Men Have Betrayed The Cause

This is in response to the drivel posing as an article put out by Dave Lindorff on CounterPunch.

Dear Dave and all the Bernie bros echoing his thoughts,

In a presidential election where we have seen misogyny in the statements of figures ranging from Donald Trump to Gloria Steinem, you have broken the glass ceiling of condescension by saying that one of the few Democrats who fights Wall Street has betrayed the movement for doing…nothing. Beginning with a puzzling evocation of the failed McGovern campaign, you go on to say that Elizabeth Warren’s lack of endorsement cost Bernie Sanders as much as ten percent of the votes in her home state of Massachusetts. Why did such a large percentage not #FeelTheBern? Because apparently without her altru-feminism, Sanders lost “the support of identity-voting women who didn’t bother to examine [Hillary Clinton’s] bogus feminism.” Before I go on Dave, let me introduce myself. Hi, my name is Emma Caterine, I’m a young woman who thinks that Hillary Clinton’s feminism is bogus. That’s why I’m voting for Jill Stein in the general election. But I think your feminism is bogus too for reducing decisions by women who voted in the primary to “identity-voting” and that Elizabeth Warren did not do her duty to “the cause” because she did not lure these gullible gals away with her womanly woman-ness.

I have been in politics for a while now, and one of the earliest things I was involved with was the Employee Free Choice Act, so know that when I say I appreciate and respect Bernie Sanders I am not just putting up a front. But his campaign has utterly failed women, and that is why your “identity-voting women” did not get behind him. It failed in two major ways: by neglecting or even being outright disdainful of the urgency needed around reproductive rights and by not reigning in the condescending men like yourself who throw a tantrum every time a woman dares to make decisions you do not agree with.

I know you probably have not noticed since men like you tend to not listen to women, but access to reproductive healthcare has been decimated across the country over the past decade. Planned Parenthood has been targeted again and again by vast conspiracies to shut them down clinic by clinic and through cutting any source of government funding. They’ve been accused of harvesting and selling baby parts not by the political fringe but by presidential candidates. Now everyone knows the top brass of PP like Cecile Richards are cozy, perhaps even too cozy, with establishment politicians like Hillary Clinton. But Bernie Sanders did not say Cecile Richards was part of the establishment, or try to argue that the organization’s executives made a decision against the interests of its clients and members. Instead, he said the organization was part of the establishment. Women like me who examine the feminism of politicians very careful noted that when the National Education Association endorsed Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders thanked the union members who had supported him in the deliberations and moved on. No condemnations of the organization as part of the establishment. Why might almost start to think Bernie Sanders is some sort of identity-responding man who treats unions differently than reproductive health organizations.

And then there are the Bernie bros. Shameless self-promotion: on October 28th, 2015 I wrote an article for Truthout entitled “Is Bernie Sanders Dangerous to Socialism?” Overall the reception to it was great, even those Bernie supporters who disagreed mostly engaged with the article respectfully. And then there were the comments:

1. Guys assuming that I was a guy: “Yes I did read it. He has a one sentence broad description and then in the very NEXT SENTENCE explains that there are DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOCIALISM and he doesn’t even name them all. You can’t read.”

2. Guys who interpreted “Bernie isn’t socialist enough” to mean “HEY EVERYONE VOTE HILLARY 2016″: “I think truthout wants Clinton. The Dean economics writer was with Bill’s administration. I haven’t seen any real charge or effort on their part to promote his candidacy. Very disappointing. Wonder who their donors are ….”

3. Guys who assumed I wrote it for vanity: “Emma…..I hope you feel better after trashing Bernie Sanders. Your ranting is an easy ego boost to feel superior to all the people who work to get Bernie Sanders elected. Why not do something useful for changing the present inequality. Shame on you.”

4. Guys saying I was hysterical: “This piece of hysteria is actually far more of a piece with Tea Party ravings about black helicopters coming to take their freedoms than with really-existing left politics.”

You may recognize these four types of comments as four very common tropes of how men treat women on the Left. First, that men have intelligent things to say and if you say intelligent things, well you must be a man. Second, that women cannot have nuanced positions, and every criticism of a man is secretly an endorsement of a woman. Third, that we are self-centered, “identity-voting” people just trying to stroke our own egos. And last but not least, that we are hysterical, overemotional, and just can’t take a joke.

Just to be absolutely, 100% clear, though I’m sure someone will still probably accuse me of being a Hillary agent as always, I support Jill Stein and the Green Party, not Hillary Clinton or any Democrat. But I also support women, and am not so misogynistic to think that we only vote based on the gender of a candidate or that reproductive rights isn’t a legitimate reason to vote a certain way. I have only gained more respect for Elizabeth Warren for staying out of this spectacle of a presidential campaign. I have also lost a lot of respect for men on the Left, and realize more than ever that women on the Left must never compromise or put aside our feminism. Because that would be betraying the cause.