SCARLET FOR THE PATRIARCHY

“We are a group of activist women from a wide variety of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Last week, a good number of the left-wing men we work and organise with seriously disappointed us. These men – our friends, our fellow trade unionists, activists, writers, organisers, and artists – shared and commented on a reductive and damaging article written by Frankie Gaffney, which was published in the Irish Times.

We live in a world where our advantages are tangled up with the things that disadvantage us – some of us are working class, some queer, some of us are poor, some of us come from minority ethnic groups or have disabilities or don’t enjoy the security of citizenship. As well, some of us have had a multitude of opportunities in our lives while some of us have had to fight our way through. It is an obligation on all of us to honestly look at our different positions within the structures of oppression and privilege under patriarchal racial capitalism. It is only by acknowledging all these differences that we have any chance of imagining and building a better world that includes us all.

Working-class ‘straight white men’ in Ireland don’t have it easy these days. They never did. They are ignored by a political class that couldn’t care less about them. They should have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, but they often don’t.

However, that doesn’t make them immune to critique. We all have to examine ourselves as oppressor as well as oppressed – because we are all both. The response to the article felt like a silencing to us and we are writing this because we are way past putting up with that. You will see from the names on this letter that we are women who have been in the thick of things. Whether in political parties and organisations, education, trade unions, or grassroots and community-based movements, we are tired of being accused of ‘bourgeois feminism’ and of betraying the struggle when we raise our voices. No campaign in this country could survive without women, without us – our work and energy and knowledge and organising have been instrumental in all the progressive movements in this country. When we say we need to be recognised and respected within our movements, we need you to listen.

The article expressed the view that identity politics is good for nothing except dividing movements, using language and narratives that have been made popular by MRA (Men’s Rights Activist) groups and the alt-right. According to such narratives, straight white men are the new most oppressed group. This ignores the struggles of women and others at the sharp end of misogyny, racism, anti-trans and anti-queer violence. It aims to silence those who will no longer tolerate the violence, abuse and marginalisation we have suffered for so long. These alt-right arguments have been used by people on the left to support the view that women, and feminists in particular, are to blame for the rise of the far right – for instance, for Trump’s election – and for neoliberal capitalism, which is seen as having damaged working class men in particular.

In this version of events, straight white men are made to feel uncomfortable about being ‘born this way’ by social media-fuelled ‘political correctness’. They are too afraid to say what they think or express opinions for fear of online retribution. Men who claim to be silenced in this way might try a week or even a day as a vocal woman or person of colour online and see how they deal with the rape threats and threats of racist violence that follow.

We are not concerned here about one opinion piece by one person. Rather we have all been aware of the increasing trend towards this particular new type of silencing of women from our supposed fellow activists on the left. The arguments mounted here and elsewhere are apparently to criticise some of the worst aspects of ‘call-out culture’, as well as the lean-in type of so-called feminism that disregards class and race. Yet they seem to be used now by some of our left-wing activist comrades as an excuse not to deal with the complexities of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation in our political organising. These excuses, when accepted, prevent us from seeing clearly the state of our movements – who is taking part in them, who is heard and represented, who is doing the work. These are massive issues that have to do with how we are creating mass movements, which need to be addressed and faced to ensure that people of different classes, races, ethnicities, sexual orientation and gender have not just a voice but leading roles in our struggle. Without this solidarity in working together, we are simply imitating the oppressive structures we want to fight – the structures that say “not now, your life comes second.” It is not the straight white men who are being silenced when this argument is made.

We are working-class women, women of colour, migrant women, trans women, Traveller women, disabled women, queer women, women who are sex workers, women with children, and women who are none of these, active in our communities and committed to an anti-capitalist struggle. We are well aware that a right-wing, neoliberal distortion of feminism and what is called ‘identity politics’ exists. We know this because it erases our experiences and struggles and we resist this erasure through our work as activists every single day. It is distressing and enraging that we also have to fight against the bad faith of fellow activists on the left – mostly men, sometimes women – who, for their own reasons, blur the distinction between this kind of middle-class neoliberal faux-feminism, and a truly radical feminist politics that has class struggle at its very core. This hurts us because it erases and undermines our realities, our suffering, our analyses, and our organising, and gives more strength to the powers that are ranged against us. For many of us, it is heart-breaking to look at some of the men around us and realise that they are nodding in agreement with this erasure of their working class women friends and comrades.

