A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity weekly Chris Knight offers an appreciation n Climate rebels workern CWI about to split of Velimir Khlebnikov, the prophet n Lessons of ISO and poet of the Russian Revolution n Debating strategy No 1248 Thursday April 25 2019 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union £1/€1.10 PROVIDING ‘LEFT’ COVER FOR THE FAR RIGHT 2 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker LETTERS I’ve been interested in gender issues Letters may have been Margaret Hodge and contrasting it to the to this theory, biological sex might be a remedies for our members. We demand shortened because of treatment of Chris Williamson, arguing given, but ‘gender’ - one’s perception of and sexuality ever since a comrade (and that the WEP and its collaborators destroy space. Some names the case for natural justice, due process self - is a social construct and therefore trades council secretary) told me in 1981 immediately all footage obtained illegally may have been changed and equal treatment for all. These and can be changed. that he would be the third person in inside clubs and apologise to the dancers. many others need to be discussed at local “Radical feminism applied the Britain to have a sex-change operation. Dancers have made it clear that level and carried through to the national Marxist theory of class struggle to the He said that he would soon be in the they don’t need rescuing, They need a Get stuck in conference. And reopening the debate on relationship between men and women. papers. The Eastern Daily Press did workplace where they can earn a living The perpetual grovelling and apologising open selection is of vital importance. According to this theory, women were a very sympathetic article, whilst The to support themselves and their families. in the face of the bogus anti-Semitism The old left has let the side down the first oppressed class and men used Sun had an article on page 3 headlined: Women choose to work in strip clubs smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn badly in its pitiful response to the bogus the biological sex differences to invent “Union brother says call me sister.” He for the same reasons people choose a reached new depths last week with the anti-Semitism smear campaign. The motherhood as the task of women also told me that he would have to live as wide variety of jobs: funding university humiliating apology of Richard Burgon degrading and humiliating strategy and marriage as a way to secure their a woman for a year before he could have studies, family needs, a disability and MP for stating the blatantly obvious that of appeasement and apology is a power over women. Freedom from this his operation. This explained his permed a scarcity of other work options. All of Zionism is an enemy of peace. painful embarrassment that is totally oppression could supposedly be achieved hair and his diet, which included eating them are working because they need to Instead of standing by what was and is counterproductive. Conniving with by identifying the ways in which large quantities of cheese. make a living under increasingly difficult an accurate statement, he fell into line and the right to prevent discussion on open language and culture oppress women and Whilst transvestites make up a large conditions - extortionate housing costs, apologised, in step with heroic strategy of selection has been and is an absolute deconstructing the cultural supports for percentage of the male population, only inaccessible and inadequate benefits, lack appeasement at all costs that our fearless disaster. recognition of the differences between a very small percentage feel the need to of childcare and falling wages in other leaders have adopted. As is always the It is time for those new forces on the men and women. undergo gender reassignment surgery. industries. case, apologising makes it look as if you left, with their self-respect and backbone “This deconstructing of ‘gender’ It’s a pity that Amanda Maclean did We demand that the WEP cease its have done something wrong. It gives still intact, to stand up and be counted. is behind the radical feminist war on not mention the wide range of male campaign of harassment and intimidation confidence to the bullies, who have made The Corbyn project can still be saved, but marriage and motherhood, and their sexuality and fetishes. For example, a against dancers in Sheffield, Manchester you apologise for doing or saying nothing only if we all get stuck in and help him fanatical support for lesbianism and lady regularly advertises in the Wisbech and elsewhere. If the WEP wants to help that is inaccurate in the first place. It gives out. abortion on demand.” Standard/Cambs Times her specialist women, they should campaign against the impression that the left is weak and Steve McKenzie Dale O’Leary concludes: “We have correction and cross-dressing services. austerity measures and poverty wages - cowardly and consolidates the grip that email to defend patriarchy - which if you think As Amanda says, sex is very reducing women’s job options, as they are the right in the Parliamentary Labour about the word is men imitating the important. Sex nearly destroyed the attempting to do, is not only unhelpful, Party and the trade union bureaucracies Gender ideology ‘Father from whom every fatherhood British Socialist Workers Party over its but harmful. If they want to help dancers have over Corbyn. I read with sorrow Amanda MacLean’s takes its name’. God was a Father before mishandling of the ‘Comrade Delta’ rape working in clubs, they are welcome to Unless ordinary rank-and-file party article, ‘Decoupled from reality’ he made any fathers. We have to defend allegation. Sex has recently destroyed join UVW’s unionising efforts, listen to members rise up and come to the aid of the (Weekly Worker April 18). Like so many the natural division of humanity into male the International Socialist Organisation women and support them on their own leadership, the Corbyn project is destined contributors to the ‘debate’ around and female.” in the USA. But the ‘left’ is very prudish terms. to end in tears. Whether it is as a result transgender rights Amanda quickly Since around 2012 there have been when it comes to matters of sex. The We are a members-led trade union, of Jeremy being forced to stand down or moves from an argument ostensibly campaigns against gender mainstreaming, splits in the Committee for a Workers’ organising low-paid, precarious and, a Corbyn-led Labour government being about unintended consequences that the sexual education, LGBTQ+ and International (CWI) are over the attitude predominantly, migrant and outsourced brought down from within before it can Gender Recognition Act may have for the reproductive rights that have utilised the of its sections towards sexual politics and workers all over the UK. UVW supports implement any meaningful changes is rights of cis-woman, to one that presents concept of ‘gender ideology’ in Croatia, feminism. Ironically, the CWI is opposed members fighting for better pay and dependent on political developments. trans activists as out to get cis-woman and Germany, Italy, France, Lithuania, to prostitution in the same way that conditions and, often, for equality with What is clear is that, in either inevitable effectively questions trans, non-binary Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. rightwing Christian fundamentalist are. directly employed workers. UVW scenario, any progressive reforms - so and intersex people’s right to exist - or The war on gender has also become They don’t understand that most women became the first union in the country to desperately needed by so many millions only exist as some sort of second-class a powerful force in the Americas. It is become escorts because escorting pays end outsourcing at a university when it of working class people in this country - woman or man or as a sufferer of a thought to have been decisive in the failure better that working on a supermarket forced the LSE to bring all its cleaners will be blocked. The aims and objectives “crippling condition”. of the peace referendum in Columbia, checkout. in-house after organising the then largest of the anti-austerity movement will not A central part of the creation of this and in Brazil it aided the election of the It is therefore very apt and brave that cleaners’ strike in UK history in 2017. have been achieved, and we will be back narrative is that evocation of the concept fascist president, Jair Bolsonaro. Finally the Weekly Worker can publish such a In 2018, UVW members in the to square one. of ‘genderist’ or ‘gender ideology’ - a it was utilised by Donald Trump in the fascinating article by Amanda Maclean sex industry started organising for The consequences of black theory that Amanda never really defines. run-up to his election as president of the on Genderist Ideology. More articles workers status and recognition of their September last year are coming back to She rather loosely alludes to it being United States. ‘Gender ideology’ is a on sexual politics and so-called post- rights at work, as well as for the full haunt us. First there was the unanimous “postmodernist” and that it claims that straw doll theory utilised by the Christian feminism would be of great interest to decriminalisation of sex work. Workers acceptance of the International Holocaust “transwomen are literally women”. It and far right in order not only to oppress me, and possibly other readers. are best placed to advocate their own rights Remembrance Alliance definition of anti- becomes a straw doll, with words put in transgendered people, but also lesbians, John Smithee and safety at work, and dancers across the Semitism, including the 11 examples, at trans activists’ mouths, that then can be gay men, bisexuals and cis-woman.