Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
JK Rowling on Twitter December 2019
It’s a topsy-turvy world these days, and you can hardly blame Billy Bragg for getting a little confused. When Vladimir Putin wants to defend Russian writers and musicians who are pro the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he stirs things a little by suggesting they are being ‘cancelled’ as JK Rowling was ‘cancelled’ because she didn't please ‘fans of so-called gender freedoms’ (Putin’s words, not mine). This event sent Billy Bragg into a flat spin. Gosh, what a wonderful opportunity to have another pop at JKR and enhance his reputation as all round good guy, in case changing the lyrics of one of your most popular songs won’t cut it. I’ve always liked Billy Bragg, and not just for his music, but he is way off beam here.
The most nauseating aspect of Bragg’s denunciation of JKR as a spawn of Putin (hmm, I don’t think she really needed Putin’s support to become rich and famous), is that Bragg uses this latest tantrum of Putin’s to declare that it proves that what he calls ‘gender critical’ people can’t be ‘left wing’. I don’t use the term gender critical, as it doesn’t encompass the range of complementary issues within the movement, including safeguarding of children; women’s rights; better health care for people experiencing gender dysphoria, and campaigning against pornography and the prostitution of women – in other words, feminism.
There’s so much to unpack here, but indulge me while I have a wee rummage:
Is there even a ‘left and a ‘right’ anymore? Ponder that while we note the embarrassing failure of the media traditionally regarded as left wing to tackle this issue and the capturing of the Labour and Green movement to the gender identity ideology cause. The traditional right wing has spotted a rich seam to be exploited and to win over the women’s vote (we are 51% of the population after all). I don’t believe it is entirely cynical, though. The left is prone to being captured by the subtle messages from the promoters of gender identity ideology. Having been leftish all of my life, I recognise that call to pursue social justice and to be concerned about the abused, the neglected the disenfranchised. We are, on the whole, ‘nice’ people, or at least we want to be seen to be nice. We like to be seen as progressive too – in the van with new ideas. We don’t always stop to examine them closely – I know, I have been there.
How can traditional lefties claim that this issue is ours? I am indebted to Dr Jane Clare Jones interview with Beatrix Campbell and Rebecca Johnstone, two Greenham Common veterans, whose lives’ work has been at the sharp end of left wing and feminist activism[1]. Both left the Green Party, identifying that the Party had become an easy target for gender identity ideology, as it lacked a theory of exploitation (an association between the exploitation of nature, the exploitation of women and the exploitation of work) and began to frame pornography and prostitution as female empowerment. The analysis is eye – opening! Read it!
Of course, JKR doesn’t need me to defend her position against Bragg, Putin or anyone else. She is feisty enough to fight her own battles. But we need stand with each other on this issue. We tend to know the big names, the women who have lost their livelihoods and have had to fight for justice through the courts. I’ve met women in some of the grassroots women’s organisation in Scotland fighting for women’s rights, safeguarding children, and protecting vulnerable women from violence and exploitation. Many of them are low paid workers in the VAWG sector; many of them came into the work having been victims themselves of male violence. They are fighting to get funds to keep shelters open, to amplify the voices of the most vulnerable and to protect children. If they are not 'left wing' I don't know who is.
What a pity Bragg isn’t singing about them.
[1] The Radical Notion Issue 6 Winter 2022 https://theradicalnotion.org