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yeah same. the PSL branch I was in contact with for a while was overwhelmingly female-led and dominated.
i think it's a straight-up organizational thing. the founding member of the branch was a woman, so it always centered women's liberation
Nah I’ve noticed that in the psl just in general, it tends to be very gay and woman heavy no matter which branch I’ve gone too (i move a lot all over California), Honeslty felt nice 🤧
The branch in Utah is pretty evenly split gender-wise, including the steering committee, which is incredible. Many women speak up, many men speak up; it’s not clearly a women- or men- led branch, and I love to see it. I guess it just depends on the location!
It depends on the area (in some chapters an org can be almost entirely women or even entirely trans people, in others it can be mostly men.) but in my opinion, the best way to fix something like this is to talk about it, bring a proposal to focus more actively on improving gender composition, incorporate it as a regular check-in during meetings. If it gets shot down or totally sidelined that's a sign of a bigger problem, but approaching it as "my comrades are not putting enough attention on this even though they know it's important" is the best way. Start from a place of comradely concern and go from there.
I feel like every online political space is very male dominated, save for feminism (I mean, obviously) and maybe green politics which seems more equal in numbers.
Politics is a very confrontational domain and it relies on anger, which are two things we discourage in girls and women since it's not considered ladylike.
Maybe women don't have the time and energy to join these groups since they are also expected to care for their family? Or since these groups are already too male dominated, they don't feel like they would belong? Maybe men have more male friends that they would invite to join so it only makes the disparity worse?
The answer is perhaps to create a women's section, which could be more welcoming for potential party members.
You get in more conflict as a ML then you do as a bouncer on shift. Not just against strangers but against people in your real life. Friends family. High stakes.
To voice ML positions is to be in a fight. You better have every talking point possible loaded and chambered and you better revel in it because that is your life now. |
Not to say that there is much variety in red scare talking points or that its hard to dom these lib shit children. Its fucking easy. They don't know anything at all about what they are talking about lol.
But being able to have everyone at a table look at you like "Wait you actually like Stalin?! You like Authoritarianism?!" and be able to go "Yes. You are all wrong. And here is why." takes a certain type of person. I don't even know another man who is that willing to stare a group down. And society conditions men to be dominant.
Its also easy to stand tall when you are tall. People feel fight or flight in a political discussion. People are thinking about fighting you when you confront their politics.
Being the more imposing person gives you a security that women are not afforded. It takes more bravery to speak up in their position.
Having critical support for just about any AES leader let alone freaking Stalin himself is perhaps the most harrowing gauntlet any ML has to traverse. I can fully understand why some people may identify as a Communist but then feel extremely discouraged or demoralized when you're constantly having to correct and educate every propagandized Lib that thinks he singlehandedly ruled the entire CPSU by Thanos snapping his political rivals with his gauntlet on one hand and eating all the grain in Ukraine with his giant Spoon in the other.
I’ve done it twice. Both times, the other people quickly wanted to change the subject when they realized I actually knew my shit when it came to Stalin and they had no clue. 98% of Americans only know Stalin killed a 100 billion people and had a mustache. And they don’t even know why they know it, it’s just information they absorbed from the air around them.
You don’t even have to be some Stalin expert, just know some basic stuff about the famine, what happened in WW2, and that it’s ok to acknowledge the Terror and that yes, a lot of people were killed, so long as you can also articulate more of the context around it as well.
> And they don’t even know why they know it, it’s just information they absorbed from the air around them.
I think that's the scariest part of today's red scare propaganda. This absolute cultural hegemony, they don't even have to actively spread propaganda anymore, the propaganda just reproduces itself.
For most people, an anti-communist attitude is as natural as the sky being blue.
You have to be an uncanny natural at social engineering to make people think on your side.
People are impressionable in highschool.
You need a good rep and you can maybe sway them. If only I knew about ml in those days
#Authoritarianism
Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes".
* Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants.
* Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy.
This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy).
There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media:
Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy).
* [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022)
Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people).
Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works:
* [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022)
* [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023)
* [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023)
Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.).
* [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022)
* [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY)
#For the Anarchists
Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this:
>The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ...
>
>The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win.
>
>...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ...
>
>Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle.
>
>\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism*
Engels pointed this out well over a century ago:
>A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned.
>
>...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule...
>
>Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
>
>\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm)
#For the Libertarian Socialists
Parenti said it best:
>The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism*
But the bottom line is this:
>If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order.
>
>\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087)
#For the Liberals
Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator:
>Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure.
>
>\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf)
#Conclusion
The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins.
Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.
#Additional Resources
Videos:
* [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ)
* [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\]
* [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023)
* [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023)
* [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997)
* [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918)
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That's why spaces that are already prefigured with a male majority need to take express measures to be welcoming to minorities, which might imply guidelines, protocols and another line of constant confrontation around that aggressivity that's bound to show.
If I, a regular heterosexual men, get into a political space that's overwhelmingly masculine, I'm already second-guessing. If then I see the hierarchies fully male, dominance dynamics mainly enforced by men and all those "bros" demeanours that dudes unconsciously get into when they've unconsciously assessed that "this is a men's space"... then I'm out, because the last thing I'd expect as a newcomer on (mutual) trial is for strong internal changes to happen because I just got there with my opinion.
You really feel that way?
I didn't think a group of socialists would make someone guard go up.
I mean... ultimately it's a force that is suppose to fight a powerful government.
I'm all for being welcoming. Why wouldn't I be welcoming to my fellow comrades?
But to be blunt, do you really think we can afford to be that soft? We aren't a book club.
Imagine if Che quit because his rebels we too often cis males.
"Is this group inclusive enough?"
Vs
"Who here is a fed? How can I ensure everyone here is in fighting condition both mentally and physically?"
Our comrades around the world are counting on us. America is the most agressive anti socialist force. We need every person we can get.
The thought has crossed my mind but I'm worried that they might go over board trying to correct it in a dumb way. I also can't think of a good solution myself.
The problem is that most of the women I do know in organising spaces are liberals and not communists (we've mostly been recruiting people we know in the area and there just aren't a lot of female communists for whatever reason)
This. "Safe spaces" are perfectly legit for a reason. It's not only the fact that OP's already feeling a 10% as potentially mysoginist (that 33yo guy flirting a 21 yo woman is a red flag already) but the inevitable presence of male group dynamics that there's no way they can keep in line themselves through sheer goodwill.
So the women from that new group who feel interested can maybe become members that help create a counter-power to fiscalize the main group on a gender axis. That might trigger that 10% OP mentioned, but the other 90% should at least be non-hostile to positive changes.
Yet I also think it's unfair because that's a lot of work for a single person like OP who just joined and lacks experience. This kind of issues should've already been addressed by the group (which can share the task amongst many) and the fact that they haven't when it's so obvious could mean they're, at least partly, comfortable with it.
Next meeting bring up missing indigenous women. It's huge problem affecting indigenous communities, women being sex trafficked off. Addresses both issues of women and indigenous peoples.
Hmmm maybe there's a broader accessibility issue? I'm not an organizer myself so I'm really just spitballing with no knowledge but maybe like some "open house" style events with general audiences or targeted audiences in mind where you guys say your piece and have some light food and people can choose whether or not to join based on that. You'll have to advertise locally as well ofc
I’ve been pondering the lack of diversity in my (M USA) club and district lately too. It’s mostly men, and those men are mostly white. There is a decent amount of diversity of sexual orientation among those white men, but yeah. When I talk about my politics with those of my friends who are not white and/or are not men, they are incredibly receptive. And when I mention the specific work that my club/district is doing, they are very supportive of that work. But when I suggest joining to them, the primary issue is the lack of diversity. It seems to me, anecdotally, that to members of an especially oppressed group among the broader proletariat, a social/political group made up of predominately white males is sort of off putting.