Most of us have grown up learning to appease men. How to give them our space, how to deal with the fact that they dominate any political discussions, that they are paid more, heard more and believed more. However, most of us expect that the men we work with in all the social justice movements we are part of should have at least considered how they are complicit in this domination when they refuse to recognise that it exists. Patriarchy forces men into roles that damage them as well as us. Most of us have men that we love, admire and respect in our lives and for that reason, not only because it damages and diminishes the life experiences of women, we should all be fighting patriarchy together.”

Niamh McDonald

Zoe McCormack

Jen O’Leary

Aline Courtois

Emily Waszak

Theresa O’Keefe

Sinéad Redmond

Aislinn Wallace

Hazel Katherine Larkin

Linnea Dunne

Natalia Fernandez

Helen Guinane

Maggs Casey

Stephanie Lord

Anne Mulhall

Eileen Flynn

Ellie Kisyombe

Elaine Feeney

Wendy Lyon

Sarah Clancy

Brigid Quilligan

Emily Duffy

Clara Purcell

Aoibheann McCann

Aoife Frances

Shauna Kelly

Eilís Ní Fhlannagáin

Dearbhla Ryan

Michelle Connolly

Siobhán O’Donoghue

Aoife FitzGibbon O’Riordan

Stephanie Crowe Taft

Denise Kiernan

Aisling Egan

Donnah Vuma

Kate O’Connell

Natalia Fernández

Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird

Mary McAuliffe

Marie Mulholland

Margo Harkin

Avril Corroon

Juliana Sassi

Ailbhe Smyth

Kate McGrew

Ciara Miller

Aoife Dermody

Emer Smith

Francisca Ribeiro

Jerrieann Sullivan

Marie McDonnell

Kathleen Gaul

Liz Martin

Laura Lee

Roisin Blade

Kerry Guinan

Gráinne O’Toole

Edel McGinley

Máiréad Enright

Erin Fornoff

Sarah Fitzgibbon

Cliona Kelly

Ciara Fitzpatrick

Bronwen Lang

Shonagh Strachan

Dervla O’Neill

Hilary Darcy

Jane Xavier

Emma Campbell

Clara Rose Thornton IV

Linda Connolly

Nomaxabiso Maye

Rosa Thompson

Liz Nelson

Eavan Brennan

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Elaine D’alton

Anne Rynne

Elaine Crory

Jodie Condon

Clare Kelly

Catriona O’Brien

Meireka Radford

Lisa Keogh Finnegan

Fiona Dunkin

Lelia Doolan

Jacinta Fay

Mary O’Donoghue

Mariel Whelan

Aine Treanor

Flavia Simas

Meabh Savage

Noirin Lynch

Claire Brophy

Liz Price

Linda Kavanagh

Linda Devlin

Aileen O’Carroll

Anita Koppenhofer

Vicky Donnelly

Marianne Farrelly

Aisling Walsh

Ronit Lentin

Sarah Ferrigan

Neltah Chadamoyo

Rosi Leonard

Tara Flynn

Sinead Kennedy

Anna Visser

Taryn de Vere

Marese Hegarty

Tracey Ryan

Orlagh De Bhaldraithe

Eimear O’Shea

Jen Fagan

Aoife Martin

Lorna O’Hara

Nicole King

Laura NicDiarmada

Maeve O’Brien

Maija Sofia

Izzy Kamikaze

Karen Mulreid

Niamh Byrne

Sophie Long

Gormla Hughes

Mary McDermott

Mary Cosgrove

Amy Moran

Chamindra Weerawardhana

Sarah Vanden Broeck

Karen McDonnell

Kate Quigley

Charlotte Gordon

Kerry Cuskelly

Susan O Keeffe

Inga Wójcik

May Watson

Máire Ní Giolla Bhríde

Maria O Sullivan

Gillian McInerney

Claire McCallion

Deirdre Flynn

Janet O’Sullivan

Alexandra Day

Jeannine Webster

Ann Farrelly

Georgina O’Halloran

Zoe Lawlor

Angela Coraccio

Kathryn Keane

