgraceful as I am sure any other comrade would, whatever side of the feminism debate he or she may be on…
Robbo
The problem is that because of the badly worded resolution that was put forward we now leave ourselves open to the accusation that we are reformist. Without a clear definition of words like “feminism” and “fellow Travellers” we have placed ourselves in the position of being attacked as reformists.We have a long, long history of being opposed to sexism, why do we need to state it in such a badly worded resolution.
Also as you have stated Marcos is not now a member of the Party, so he is in a position to put forward opposition based on his view of what we mean by feminism. You may need to rethink saying that his comment should have been “deleted”. Are you suggesting that we should delete criticism of our Party from the Forum, just because we don’t agree with it? L Bird has made many criticisms of the party over the years, but no suggestion has been made that he should have his contributions censored on the basis that he disagrees with what we are saying, why take this measure with Marcos?
Similarly when you say he had made remarks which “call into question the socialist integrity of many good comrades in this Party and which is something I find infuriating and disgraceful as I am sure any other comrade would, whatever side of the feminism debate he or she may be on…” Are you saying that we shouldn’t be open to question by Non Party members? Or even that the Socialist Integrity of all members of the party is beyond question. (Or is it just those who voted for this resolution whose integrity is beyond question?).
Coming back to the point I made earlier. If your interpretation on the resolution was that we were against sexism and that this has been the Party’s position since the year dot, then the question still needs to be asked, why was this resolution put up in the first place?
I don’t think that given the fact that if the resolution was to be interpreted as you say, it would have been a pointless exercise, it is not unreasonable for some people, within the party and outside the party, the question the motivation of the members who proposed this motion. After all, we are all open to question, and I wasn’t aware of any party practice which states that we all must follow the party line no matter what, surely we are not going to end up like the “democratic” centralists.
Also as you have stated Marcos is not now a member of the Party, so he is in a position to put forward opposition based on his view of what we mean by feminism. You may need to rethink saying that his comment should have been “deleted”. Are you suggesting that we should delete criticism of our Party from the Forum, just because we don’t agree with it?
Bijou
What I actually said was “This post (by a non member of the WSM) should also have been deleted or transferred to this thread like the others to maintain consistency”. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear but what I meant was that Marcos’ post which set out to insult a majority of the Socialist Party who voted in favour of the Lancaster motion by suggesting they should give their support to a capitalist politician like Kamala Harris should have been deleted – along with mine – from the “President Biden” thread and transferred to this thread if one was going to be consistent in moderating this forum
After all, it was that post of his that stirred up all this shit to begin with by referring, however obliquely, to this debate on feminism in the Party . Whilst I dont believe in silencing opponents of the Party at all I do find it astonishing that no member here, apart from myself, has seen fit to challenge this individual over his deeply offensive and obnoxious slur on the socialist credentials of a sizeable fraction of the socialist membership. Why is this? Are we supposed to treat Marcos with kid gloves for some particular reason that does not apply to rest of us mere mortals? Why are some here apparently more willing to jump to his defence than members of their own party who he has just maligned? Its incredible, frankly.
The right to criticise cuts both ways, you know
Oh and just for your information when Marcos was once moderator of the WSM yahoo group I clearly recall he banned certain individuals from the group because he did not like their opinion being aired on that forum as it got in the way of the socialist message, as he saw it. One of these was the anarcho-capitalist, David McDonagh (who recently passed away). I was bitterly opposed to Marcos’ undemocratic decision at the time which went totally against the entire spirit of the WSM’s approach to democratic debate.
So please dont talk to me about deleting criticism of our Party from the Forum, just because we don’t agree with it? I have no problem at all with criticism of the Party being aired on this forum or elsewhere whatsoever and by whomsoever – Marcos, LBird or anyone else . You would do better to direct that question at Marcos himself
“deleted or transferred” is what you said, so in a similar way to the “badly worded” resolution at conference, your badly worded contribution to the thread has been misinterpreted. It’s easy to put right badly worded contributions on here, however those proposing things to conference should think through the consequences of their actions. The resolution was like a political version of the old legal question “Mr Smith, do you still beat your wife” we were damned if we supported it and damned if we didn’t.
Ironically you have misinterpreted my contributions as “jumping to his defence”. All I have pointed out is that the original resolution was clumsy and allowed this attack on the party to be made. How many times have we held other parties to account on their publications, resolutions, etc. only to be told we were misinterpreting things? This pointless resolution has needlessly opened us up to that allegation and caused disputes int he Party that didn’t need to be there, to what specific purpose?