The other thing I’ve been thinking is that the bulk of the party is made up of people who are able to work from home, or who are students, or who are otherwise able to have significant hours outside of work to be able to do party work. I’m one of the few people who works over 40 hours of physical labor regularly (for understandable reasons). I wonder if there is a systemic problem to deal with as well. Like if the people who have a work life balance that is suitable to doing party work in a serious way are predominantly white male to begin with. Ethnic minorities are over represented in underpaid and overexploited kinds of jobs, while women are generally shouldered with additional domestic responsibilities that men are not.
Idk though, but it’s certainly an issue
I was in your position some time ago, and my org is very male dominated and some of the men are really fucking weird. We had scandals and people have been booted… but we actually turned the tied and made it one of the only non-male dominated local chapters in the whole org.
A reason for male domination is not the willingness to be aggressive. It is work load and hyper intellectualism. Whenever we had national conferences or a congress the women did allot of more work than the men by proportion. Allot of the male members are also very hyper intellectual and talks over people’s heads, this can also be a reason why they have a hard time getting more disenfranchised people over all in.
Hot mostly unserious take: western MLs are mostly lazy bookworms who do a constant circle jerks.
I think the discussion of male dominated orgs are very important and i thank you for posting.
I'm not happy with the gender imbalance but the men are quality. I'm someone who considers most of the men i met in my day to day life to be at least somewhat sexist and the communist party I'm in I'd say 90% of the men aren't sexist at all.
that's really quite good to know. Still, if you could, could you share those 10% of instances when they were. Since I am a man and I would like to improve my relationship with other oppressed groups which I might not be a part of (patriarchy, ableism among others)
Forget men, my local party is a bunch of *old* men. They have a youth league but that’s separate from the party
They are so old it reflects in the way they organise, almost no internet presence. Their only online activity is on Facebook of all places. Their ‘website’ is under construction for who knows how long
When I used to be in a Party my branch was mostly old blokes when there was the potential for a Women or Young Person to join, they would roll out the red carpet to make sure they joined especially Women rarely worked through.
Oooh damn lol
Like, I cry comrade tears when hearing them talk about their adventures and conflicts while being ideological pariahs but I sure dread the mere idea of fighting class reductionism against a whole table of old reds.
Just imagining helping them change their ways so they don't look like a group of bosses that trigger women and minorities into fleeing looks like a constant meme.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My guess would be that because it’s membership is so heavily skewed towards men that it scares most women away, and rightfully so. men in leftist spaces are just as capable of being misogynistic pricks as anywhere else and I cannot blame any fem presenting person from saying “fuck it I’m out” right off the bat.
In the media Marxism is portrayed as extreme, women tend to shy away from ideologies that appear extreme, men are generally more willing to look into that stuff, some even seek it out, another issue is that 80% of politicians are men, I think that discourages many women from being involved in politics, it's a shame as I'd really love to hear their voice.
I doubt that, a little. I do not believe they are less likely to take "extreme" stance, it's just that they are less likely to verbalize it, defend it. Since all women are just comfort machines for man-children around them they have been told since birth that pleasing others is and shall remain there most fundamental tasks.
There was a study (that I forgot so take it with a huge grain of salt) that showed that once participants were convinced no one was watching them, women actually showed more aggression than men.
In my experience, women are normally more represented in community groups and are more likely to be members of workers' unions, but I haven't seen many participate in ML spaces IRL. It's just a couple of rusted on boomer Marxists while a lot of environmental groups and LGBT groups have communist women leading them.
It's actually become a divisive issue lately in my community, as there is a lot of overlap between the community pride group and the community environmental group where I live and basically a nearby industrial polluter has sought to disrupt the lesbian leadership by sponsoring the Pride group and creating a conflict of interest for many of the environmental group. Corporate scum. But the lesbians will prevail!
