[Marxism] Re: sexism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Dear Louis,
>   I subscribed to the Marxmail list a couple of months ago, mainly
> because I moved to a new city, was isolated from regular activity in my
> organization, and wanted to maintain contact with other socialists.  It
> didn't take long to pick up on the fact that 95% of the contributers were
> men, and thus refrained from contributing myself, although It found many
> of the contributions and debates interesting enough to keep reading.

I am replying publicly since the questions you raise are of interest to the
list. I am bcc'ing you out of respect for your privacy.

I would urge you to stick around since although the list contributors are
predominantly male, there are other aspects that make it worthwhile. It is
geographically diverse with daily contributions ranging from India to
Argentina. Although this does not compensate for the uneven gender
representation, it does indicate an engagement with at least one key aspect
of Marxist politics, namely internationalism.

>   Male dominance is often a problem in left groups, but this is probably
> the worst I've ever seen.

Marxmail is not a left group. It is a listserv. In face-to-face
conversations, you get visual clues that email cannot provide. Also, people
get socialized in left groups in a way that is impossible here.

>   One of the very few women on this list made a simple request not to
> have the word "whore" used, which she understandably found offensive and
> degrading.  Her objections were well founded, respectful, and really not
> much to ask.  What she got in response was a bunch of men offering
> pseudo-intellectual red herrings about post-modernism or calling her the
> "socialist taliban."  Others have been unsubbed for much less, haven't they?

As a rule of thumb, I don't unsub people after a single offense. (Although
I must say that Joe D. has been unsubbed multiple times and I do have my
eye on him, as always.) Generally, I look for a pattern--especially a
refusal to modify a style of intervention after its been called to the
subscriber's attention. In fact, Marxmail is a much more respectful place
than it used to be when hard-core Stalinists participated. They routinely
denounced women's and gay liberation as reactionary and divisive.

>  Comrade Louise obviously touched a nerve, and I think the best thing to
> do would be to open a thread in response in which women are invited to
> contribute their ideas about sexism and women's liberation and men are
> asked to politely shut up for once.  I would suggest this as a policy
> whenever these sorts of issues arise, to avoid exactly the type of
> situation we see here right now.

I think the main thing we need now is intelligent and dispassionate
contributions.

>   I'm not sending this to the whole list because I really don't want to
> be one more man chiming in here and crowding out women's voices.  Please
> take this into consideration as the moderator or I'll unsub along with
> Louise and whomever else has already done so because of this.

The real issue is how to encourage women posting. Leftwing mailing lists
tend to be male-dominated. This is probably a function of socialization and
other issues that I don't fully understand. Doug Henwood's LBO-Talk, which
tends to attract far less dogmatic people than this list does, only has a
handful of women contributing on a regular basis and one of them is Yoshie
who is a regular here as well. PEN-L has zero women participating on a
regular basis. Even the DSP comrades who were so good enough to point out
my insensitivity will have to admit that their own mailing list is
dominated by men.

I honestly don't have the answer to these problems. I have trouble enough
just making sure that the list doesn't blow sky high over political
differences most days.



--

www.marxmail.org


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