The credentials of many members of this Socialist Party were also questioned when several members asked them to resign because they were not supporting the concept of Feminism, now I can say: I fuck that Some good old members with a long-standing history of struggle resigned based on this stupid resolution.
Many members with long-standing credentials were also labelled as sexists, antisocialists, but now they do not remember anything, they are suffering from historical amnesia. I have a very good memory, and I remember the fight that was carried at the forum of the Socialist Party, and there was not any sign of respect for other peoples, it was like a fight between gangsters. I received an email in my inbox trying to insult me and I blocked that person
I do not like to do this in public but I am going to do it because I like to be anonymous, I started in the Leninist/Stalinist movement when I was very young, and I did not start reading a small pamphlet seating in my house, I was part of the struggle for freedom, a struggle which was risky to be involved, it was not a child play, and I was part of several Leninists tendencies including the Maoists and the Albanian tendency, and I was an honorary member of the Labour Party of Albania, and I knew Enver Hoxha, and during that period of time before joining the SPGB/WSM I never saw or heard anybody asking another member to resign because he did not agree, and I was a member of a Central Committee, and I had relationships with others central committees, and we never used that type of opportunistic tactic, on the contrary, we wanted to keep our members and we used to send a member to talk to a member to avoid any resignation
There is no need to give a lecture or to file a court case to demonstrate that this resolution about Feminism is totally wrong because it is open to too many interpretations, for me, it is simply a resolution for open reformism and collaboration with bourgeois reforms, and there are hundreds and thousands of non-socialists peoples and organizations who support feminism, and I am not going to explain it either, for me, the pamphlet written by the SPGB/WSM is more than enough, and I have the concept recorded in my head and that is all I care, I do not have to give satisfaction to anybody else, and I do not have to give hard evidence to anybody, and I do not receive an order from anybody including dictators
When I became the moderator of the WSM, Robbo also said that the forum was in decline because I was the moderator, but the dirty job was offered for many months by the prior moderator and nobody wanted to take the position and I did it and I had to confront a lot of problems, the forum was already in decline before I joined it, and I was able to send the invitation to many militants in others countries who joined the forum but most of them did not speak English
When I formed the WSM discussion forum in Spanish I asked him to join in order to help and never did either, but I was able to make the Socialist Party to be known in all Latin America, Caribbean and Spain, and I brought many leftwing, communists, anarchists, and socialist organizations to the forum, ( an ex-member of the CCI joined the WSM ) and I had a long list of contacts, and I was close to forming a companion party in a few months, and I spent money from my pocket buying equipment and materials to mail to peoples who were interested in the Socialist Party, and also I spent time translating many documents and articles written by the Socialist Party, and articles published in the Socialist Party I published them in more than 70 discussion forum with commentary instead of translating them completely.
I had forums who had more than 5000 members, and more than 10 thousand publications per month, and I was able to publish everything that I had about the WSM/SPGB and I never saw any of those fierce fighters doing anything, except Mathews who published the Socialist Standard, and sometimes I was able to make commentaries in Spanish and Portuguese, some forums were risky too because we had right wings sending our messages to the Homeland security and the CIA office, and the Mossad. I asked members of the WSM to publish their message and I was going to do the translation for them, and they never did it
I have published articles about the women struggles in Latin America in this forum and nobody had made any comments about their suffering, I was a member of an organization controlled by women, feminists and lesbians, and I do not know if any of this fierce feminists of the Socialist Party have done that, and I have participated in the marches of women and I am a heterosexual married for 50 years, and I do not care if they are feminists or whatever they want to call themselves.