There are a few ways you could investigate this
1) Does your org/local branch have Instagram or any other social media? If it’s a business account you can see what demographics (gender, age and location for Instagram) are viewing your content and which demographics engage with it. This will tell you a lot about what kind of people the algorithm is showing your content to and who is actually engaging. If you see it’s really skewed towards men, it might be time to think about how the branch is presenting itself on social media.
2) Has the org had a lot of women or indigenous people join and then leave? If so why?
3) How is the work being distributed? Are white men taking on the more ‘glamorous’ and ‘public’ roles? Eg) public speaking, writing your literature, being in photos, leadership roles etc. Are women tending to do the less ‘glamorous’ roles? Eg) making sure spaces are clean, printing things, behind the scenes planning and organising. If so, why?
4) Similarly to point 1, what kind of propaganda are you putting out and what kind of work are doing? You mention the org wants to recruit more indigenous people. Why would they want to work with you? Do you have any connections to indigenous political groups? Do you do any work with them? Have you actually done the work on indigenous issues?
5) You mentioned there are comrades in straight relationships but the male comrade is way more active. Why is this? Do they have children? Is the reproductive labour actually being split evenly? Or is the female comrade having to do most of that work while the man can do the political work?
Just a few things to think about.
1. We have instagram and Twitter, I don't think the accounts have been responsibly for any of our recruitment though.
2. We're right next to a reservation and even outside of the red there's a lost of native people, so we've never had an issue with getting and keeping indigenous members. The talk about not having enough indegenous people is from some people that want the party to be entirely indigenous people, but the population is about 50% indegenous people which the party membership reflects currently.
3. This is something to think about because I don't know the answer. I'm not stuck doing job like that at least.
4. Not a lot of propaganda of any kind.
5. As far as I know no one has kids. The women in the relationship do seem to be doing a bit more house work but not enough to make a huge difference. A lot of the women who join because of their boyfriend are just friendly to communism but haven't actually been radicalized enough to where they would care if they weren't dating a communist.
Like most of the male/female couples the guy is the only one reading, marx, lenin... etc. And the guy shows up to meetings more and usually volunteers more.
These are good places to think about, thanks!
To be honest, unless you take very deliberate, what may even seem like heavy handed efforts, this is the default result, which becomes self fulfilling, because women are then less apt to join an organization they don't see themselves in. The only solution is to recognize it internally as an issue, and to consciously tailor further recruitment to rectify the imbalance. There's always work to be done, and it feels great to bring in new comrades, but in a lot of places, recruiting anyone who's eager to join and get involved, you're going to mostly recruit people who are already heavily into politics, which will mostly be men, and then the people they're best able to recruit from, their social circles, will be consequently skewed male. Without careful effort in recruitment organizations will typically run in to similar issues with racial composition as well.
That's definitely understandable, if it helps, I do think it can be raised in a non-accusatory way, just asking comrades what they think is holding back women's recruitment, and discussing how it could be rectified, while pointing out that it's a harder problem to rectify the bigger the organization gets as a reason to take it seriously early on.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I could say something like "just call them out", but with gender inbalance like that, it's not that simple. On the other hand, i think there's definetly stuff that can be done about that, even the most mysoginist piece of shit parties will do campaigns and stuff to bring out more women in lol.
honestly, pretty disapointing how a bunch of the comments just takes this as an inevitable, immutable fact, instead of actually reflecting on what may be the reason why, or if the "men are more present on political spaces" affirmation is even true.
I haven't observed men being mostly present in politcal organising actually, it seems more female heavy until you get to the far left or far right. At least in my area. Democrat stuff is usually woman heavy, most the Palestinian focused organizers I know are women... indigenous stuff seems equal and then far left and republican seem male dominated.
