A few weeks ago, I went to a Labour Party meeting in London organised by the left-wing faction, Labour Assembly Against Austerity. It was the party’s first public meeting since nine MPs resigned in February to form a centrist alternative (the not-so inspiringly-named Independent Group), citing Labour’s position on Brexit and the anti-Semitism problem as push factors. The splintering didn’t quite break Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, failing to snowball in the way some hoped and predicted, but it certainly exposed a crisis of identity in an increasingly divided Labour Party.
The star of this event - ‘Why we need a Corbyn-led government’ - was shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who gave a characteristically impassioned-yet-steady speech about the ways in which austerity had created a national atmosphere that allowed racism to flourish. Other speakers, including MPs Richard Burgon continued in a similar vein. There was nothing particularly new or animating about the meeting, but I suppose its purpose was to reignite the somewhat downbeat left-wing activists. The egalitarian rhetoric was just the right amount of angry, and easy to get behind. But there was something missing, and it wasn’t until the end of the meeting that it struck me: there was no mention – no mention whatsoever – of sexism, of feminism, or indeed of women at all.
The British left has long had a complicated relationship with feminism. Historically, trade unions have been notoriously sexist. This might be attributed to the unusual prescience the Labour movement played in shaping the left; unlike much of Europe, whose parties and movements were founded on theories of Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky, the Brits took a predictably pragmatic approach. By 1900 much of the theory-based approaches to left-wing politics were usurped (the Fabian Society is one of the only long-standing intellectual factions of the Labour Party). Neglecting to pay much to attention to egalitarian theory meant that the status-quo of white men leading the struggle against privilege was, paradoxically, unchallenged.
But while anti-racist rhetoric became an increasingly meaningful part of the left’s identity, culminating in a Corbyn-led Labour Party that has been more vocal than any previous party leadership about tackling racism, there has been a widespread failure to really embrace feminism. Sexism – in both passive and violent forms – continues to plague and undermine left-wing groups.
Take the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 2013, a scandal unfolded in which it was reported a number of members of the SWP had been accused of sexual assault and rape, but the party had actually protected those accused and covered up the accusations.
Take Aaron Bastani – self-proclaimed ‘brocialist’ and co-founder of the ever-growing, increasingly-popular Novara Media. In 2017, he was widely criticised for failing to condemn sexual assault and defending sexist comments. In fact Novara Media, as insightful and refreshing as it is on many topics, is lacklustre when it comes to women’s issues and sexism. And whilst growing numbers of left-wing women such as New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern are leading the developed world, no woman has come close to leading the Labour Party (I’m not going to go on a tangent here about how the only two women who have been PM in the UK have been right-wing and anti-feminist to the core).
The irony of all of this is that the left needs feminism as much as feminism needs the left. As more and more women are waking up to sexism in all its forms, the left risks losing our support if it doesn’t also wake up. The harsh austerity that’s dictated policy for nearly a decade now overwhelmingly impacts women – some reports suggest that we bear 85% of the brunt. Whether it a hangover from trade unionism, a fear of fully embracing a word that some right-wing groups claim to care about too, or just the good old patriarchy doing what it does best – keeping women’s issues at the bottom of the pile, it doesn’t matter.
It’s time for the British left to get real on feminism: condone it, embrace it, and salute it.