I’m not. Nor are you, are you?

Did you notice that once social media had had a day or two to gossip about the new releases, most thinking people have come round to ‘well, we knew that was how the world worked, nothing’s going to change…’

Honestly, go over to YouTube and watch some old Monty Python sketches – or any comedy you like from the mid-to-late 20^th century. See what they make of women and girls? You might even dig up some classic clips of Till Death Us Do Part, or Rising Damp, and fall off your chair when you see how much fun they had back then with racist jokes – or you might find an episode of Please Sir, or St Trinians, and have trouble getting your head round their depictions of teenage girls as walking sex-pots, their defining characteristic – dangerous to men. And that’s before we get started on class-based slanders in all those ‘comedies’. Oh, and 1970s DJs – oh my…

That was the norm.

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, if you actually drew attention to all that awfulness, if you were talking to someone sensible like Chomsky, they would probably have said ‘oh yes, dreadful.’ Then forget about it, because it was normal.

Normal, just like the sexualisation of girls, the trashing of feminists, and political lines about the tendency of ‘Islamic’ people to ‘terrorism’ are normal now.

Sexism, racism and classism may change their expression but they don’t go away, they are the main engines of power in a capitalist society, and They change in order to adapt. The majority of the people in each generation are much better at seeing what was wrong 20 years ago than they are at seeing what’s wrong now – but you know, I think we might be getting a bit better at keeping up. Most people are loudly disgusted by the Windsor formerly known as a prince, and by Peter Mandelson, and most people are at least starting to work out that there’s something wrong with the whole sex-industry situation — although attacks on feminists still get a lot of this kind of response…

… there are also a lot more people now who recognise comments like that as a woman obediently passing on classic misogyny. There are even some who recognise the bullying and cancel-culture around the women’s rights campaign as a gleeful attack on disobedient women. Even better, we’re beginning to see some moves now to help the vast numbers of women who’ve been materially knocked back as a result of ‘saying something’ about the trans v women’s rights situation.

In the clips below, we learn that women are smelly and complicated. Trans women with dicks are a great improvement. Trans men – well, you can only feel sorry for them. This is how most men and a scary number of women look at it all…

So far, I’ve come across two wealthy, well-known white men who come out of all this apparently clean – Norman Finkelstein and Jeremy Corbyn – tellingly, both men are hated and avoided by what you would expect to be their professional peer-groups. Have you found any others? Comments welcome!

The good news

#metoo woke a lot of people up over sexism, and Black Lives Matter did the same for racism. In the UK, the Corbyn movement aided by the assemblies movement had started to improve class awareness. We are getting better at this. Caitlin Johnston said nothing will change, she said, ‘all that will come out of the Epstein releases is a few more people opening their eyes.’ Sure, but that’s what we need. It takes time. The struggle goes on.

So let’s pay attention, and learn the lessons of it. We don’t just need to get rid of Mandelson and Starmer, and anyone who knows anything about the NHS knows we don’t want Streeting as a replacement. We don’t just need to get rid of Trump and Netanyahu, and it’s not just about keeping Reform out of government…

… we need to get rid of most of our current political class, and we need to get much, much better at recognising and rejecting race, class and sex-based oppression.

Socialists never stop talking about capitalism. Feminists never stop talking about patriarchy. If only we could put those two conversations together and see.

Patriarchy

Frankly, I’m shocked at the number of feminists who are shocked by the Epstein revelations. What was there that we didn’t already know? It’s not that all men are bad, it’s really not. Real feminists aren’t engaged in a battle between women (all good) and men (all bad) that’s not how it works. It’s not even that some men are good (actually, lots of men are) — it’s that good men are precarious, because of patriarchy. Every day in every way, our society keeps up the pressure on men to use women, and to excuse themselves — and it never lets up on women who refuse to be used.

Even when a child grows up in a household where mum and dad do their utmost to demonstrate and encourage equal partnership, they are growing up in a world that teaches boys and men to use women, and teaches girls to see being used as a good thing — as being wanted, and to see being needed as security. We won’t put an end to exploitation and corruption until we smash the patriarchy. We won’t put an end to racism and classism until we smash capitalism. Please, please can we rise above the pernicious distraction of ‘trans rights v women’s rights’ so we can finally get socialists and feminists working together, recognising their respective tasks as part of one battle.

PS If you still haven’t worked out that gender ideology is pure sexism, please read those emails again, and note the kind of people who developed so-called sex change procedures, and the ideology to support them. Then go talk to a real feminist. If men believed women were real humans, if they understood that we’re a sex class with abilities and vulnerabilities unique to the female of the species, they wouldn’t believe a cosmetic surgeon and a handful of hormone pills could make a man into a woman; nor would they have the nerve to ‘make’ women and girls, just as something to play with. Women don’t really believe it — they’re just trained to believe — to hope and to pray — that men will love them if they lie for them.

Sure, agitate to get rid of Mandelson, Starmer, Trump and the rest of them — but most importantly, if you want to protect women and girls, and get the foul corruption out of our politics, then resolve to help us smash the patriarchy.

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