UPDATE
Minutes after I posted this article, the ludicrous Jess Phillips published an article in the Guardian which could not have been better designed to prove my thesis. A number of people have posted comments on the Guardian article pointing this out, and they have all been immediately deleted by the Guardian. I just tried it myself and was also deleted. I should be grateful if readers could now also try posting comments there, in order to make a point about censorship on the Guardian.
Catching up on a fortnight’s news, I have spent five hours searching in vain for criticism of Simon Danczuk from prominent or even just declared feminists. The Guardian was the obvious place to start, but while they had two articles by feminist writers condemning Chris Gayle’s clumsy attempt to chat up a presenter, their legion of feminist columnists were entirely silent on Danczuk. The only opinion piece was strongly defending him.
This is very peculiar. The allegation against Danczuk which is under police investigation – of initiating sex with a sleeping woman – is identical to the worst interpretation of the worst accusation against Julian Assange. The Assange allegation brought literally hundreds, probably thousands of condemnatory articles from feminist writers across the entire range of the mainstream media. I have dug up 57 in the Guardian alone with a simple and far from exhaustive search. In the case of Danczuk I can find nothing, zilch, nada. Not a single feminist peep.
The Assange case is not isolated. Tommy Sheridan has been pursuing a lone legal battle against the Murdoch empire for a decade, some of it in prison when the judicial system decided his “perjury” was imprisonable but Andy Coulson’s admitted perjury on the Murdoch side in the same case was not. I personally witnessed in court in Edinburgh last month Tommy Sheridan, with no lawyer (he has no money) arguing against a seven man Murdoch legal team including three QCs, that a letter from the husband of Jackie Bird of BBC Scotland should be admitted in evidence. Bird was working for Murdoch and suggested in his letter that a witness should be “got out of the country” to avoid giving evidence. The bias exhibited by the leading judge I found astonishing beyond belief. I was the only media in the court.
Yet even though the Murdoch allegations against Sheridan were of consensual sexual conduct, Sheridan’s fight against Murdoch has been undermined from the start by the massive and concerted attack he has faced from the forces of feminism. Just as the vital messages WikiLeaks and Assange have put out about war crimes, corruption and the relentless state attack on civil liberties have been undermined by the concerted feminist campaign promoting the self-evidently ludicrous claims of sexual offence against Assange.
As soon as the radical left pose the slightest threat to the neo-con establishment, an army of feminists can be relied upon to run a concerted campaign to undermine any progress the left wing might make. The attack on Jeremy Corbyn over the makeup of his shadow cabinet was a classic example. It is the first ever gender equal shadow cabinet, but the entire media for a 96 hour period last September ran headline news that the lack of women in the “top” posts was anti-feminist. Every feminist commentator in the UK piled in.
Among the obvious dishonesties of this campaign was the fact that Defence, Chancellor, Foreign Affairs and Home Secretary have always been considered the “great offices of State” and the argument only could be made by simply ignoring Defence. The other great irony was the “feminist” attack was led by Blairites like Harman and Cooper, and failed to address the fact that Blair had NO women in any of these posts for a full ten years as Prime Minister.
But facts did not matter in deploying the organised feminist lobby against Corbyn.
Which is why it is an important test to see what the feminists, both inside and outside the Labour Party, would do when the leading anti-Corbyn rent-a-gob, Simon Danczuk, was alleged to have some attitudes to women that seem very dubious indeed, including forcing an ex-wife into non-consensual s&m and that rape allegation.
And the answer is …nothing. Feminists who criticised Assange, Sheridan and Corbyn in droves were utterly silent on the subject of Danczuk. Because the purpose of established and paid feminism is to undermine the left in the service of the neo-cons, not to attack neo-cons like Danczuk.
Identity politics has been used to shatter any attempt to campaign for broader social justice for everybody. Instead it becomes about the rights of particular groups, and that is soon morphed into the neo-con language of opportunity. What is needed, modern feminism argues, is not a reduction of the vast gap between rich and poor, but a chance for some women to become Michelle Mone or Ann Gloag. It is not about good conditions for all, but the removal of glass ceilings for high paid feminist journalists or political hacks.
Feminism has become the main attack tool in the neo-con ideological arsenal. I am sceptical the concept can be redeemed from this.
The thing with any legislation use to level is that it can always be used to censor and control. I recommend the film, ‘Call it sleep’, for a nice analysis of how things will go.
Johnny, are you sure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_It_Sleep is a film? There’s a non-credible mention in IMDB to one in 1997, otherwise not found
“We, the Rockefellers funded feminism.”
