Clarification on "Time to unite and fight the right..."

Author: redressalert
Originally posted March 18, 2017 on redressalert.tumblr.com. Re-posted with permission. [Original post]

Anonymous asked: "in response to your post about WoLF, I have a few questions, if you would like to answer them I’d be interested in your thoughts. I get where you’re coming from, although I disagree (as of now, anyway). What would you say to someone who thinks that it is dangerous to make the “progressive gaze” the yardstick of “good organizing”? In other words, you said that working with right-wing women and speaking at the heritage foundation is the “worst case scenario” of coalition strategy—is this for any other reason than because it looks the worst to progressives? Andrea Dworkin’s famous conclusion in Right Wing Women was that the right and left see women as objects, as property, and defend the property rights of our owners. The right wing sees females as the private property of men (fathers, husbands) and the left sees us as the public property of men (prostitutes, strippers, pornified girlfriends). If Dworkin’s analysis is taken seriously, it makes no sense to see working with the left as any more “pure” than working with the right. Both sides are actively opposed to radical feminist politics. Co-optation is a danger in both cases, although I actually personally think it is less likely in working with the rights, but there is no evidence that this has actually occurred. To me, “worst case scenario” would be actual co-optation, in which WoLF began to compromise its political analysis or goals in favor of right wing analysis or goals. That’s my definition of a worst case scenario, not looking bad in the eyes of progressives, who already hate us and actively harrass and no-platform us. All that said, I sympathize with your view, and don’t know enough details about what has happened between WoLF and detransitioners to understand the context you gestured at. I suggest it isn’t a zero-sum game; WoLF can do this and it can do that, both. Sorry for the length of this ask. Thank you for your work with disidentified women."
   
Hi anon, thanks so much for writing. I really appreciate this message and I’m so glad to have the opportunity to clarify. Thank you for asking. I’m definitely not concerned about “the progressive gaze.” That’s not the reason I think this is a worst case scenario, at all. I’m concerned about power. How power works. Who has the power, and how it’s being used. I’m not concerned about how it looks, but what it DOES. Who is going to end up benefiting, who will get hurt.

Read More