Female suffrage = Government expansion?

[Dimentio]

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenny.pdf

I think this "pearl" deserves its own thread. From my initial readthrough of it, it seems to establish a correlation in the same way as those sceptics who mockingly combined global warming with the absence of piracy together with some a priori conclusions about females combined with sexism.

What I would like to discuss is the ramifications of this, and whether or not there is a movement in the USA for the abolishment of female suffrage.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hmm - I can't read the link because I'm a work and my work computer thinks that anything linked from this website is a virus or porn or something.

But I don't think there is really any kind of movement specifically against woman's suffrage. There is a very much a movement to roll back gains that women made in the 1970s (just as there is one for erasing the reforms made by the civil rights movement) - spearheaded by the anti-abortion movement.

On the right, this movement is mostly based out of the right-wing christian movement and is focused on restricting abortion and birth control on the legal and structural side of things, but they do not really move beyond that in restricting other legal rights like divorce or workplace discrimination (although they'd love to take these on too). So the rest of their effort is more cultural and moralizing: focusing on homeschooling Christian children (the modern barefoot and pregnant because these conservatives argue that christian children need to be home schooled by their mothers - which means no job other than raising kids full time) arguing that delinquency is because of non-traditional families.

In abortion the bigots have made significant inroads and have successfully confused many people on the issue to the point that many people who are actually pro-choice (but just don't think they'd personally want an abortion) identify themselves as "pro-life" - you get this all the time in the US and I've even read similar things by new people on this website. But in everything else, I think they have not been all that successful - whereas the liberals have!

Yes, I think the liberals can be blamed for a lot of the retreat around Women's Lib issues and liberal magazines and television shows will often do these bullshit reports about how "women are rejecting the stressful work-world and finding fulfillment as mothers". These stories are almost always about petty-bourgeois or bourgeois women who CHOOSE to quit their job to become full-time mothers. But for the working class, this choice to stay home is just bullshit because employment has increased greatly and since the 1980s basically a lot of the working class was able to maintain the post-war level of income by have households with two earners. Aside from the anecdote about these stories, liberals have basically given up on any form of women's rights other than trying to make sure that more elite women are able to get positions - but they have even failed at this! Even for the rich, I think only 2% of CEOs and 14-16% of upper-management are women (this is from a story I read last week!).

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I think it's silly to blame it on the liberals. I mean good grief, could you possibly sound any more like a conservaturd? I don't know what kind of liberals you talk to, but the ones I've met fully support the right for women to work instead of being homemakers.

I think the material realities of economic and social trends and conditions are to blame, not political boogeymen.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think it's silly to blame it on the liberals. I mean good grief, could you possibly sound any more like a conservaturd? I don't know what kind of liberals you talk to, but the ones I've met fully support the right for women to work instead of being homemakers.

I think the material realities of economic and social trends and conditions are to blame, not political boogeymen.Yeah, I don't mean liberals are directly to blame in the sense of your coworker who has some liberal ideas, I mean the liberals connected to politics and official groups. Besides, they are not the leading edge of reaction - i.e. they are not the ones telling women to get in the kitchen so to speak, but their equivocating and giving into the right and so on are a major factor in the retreat for woman's rights. You don't think Hilary baking cookies when she was criticized for being "too manly" and not a good mother doesn't have an effect on attitudes about working class women? Or worse, when "crazy feminist" Hilary Clinton says about abortion: we need to reach out to the pro-life people and recognize that abortion is a horrible choice to have to make.

More importantly, you don't think mainstream liberal groups like NOW do a disservice to woman's rights by going into hibernation when Democrats are in office? NOW was a big liberal force for mobilizing people in the late 1980s - Now where's NOW? It's the same as liberal groups on the war - MoveOn will mobilize people only when it works in the favor of Democratic politicans and so it ends up leading the anti-war supporters of MoveOn straight to supporting more bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the case of feminism, liberal groups like NOW lead pro-abortion people to supporting Liberal politicans who do not fight for woman's rights, but cave into the right-wing instead.

The right-wing is always only 1/2 of the equation for mainstream politics - generally right now, the other half of the equation is how do the liberals respond or give in?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yeah, I don't mean liberals are directly to blame in the sense of your coworker who has some liberal ideas, I mean the liberals connected to politics and official groups. Besides, they are not the leading edge of reaction - i.e. they are not the ones telling women to get in the kitchen so to speak, but their equivocating and giving into the right and so on are a major factor in the retreat for woman's rights. You don't think Hilary baking cookies when she was criticized for being "too manly" and not a good mother doesn't have an effect on attitudes about working class women? Or worse, when "crazy feminist" Hilary Clinton says about abortion: we need to reach out to the pro-life people and recognize that abortion is a horrible choice to have to make.