The late Aaron Russo thought feminism was a noble thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN05DHO9bJw
Craig,
Who are your so-called ‘feminists’? Do you just mean Guardian columnists? Because there are a number of women columnists/politicians who are first and foremost Blairites, and use feminism as a handy stick to stir people up. Yes, you are quite right ‘the “feminist” attack was led by Blairites like Harman and Cooper’ and you are right to ‘feminist’ in quotes because evidently they are not real feminists.
You say ‘What is needed, modern feminism argues, is not a reduction of the vast gap between rich and poor, but a chance for some women to become Michelle Mone or Ann Gloag.’
No, this is not feminism. It is a corruption of feminism by neo-liberals who wish to discredit it, because true feminism is as much a threat to them as any left-wing agenda. Dont look for feminist articles in the Guardian any more than for pro-independence ones.
Craig, for all his faults, Danczuk was one of a few MPs who spoke out against child sexual abuse, which includes his book about Cyril Smith.
In recent months there’s been a big drive by the Establishment and corporate media to discredit child sex abuse whistleblowers, and one can’t help wonder if Danczuk is a victim of this.
Perhaps the ‘feminist writers’ you speak of are aware of this, and perhaps they are also aware that there’s been another big VIP child sex abuse scandal brewing over Christmas, with the police refusing to halt their inquiries, despite pressure from on high.
I can’t give any links to back-up what I’m saying here, because no one is reporting it yet. It’ll probably break in the next week or so; that is, if the totally rotten and corrupt police state Britain allows it.
Surely criticism is aimed at editors rather than the feminist movement. Your enquiry includes only mass media. One can find and pay for all sorts of opinions. It’s the selection of these opinions that makes up the media. Suggest you look beyond to those commissioning the stories and continue with your excellent work.
RobG,
While it was undoubtedly right to expose Smith as a paedophile, I have never understood why it was “courageous” of Danczuk to expose the dead leader of his main political opponents in Rochdale. Exposing Janner or some other Labour pedophiles would have been courageous.
Angus,
My enquiry encompassed the mainstream media plus a pretty good sweep of internet outlets. Nothing by high profile feminists on Danczuk I can turn up anywhere, compared to vast amounts on Assange and Sheridan.
I agree with the identification of bias, but not the conclusion – that feminism is to blame. The title is particularly problematic – “feminism a neo-con tool” – doesn’t that include all shades of feminism? There are many feminisms, and the angry sex-negative variant that takes its cues from state propaganda – as in the Assange case – is but one flavour.
I’d also say this is not true:
It’s not it’s purpose at all – that would imply that the faux Left is consciously and deliberately acting as as an agent of neoconservatism, and I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence of that. For this to be provably the case, they’d have to be actively taking instructions from the security services, or perhaps are secret members of a right-wing foundation, or some other action that demonstrates deliberate intent.
I think we’re seeing the mix of two things: the curse that there’s very rarely a capitalist opportunity in genuinely challenging the malice of the state, and that people who get paid well at the Guardian and so forth have developed, in a slow and constant process, complex layers of self-deception. Rusbridger comes immediately to mind, but then to a great degree, so does Cherie Blair, who still in interviews claims that she and her husband are socialists.
Nevertheless, the article does indicate the problems that Media Lens and FAIR have been highlighting for years – I would characterise it by saying that a free and fair media is not a natural occurrence under a free-market system. However, if we believe that the media as a private enterprise has failed in its duty, then a state mechanism for the same – as we have seen with the BBC – is surely not much better. Perhaps media activism is the least worst approach to keeping both sides (more) honest?
Jon,
You elide the question of why the angry sex-negative feminists are silent on Danczuk
Also Craig, Simon Danczuk may be a prat and a sexist, but is it not strange that he is being attacked in a similar way to Assange and yourself when he has attempted to throw investigate and throw light on politician paedophiles? If you read the ‘sexts’ he is being pilloried about it is obvious that the woman was leading him on. She made money from sex sites she had set up. Is anyone investigating whether she was prompted to do this and if so by whom?
Philw
I see no evidence Danczuk had any target other than his direct political opponents in Rochdale. He was not exposing anyone else. Hardly a campaigner.
All your points are good ones.
The Guardian is pretty much the only mainstream print medium to regularly give a voice to feminist writers. Maybe the *only* MSM to give such a voice. That gives it a privileged position (which IMHO it abuses).
But: the Guardian is at least a Blairite organ; now it’s been more or less taken over as a(n online) newspaper for the USA (and to a lesser extent Australia). Its obligation to find readers in those places has found it increasingly drifting rightwards. It has screwed up over its dealings with both Assange and Snowden (via Greenwald). The comments from ‘readers’ are more and more extreme, and frankly sometimes sickening in their xenophobic rants.
In short, feminists (of whatever gender) have precious few MSM outlets for their views. So, I would be reluctant to apply the ‘neocon’ label willy-nilly (as it were).
