A political dilemma: feminism vs. radical left politics?
Imagine, if you are a man, that you are angry, really angry. The kind of anger that is easily mistaken for "hate." Like everyone who is ever angry about anything, you are angry because of an injustice, or what you believe is one. And the person you are angry at is a woman. She can’t see the injustice you’re pointing to, because what she sees is only that you are angry, and that to her is intolerable. Moreover, imagine she's some kind of "mental health worker" or someone else in official authority. What will she do? She will very likely fuck you over. Why? Partly for ideological reasons having to do with her profession. And partly because she's a woman and when a woman sees a man who is very angry at her she may have a visceral, primitive reaction, fight or flight, amygdala, whatever, that tells her she could be in danger, just because she's a woman and you're a man. Is it true, or is it not true? The thought that it could be true I find very disenchanting. I note that this imagined situation makes a perfect test case politically that may oppose intractably and inevitably a radical left (or anti-authoritarian) politics and a "radical" feminism. Isn't that interesting? It seems to me it quite is. We know historically what happened in the 1970s: left politics was defeated, feminist politics rose and carried the day. In the 80s when I was a college student, that was pretty much all there was. All that was left of the left. I find this problematic; to be fair, it may be not wrong so much as just problematic, but it clearly is that.