On Patriarchy (Part 1): the Left’s new feminist ideologues
International Women’s Day on Friday 8 th March was quite an interesting 24 hours to be a man on the Left. I found it mostly depressing and demoralising though. I used to support the broad feminist agenda, but have become increasingly concerned by the particularly strident, strict and aggressive brand of feminist politics that has taken over: almost exclusively confined to the Left of course. Sexism is a serious, continuing and pressing concern in our society, but the kind of treatment it is getting from feminists threatens to distract from and undermine any effective attempts to address it. This treatment is now overwhelmingly ideological, focusing on sexism as something systemic ; indeed sometimes known as ‘patriarchy’. The divisive brand of politics that comes with this should be familiar to us from the Culture Wars between Left and Right in North America: it is highly emotive in its language, quick to cast blame and careless about where the blame lands. The ...