A couple of links to articles (not necessarily new) I found interesting today (if I may):
Rosa Brookes: The threat is already inside. (Foreign Policy gives one free article; signup for free for limited access)
and
Glenn Greenwald: The Deceptive Debate Over What Causes Terrorism Against the West
It’s not what the press says, it’s what it doesn’t say. If you think it’s unbelievable that the major media outlets are unreliable, spend some time checking what they don’t report. Sadly the Gruinard should be better, the Torygraph, well what would you expect.
RS
Sorry, no, Mr Murray, but you have it wrong. I am a feminist. I have been one since I became conscious of the bias against women in society. But I am also a socialist and not one of the neoliberal female supporters of free market capitalism who are tolerated as voices for feminism in the mainstream media. I am a non person with non views because I oppose neoliberalism, neoconservatism and free market capitalism. So my disgust at Danczuk’s unsavoury and criminal behaviour doesn’t count. I don’t count – first because I am a woman, secondly because I am a feminist, thirdly because I am a socialist. I do not appreciate being further “othered” by you, despite the sincerity and consistency of my opinions. No, feminists do not support Danczuk. Neoliberal anti Corbynites who happen to be women do.
Well, Tom Driberg was a Labour MP a long time ago, but Danczuk is now saying that the case against him for sexually abusing boys was also covered up. http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5721/tom-driberg-mp-escaped-prosecution-for-sexually-abusing-boys
The neocons and their allies are also using discrimination against and oppression of gays as a stick with which to beat their foreign competitors like Russia and Iran nowadays. Not against Saudi Arabia or its allies, however.
I think Jeremy Corbyn is quite right to pick the best people for the job despite their gender. It would be a nonsense to put Elsie Garnett from Till Death Us Do Part in parliament, let alone cabinet. However some feminists think he should have balanced the scales. Jess Phillips is one. She makes an indirect reference to Julian Assange and is clearly a threat to the honest open society we used to have and knows nothing about the Assnage case.
“George Galloway reports that he is great friends with some of Labour’s top team. Now, I don’t know about you, but I find that once I know one of my mates thinks it is acceptable for someone to have sex with a woman when she is asleep, I start to avoid them at parties.”
http://sputniknews.com/videoclub/20160107/1032789671/putin-christmas-mass.html#ixzz3wYJXt7VD
However I did not see this until now and think there should have been at least some publicity for multiole women being sexually molested on New Year’s Eve.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/why-are-feminists-refusing-to-discuss-the-cologne-sex-attacks/
Article in Washington Post about how limitations are being put on what Germans can say about the Cologne attacks. Sexual assaults challenge Germany’s welcoming attitude toward refugees.
On-line version of article leaves out statement in the print paper this morning. Der Spiegel has disabled the ability of readers to comment on line on their articles about migrants. Should remind readers of the Washington Post’s policies on line.
There are “feminists” (useful idiots) and feminists, who are concerned with the importance of female experience. Let the two not be confused.
One of your best, Mr Murray.
Craig, thanks. I should have been more explicit.
I’d reiterate that I think there indeed is different treatment in similar cases: Assange is monstered by feminists of a particular stripe, and others – Danczuk and many others – are mostly left alone. My thesis is that faux-left hacks are largely self-interested careerists, and they know what stories will develop “legs” – attacking Assange is easy because he has challenged neoliberal capitalism very strongly, and so the systems of capitalism will be very supportive in striking back.
The converse is also true – I don’t know much about Danczuk, but if he is largely a Blairite, as his Wikipedia entry seems to indicate – then those story legs are much less likely to run for long. Some of this might be deliberate bias – an editor shapes newsroom culture so that right-wingers are protected – but I’d say a good deal of it is just the internalised journalistic understanding that challenging the Establishment is a great deal more expensive than challenging its enemies.
I thought the media could have made a mountain out of Corbyn’s quiet determination to talk to WW2 veterans rather than disappear to the VIP lunch as per other politicians, but this too is a case in point – supporting the Left too strongly may reduce profit margins. And media reportage, in general, is a business, and mostly a large corporate one.
I think this financial steering mechanism mirrors the “flak” component in Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model – negative feedback and bad PR that is time-consuming and costly to rebut and defend. I’ve been in favour of this media analysis for years since it seems to be the simplest explanation – humans are corruptible and intelligent writers are still susceptible to propaganda and Establishment wooing. The only other explanation is that the many paid hacks who are responsible for this bias are doing it deliberately and consciously – in which case the argument is that they are receiving instructions from the security services or money in brown envelopes through the post, etc.
Of course it is possible that some people are doing that, but keeping that scheme secret for decades involving thousands of journalists – and many more across all highly developed nations – would be a bold claim indeed.