Since I encountered the WSM/SPGB I have had problems and confrontations, problems which I never had in the Leninist movement because they always respected my long history of struggles and my knowledge about the history of the movement and my dedication to this movement, and members of this party they treat each like animals, cursing each other, and labelling each other, I have encountered racists and nationalist peoples in this movement, how this organization is going to advance with this type of behaviours? You can pass hundreds of resolutions and the party will not obtain more members, it is going to be a small group of internal fighters, fighting between each other. The only members who have treated me properly ( and I respect him ) since the very beginning is Adam Buick
I have not insulted anybody at the WSPUS, what I said was that that particular organization was not a political party, and it was dead, and Karla and her husband deleted my membership from the forum, that is a total lie, and I am not a keyboard warrior, I tell the truth to peoples in front of their faces because that was the way that I grew up. I have not given any permission to Robbo to publish personal matter about me in this forum, and I have not given any permission to him to publish my location. My private life is my private life
I am not a member of the Socialist Party at the present time, but I was planning to spend my life until my death in this organization and if this resolution is rescinded I am planning to reapply again. There are members of this forum who are not members of the party and they have raised critiques against the party, are we going to delete their message too? I would prefer to be a member of a Marxist/Leninist forum which are open for discussion and they do not delete your messages, and I receive many invitations from them. If I treated so badly the members of the WSPUS why I have received an invitation to participate in their activities? I just received a package of literature from them and I am reading them. There is a term in the legal system known as defamation and anybody can be legally processed for that and I know how to do it
There is no need to give a lecture or to file a court case to demonstrate that this resolution about Feminism is totally wrong because it is open to too many interpretations, for me, it is simply a resolution for open reformism and collaboration with bourgeois reforms
This is complete bullshit. I have challenged you several times to provide clear and concrete proof that the Lancaster motion is, in your words, an invitation to open reformism and collaboration with bourgeois reforms. You have conspicuously declined to provide any such substantive evidence preferring instead to pompously intone that “There is no need to give a lecture or to file a court case to demonstrate that this resolution about Feminism is totally wrong” So you evidently consider yourself exempt from , or above, the need to provide any hard evidence to back up your ridiculous assertion about the supposed reformist intentions of some members How is this not indicative of the very elitist thinking you claim I exhibit?
When I became the moderator of the WSM, Robbo also said that the forum was in decline because I was the moderator, but the dirty job was offered for many months by the prior moderator and nobody wanted to take the position and I did it and I had to confront a lot of problems, the forum was already in decline before I joined it, and I was able to send the invitation to many militants in others countries who joined the forum but most of them did not speak English
I am not saying you did not put a lot of effort into running the WSM forum. You did and I applaud to you for that. But this is not my criticism. My criticism is that you did not run the WSM forum in a particularly democratic manner – but rather in a Stalinist fashion by arbitrarily banning certain individuals whose views you did not approve of. It is this I contend that accelerated the decline of this forum further. The irony is that you have in the past accused certain members of the WSPUS of behaving in a Stalinist fashion when that is exactly how you have behaved!
I would prefer to be a member of a Marxist/Leninist forum which are open for discussion and they do not delete your messages, and I receive many invitations from them. If I treated so badly the members of the WSPUS why I have received an invitation to participate in their activities?
As explained in my response to Bijou nobody has deleted your post and nobody has suggested that it be deleted – only that it be deleted from the “President Biden” thread and be transferred to this sub-forum along with the other posts including my own that were transferred here. If you feel more comfortable joining a Marxist-Leninist organization dont let me stop you. Go ahead and do it That you should even mention this speaks volumes in itself. What is your angle in saying this – emotional blackmail or something?
If you have received an invitation to participate in activities of the WSPUS despite your past record of insulting some of their members as “Stalinists”- and I assure you I have all the evidence I need to back up this claim – perhaps that suggests a willingness on the part of the WSPUS now to forgive and forget your past misdemeanours and to urge you to cooperate with them in growing the WSPUS. Which begs the question – why have you not accepted their invitation if your allegiance does lie with the WSM as you say?
Robbs, leaving aside the disagreement between yourself and Marcos, you still haven’t really addressed the point that I made about the Feminism motion.
If, as seems to be the unanamous opinion of everyone in the Party, the party has always stood for gender equality, and that Feminism can be defined in those terms, and further that was the meaning intended by the resolution, what was the point of the resolution.
If the point was merely to clarify what the party’s position is, can we expect further resolutions to conference stating the bleedin’ obvious, like it “is possible for a Socialist to be a Democrat”, “it is possible for a Socialist to believe in Common Owneership”, “it is possible for a Socialist to belive that the sun rises in the East”, “it is possible for Socialist to believe that the bears shit in the forest”, “it is possible for socialists to believe that the Pope has got a pointy fucking hat”
Because of the nature of the resolution, is there any surprise that some members have asked the question “why have they put forward a motion such as that?”
Going a little further if that was the meaning placed on feminism (and I’m not saying it wasn’t the meaning placed on it by Lancaster Branch), why did the resolution not say “it is impossible to be a Socialist and NOT be a feminist”.