If Hillary Clinton is a liberal then I'm a goddamn Randroid.


More importantly, you don't think mainstream liberal groups like NOW do a disservice to woman's rights by going into hibernation when Democrats are in office? NOW was a big liberal force for mobilizing people in the late 1980s - Now where's NOW?

An organisation's influence can decrease as well as increase. Since there have been plenty of Republican presidents since the late 80s and NOW have seemingly been quiet since then I don't think it's because they're soft on Democrats.

Certainly these (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=139214) apparent liberals have had more than one problem (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=143350) with Obama (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=140910).


It's the same as liberal groups on the war - MoveOn will mobilize people only when it works in the favor of Democratic politicans and so it ends up leading the anti-war supporters of MoveOn straight to supporting more bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the case of feminism, liberal groups like NOW lead pro-abortion people to supporting Liberal politicans who do not fight for woman's rights, but cave into the right-wing instead.

I'm not familiar with MoveOn's track record, but I've heard plenty of people who reject communism and Marxism say that they should pull out of Iraq.


The right-wing is always only 1/2 of the equation for mainstream politics - generally right now, the other half of the equation is how do the liberals respond or give in?

Liberal influence is marginalised in America. Remember, the Democrats are a right-wing party to most of the rest of the world. US cultural norms skew the political compass considerably.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If Hillary Clinton is a liberal then I'm a goddamn Randroid.Ok, fine, New Democrat. But look at the politics of the leasers of 2nd wave feminism - all of them "liberals" some even non-marxist radicals (at least in the 1970s) and all of them have retreated and generally see women's lib as women in top business positions and even in that they have failed when only 2% of CEOs are female.


An organisation's influence can decrease as well as increase. Since there have been plenty of Republican presidents since the late 80s and NOW have seemingly been quiet since then I don't think it's because they're soft on Democrats.


Certainly these (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=139214) apparent liberals have had more than one problem (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=143350) with Obama (http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=140910).I can't click those links, but there is a lot of dissatisfaction with how things are going among liberals - even the more establishment-based Liberal groups. But as of yet, none of them that I know of are rejecting the Democrats or threatening a liberal version of the tea-party or a 3rd party to challenge the Democrats electorally.




I'm not familiar with MoveOn's track record, but I've heard plenty of people who reject communism and Marxism say that they should pull out of Iraq.MoveOn emailed their supporters after Obama's election to tell them that the war was over essentially. They supported Kerry when he ran on a "Surge in Iraq" platform.


Liberal influence is marginalised in America. Remember, the Democrats are a right-wing party to most of the rest of the world. US cultural norms skew the political compass considerably.Well first I want to be clear that I am talking about official Liberals, not people who support liberalism - this part of the population is much more aligned politically with what "liberalism" would be seen as in Europe or Latin America - the population is more liberal than (or left of) American "Liberals". The Democratic Party is still the "Liberal" party even though it has moved far to the right, just as the social democratic parties of Europe still represent "Democratic-Socialism" even though they are helping the ruling class try and reduce living standards and force austerity.

I think most liberals in the population would want official "Liberals" to fight for woman's rights and against the war and so on, but their leaders and organizations are swayed more from the demands of the ruling class and so MoveOn is happy to support US imperialism, as long as it is not a Republican or an all-out expansive military assault.

NOW is happy to see female Democratic candidates in power than candidates who fight for Women's Lib.

This is the state of US Liberalism at a time of a long rightward shift and attack on the population from the Ruling Class. When social movements and labor had more force and power, American Liberalism was "Guns and Butter" but now it is "Guns and Austerity".

This may change if there are movements from below that force establishment Liberalism to actually go back more to the left, but without that Liberalism in the US is going to be right along with the conservatives pushing war and austerity.

[WeAreReborn]

I'm sure there are groups but I don't think they have real power. Also, since when did revleft encompass neoliberals? I mean seriously, they are still Capitalist pigs who would throw their own baby under a bus if given the right price. The politicians just pretend to be the "opposite" of conservatives to keep the people happy. Don't buy into this party bullshit. If you want real change you won't achieve it through political reform..