My purpose in objecting is that, like philw, I see a left feminism as a force for good. I don’t think it is fair to say that “feminists” are opposed to Assange and in favour of Blairism since there is no single variant of feminism. Paid commentators who largely support elite narratives are welcome to call themselves feminist if they wish, but that does not mean we need to agree with any of their assessments!
They aren’t feminists Craig, they’re feminazis, an entirely different group.
Craig, just tested your theory by commenting on another anti Corbyn article by Jess Phillips in the Guardian, by asking why no mention is made of Simon Danczuk. The article is about misogyny and the Left and is trite in the extreme. The comment was quickly removed and it seems that any comment disagreeing with Jess is receiving the same treatment. The Guardian really is a disgrace these days.
I call it “media feminism”. It’s not feminism. It’s stupid Oxbridge and Russell Group media twits obsessing over identity politics and reading intersectionality as a hierarchy rather than a Venn diagram. It’s also people like Yvette Cooper shouting about feminism while supporting welfare “reforms” that disproportionately affect poor women.
Media and politics feminism is a badge for wealthy, white, privileged women. It punches down and sucks up. That’s why it supports who it supports and vilifies who it vilifies.
It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with actual feminism, the one I subscribe to, which is about equal rights and life chances for all women and, horror of horrors, includes the plebs. You’ll note that the victim of dear Simon’s grooming was vilified all over the Daily Mirror for being a vulnerable teenager who been sucked into the edges of sex work. Because you can’t groom them if they’re a little tart, can you? Vis a vis Rochdale? Oh, the irony.
In our times the use of correct phraseology perhaps is a must. There are feminists as there those practising feminist theory both these phrases are purportedly indicating practitioners of feminism, yet in reality the are serving opposing interests, and investing in the elimination of the other.
Alas the theory of feminism that is about fighting the suppression and oppression of one half of our societies that is firmly unfolding on a daily basis and to the extent of degrees of oppression that are granted to the limits of being mundane and routine.
The fact that theory of feminism is promoting the destruction of the constructs of suppression and oppression of women or half of the human societies with a view to further extend justice for other minorities ie religious, immigrants, etc. However in evidence this noble struggle is hijacked by the female sexual politics that is masqueraded as feminism effectively destroying any credible progression of feminist theory.
Simon Danczuk is evidently a puzzle that despite his most egregious philandering and sexual shenanigans (not forgetting the puritanism angle of our daily lives) seemingly is immune from the wrath of the practitioners of female sexual politics. This is simply due to the fact that he is one of the persons of the inner circle, as his opposition to Corbyn proves, and his support of other “right” causes convey.
To be swept along the lines of the identity politics that is almost solely concerned with sex/coitus as reflected in the vociferous support of LGBT**, or promotion of Femen prancing around scantly dressed in their customary angry pout, denouncing anyone who dares to challenge the established order of the neo trickery?
It is all too easy to accept the current hogwash of female sexual politics, that is rightly trying to remove the glass ceiling to make available troughing spots for certain females whom have passed the vetting processes included those whom throw their voice into a deeper octave to pass more as males than females (its an assertion thing)!
However fighting the regimen of oppression and daily routine of suppression is not everyone’s cuppa of tea so it is understandable to accept the female sexual politicians as practising feminist theory and busy fighting the constructs of oppression on a daily basis!
**[(Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) just how many of these people are around? Are their populations higher in numbers than the Muslims and the asylum seekers? Are their conditions worse than those experienced by the Muslims, Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, Blacks etc.?]
@bob
The internetreally is a disgrace these days. ALL websites with BTL user comments/forums that handle any volume are completely censored.
@ Jon 8.30pm “Of course it is possible that some people are doing that, but keeping that scheme secret for decades involving thousands of journalists – and many more across all highly developed nations – would be a bold claim indeed.”
Perhaps you’d be interested to read these two articles:
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/leading-german-journalist-admits-cia-bribed-leaders-western-press.html
@Bob, I had a couple of comments I made under the Phillips Guardain article removed.
The Guardian will defend its own. Phillips is safe, she won’t stray and talk about the economy or foreign policy.
I read the book by that German journalist, Udo Ulfkoote, Gekaufte Journalisten [Bought Journalists]. It does show a lot of journalists in the German-speaking world being bought off by the plutocrats, often for surprisingly little. (Ulfkotte even admits that he was.) The name of the organization that organizes a lot of the journalistic corruption is Atlantik-Brücke, which, interestingly, means “Atlantic Bridge”. Reminds one of the now defunct Atlantic Bridge organization set up by Liam Fox of which Adam Werritty was the chairman.
They don’t have much imagination choosing names, do they?