As stated by Adam, the continued use of terms such as Patriarchy (again I accept this is a term open to different interpretations) only serves to muddy the already muddy waters.
Yes. The more significant motion carried from 2019 Conference (overwhelmingly by 84 to 10) was this one:
This Conference rejects the definition of capitalism as “male-dominated class society” and the view that “capitalism and patriarchy are aspects of the same thing”.
Capitalism is based on the subordination of the working class to the capitalist class,which is not the same thing as the subordination of women to men. Conference further notes that the more advanced capitalism is the less the discrimination against women.The problem is that because of the badly worded resolution that was put forward we now leave ourselves open to the accusation that we are reformist.
Unless we can be found to be actually advocating reforms then there is zero chance of this happening. or to be more precise zero chance of such an accusation being sustained. Since nobody in the Party is advocating reforms that I know of your problem is a non problem. I wouldn’t worry about it. The only person in the entire world who seems to think we have gone reformist is active on this forum
If, as seems to be the unanamous opinion of everyone in the Party, the party has always stood for gender equality, and that Feminism can be defined in those terms, and further that was the meaning intended by the resolution, what was the point of the resolution.
If the point was merely to clarify what the party’s position is, can we expect further resolutions to conference stating the bleedin’ obvious, like it “is possible for a Socialist to be a Democrat”,
Or how about “is it possible to be a socialist and sexist”? Perhaps that was the point of the resolution – to ensure that such a possibility does not exist as far as the SPGB is concerned. Or do you think there is no trace of sexism in the Party at all?
If condemning sexism amongst socialists had been the aim of the motion why did it not explicitly say so? If it had, it would have been carried unanimously.
My guess is that the aim of those who proposed it was to try to attract “feminists” in a much narrower sense than your definition (of anyone, man or woman, who stands for equal treatment of men and women).
However, I don’t think that’s why most of those who voted for it did so. They probably shared your definition and/or were concerned about the gender imbalance in the party.
My guess is that the aim of those who proposed it was to try to attract “feminists” in a much narrower sense than your definition (of anyone, man or woman, who stands for equal treatment of men and women).
I am not quite sure what you mean by this , Adam. You are not surely suggesting a sort of entryist strategy is being employed to “attract” feminists, in your narrower sense, into the Party , whether or not these be genuine socialists?
Clearly that is nonsense. Let’s start with the basic commonsensical proposition that all comrades on both sides of this debate are revolutionary socialists not reformists. There is only one individual here who seems to have succumbed to some kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory and believes otherwise even to the point of recommending that some members of SPGB should support a capitalist politician like Kamala Harris. Good thing this individual is not a member of this Party because that is a most outrageous thing to say about fellow socialists.
I think critics of the Lancaster motion read far too much into it. I interpret it simply as an attempt to signal a more robust proactive approach to combating sexism which, as socialists, we MUST do just as we MUST combat racism and nationalism and anything else that seeks to divide workers. If adopting such an approach results in more female workers joining the Party then that is a good thing, surely. The gender imbalance in the Party is worrying and I dont think one can plausibly deny that it has an off-putting effect as far as some women are concerned even if others might not be put off by it.
I think adopting a more robust proactive approach to combating sexism can help even if only at the level of the kind of image we project as an organisation. Image matters. The problem is that some comrades tend to take an over-rationalistic or super-rationalistic approach to the matter and we see this in this thread. The world in their eyes should follow the contours of a neat and tidy little logical syllogism. If X happens then Y must result. But the world is not like that. The world is messy and unpredictable and people are not mere logic machines but have feelings as well, often very irrational
I am not averse to the idea of clarifying and improving the wording of the Lancaster motion but lets stop with this silly conspiratorial nonsense that the intent of the motion is somehow to transform the SPGB into something other than the 100% revolutionary socialist organisation it is. Such insinuations are grating and demoralising and completely unbecoming of fellow socialists
” Adam. You are not surely suggesting a sort of entryist strategy is being employed to “attract” feminists, in your narrower sense, into the Party , whether or not these be genuine socialists?”
I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think those behind the motion want to admit non-socialists or reformists but, to be perfectly honest, I do think they want to attract women who think that capitalism should be defined as a “male-dominated class society” and that “capitalism and patriarchy are aspects of the same thing” (the terms in inverted commas are from their own circulars). This is not a Marxist view, but is the view of many feminists in the narrow sense who would no doubt denounce us for rejecting it as “class reductionists”.
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