Sorcha Fox

Anastasia Ryan

Sinéad O’Rourke

Kerri Ryan

Mara Clarke

Chelley McLear

Georgina Barrow

Breda McManus

Ceile Varley

Kate Quigley

Gala Tomasso

Louise Kelly

Catherine Lawless

Sonya Mulligan

Sarah-Anne Buckley

Lily Power

Angela Carr

Dervla O’Malley

Sinéad Mercier

Jane O’Sullivan

Irena Koroleva

Sarah Cavanagh

Margaret Ward

Emer McHugh

Miriam O’Donovan

Mhairi McAlpine

Deirdre Wadding

Sarah Wright

Lucy Michael

Maria Deiana

Sinead McDonald

Mairead Healy

Eleanor White

Ellen Reid

Laura Maloney

Liz Quirke

Jackie O’Toole

Amy Walsh

Sarah O’Grady

Catriona Finn

Audrey Bryan

Janet Horner

Donna Cooney

Maureen Tucker

Sarah Davis-Goff

Lynda Whyte

Cíara Molloy

Ciara Kenny

Joanna Hickey

Yvonne Murphy

Rose Murphy

Robyn Maguire

Tina O’Toole

Rachel Quigley

Clare Hayes-Brady

Adrienne Lynam

Amy Ní Mhurchú

Jennifer Dalton

Yasmine O’Connor

Vawns Murphy

Darina Roche

Norah Elam

Kelly Doolin

Muireann Meehan Speed

Grace Costigan

Anna Richardson

Rebek’ah McKinney-Perry

Kelly-Ann Daly

Maggie Bent

Cathie Shiels

Deirdre Mullen

Aoife Cooke

Debbie O Rourke

Rachel Watters

Chelley McLear

Paula Dennan

Kieran Ann Clifford

Lisa Carey

Catherine Vallely

Honor Harlow

Grian Ní Dhaimhín

Polly Molotov

Jesse Jones

Ceara Martyn

Jess Kavanagh

Trish Brennan

Sarah Marie Slattery

Mary Berney

Saoirse Bennett

Claddagh Róisín

Lynda Sheridan

Margo Carr

Noreen Murphy

Farah Mokhtareizadeh

Lisamarie Johnson

Leanne Doyle

Aine O’Driscoll

Maila Costa

Susan Walsh

Janica Ribeiro

Kellie McConnell

Aoife Cooke

Sharon Nolan

Michelle Doyle

Stephanie Fleming

Evonne Reidy

Caroline West

Alexandra Soares

Fíona Cuffe

Suzanne Daly

Jessica Traynor

Evelyn Richardson

Síomha Ní Aonghusa

Syd Delz

Michelle Coyne

Roisin Kelly

Amy McDonald

Gabriela Lobianco

Tracy Radley

Nikki Newman

Noirin Mac Namara

Maureen Mansfield

Rebeccah O’ Donovan

Tais Forner

Catherine Morley

Rachel Robinson

Lauren Foley

Emma Gilleece

Carly Fisher

Angela Carr

Katie Moylan

Kelly Fitzgerald

Alice Rekab

Liz Brosnan

Susan Miner

Ciara Thornton

Caroline Kelly

Nick Beard

Aisling Bruen

Keeva Carroll

Bebhinn McInerney

Manuela Palacios

Jene Hinds Kelly

Siobhan O’Riordan

Mel Duffy

Annie Hoey

Áine Ní Fhaoláin

Deborah Madden

Stephanie Rains

Lorelei Fox-Roberts

Ari Silvera

Melíosa Bracken

Orla Breslin

Janet Allen

Muireann O’Cinneide

Aislinn O Keeffe

Leigh Duncan

Muireann Crowley

Bebhinn Farrell

Emma Regan

Aisling Crosson

Maggie Feeley

Anna Cosgrave

Sharon Crowley

Leighanna Rose Walsh

Nyasha

Claragh Lucey

Shahidah Janjua

Róisín Garvey

Siobhan Greaney

Dominique Twomey

Janice Parr

Ingrid Kaar

Nicola Moffat

Carol Swanson

Ruth Fletcher

Aoife Riach Kelly

Stacey Wrenn

Laura McAtackney

Sinéad Noonan

Emma Gallagher

Kate Walsh

Caroline Kearney

Leah

Siobhan Curran

Elle Berry

Deirdre Duffy

Dianne Nora

Aisling Twomey

Linda Kelly

Emma Hendrick

Sarah Ann Behan

Catherine Ann Cullen

Dorcas Mac Nally

Emma Burns

Karen Twomey

Angel Bellaran

Charlie Bayliss

Anna Mac Carthy Adams

Fionnula MacLiam

Jen McKernon

Emer O’Toole

Fiona Gwozdz