The Left may have let women down, but be wary of false promises from the Right
The women counter by saying they are not complicit in bolstering regressive values; they are, they say, forming “strategic alliances” in order to prevent legislation or policy to be adopted that could harm women, such as transgender self-identification.
I approached WoLF to ask about their work and was told: “We’ve brought feminist arguments to federal court, for the audience of the people who determine the implementation of our civil rights laws. This is an important venue from which we cannot be de-platformed by vigilante social media mobs, and in which the women we represent have a right to have their views represented.”
I understand only too well the effects of being silenced and de-platformed, but joining forces with those who wish to repeal the majority of women’s hard-won rights is a betrayal of the highest order. That’s why I think these alliances are strategically disastrous. Yes, it is a disgrace that Liberal and Left organisations have failed to support sex-based rights, but I do believe women lose out in the long term if we do not fight from a progressive base.
Beatrix Campbell, left-wing journalist, political activist and author of The Iron Ladies: Why Do Women Vote Tory? (1987), knew that in order to be an effective feminist campaigner it is necessary to have a critique of the wider social structures that sustain male power and women’s oppression or we are vulnerable to “odd alliances”. She tells me, “Issues of sexual oppression can arise in the right or the left, and if you don’t locate your women’s activism then you might find allies that are no friends to women at all and want to use us for their own agenda.”
While feminists may find limited common ground with right-wing groups over single issues, they are likely to have very different ideas about how their shared objectives should be achieved and their ultimate goals will be irreconcilable. “The global Right is not and never has been committed to equality,” says Selina Todd, “let alone liberation.”
I believe feminists must look to the movement’s success in the UK and understand that we can win this battle using strong feminist arguments rooted in experience, struggle and female solidarity. As the African American feminist writer Audrey Lorde said: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