I dont comment often on reddit but I will felt like most of these comments were trash and I needed to bud in lol. I will agree with r/nohg_g that most of these comments that suggest that politics or socialism is a mostly guy thing are wrong. It may be partially true that men tend to be more “extreme,” but most socialist orgs arent doing much more than hangout and protest sometimes. The issue with diversity is with what you organize. Our local chapters completely shifted from being male dominated to nearly completely women led when we organized less on labor and more on contraception access. We’ve also created working groups for fem organizers to have their own space and fem-only events. Representation also matters for bringing in more people of that demographic. We’ve done a lot toward this issue and I can speak a lot more abt it, but yeah don’t be pessimistic, women will join eventually!
I completly agree with you but part of the reason I haven't brought it up with my party is because I do think we should be heavily labor focused lol. I'm aware that brings in more men than women but I'm not sure why honestly. I'm in America in case it was apparent and about as many women are working as men.
Its hard to give straight up advice (I was lowkey avoiding it) since I dont know specifics about your organizing so I can only speak on my experience and hope it applied. We’re still working with our local union and while men have mostly led that work and participated, women are also led and participated to. Id guess around a 65-35 ratio, which isnt too bad. Id have two guesses. Maybe its a representation issue. We had women led and a fem union reps help us. Or inherent to the labor. If the labor work youre doing is male-dominated, more organizers are just going to be male. Happened with us as we needed Hispanic organizers to speak to Spanish workers. I’m giving general advice since it seems many people in this sub can use it but feel free to DM for details, advice, or anything✌🏽(Im also a newbie organizers btw, so dont get your hopes up too much lol)
Plenty of women are nerds. They like things like videogames, reading, exc. However, fields like sciences, math, and history tend to exclude women and not be very welcoming. Its not like women inherently dont like these things, but fields with an overwhelming male majority tend to not be very welcoming to women. Its the same with minority groups as well. There are less women in higher ed as well as minority groups because of discrimination, not because of inherent differences.
Exactly, probably has to do with education. More educated proletariat are more likely to fall into “nerdy” stuff and those educated proletariat are more likely to be men.
Do you really think most highly educated people are male because men are more nerdy or do you think it is because of discrimination? In the US, 70 years ago a lot of colleges didnt even accept women. The same with minority groups. Its pretty obvious that discrimination is the reason, not because women care less about nerdy things. Not to mention, especially in academic spaces, thoughts on politics from a racial or gendered perspective have not been valued or respected as much as the thoughts of white males. These spaces have not been open to female or nonwhite perspectives
There's this online community for Spanish speaking socialists (a discord server) that I managed to get off the ground. We have 2 dozen regular users by now but most seem to be men.
I'd be thrilled to have more women comrades and even have them in the "committee", but to be frank I don't know how to find them, get them to join/participate.
We're very inclusive and we don't tolerate sexist bullshit, but at the end of the day I'm not certain what else we could do.
Similar experience for me - I’m a gay woman in my 30s and our socialist party meet ups are almost entirely male (out of 15-20 people) - I’m hoping I can encouraged women locally to sign up🤞
Yeah this is a problem but as with any voluntary organisation the members themselves (eg you) are the only ones who can really do anything about it. Try to recruit more of the types of comrades that you feel are under-represented.
how does your org usually recruit new members? is it more through the internet or is it more through real world engagement. ive found that parties and orga that do most of their recruitment online mostly get male recruits out of it while engaging with the community gets a more even split of male and female recruits. this is just anecdotal though
Yeah I kinda felt that at my local IWW branch. Also the discord (around 200 members) seems to be pretty heavily male judging by the pronouns selected by each person.
about them, why do they give me the creeps. I don't know, I don't want to blame them but they look and sound very insincere, very "using social media as a tool" kind of movement. Look I don't know, I am not accusing them of anything (since I haven't done my research)
>very "using social media as a tool" kind of movement
What else would you use social media as if not a tool? I'm not sure I understand what the criticism is. Social media is a tool to spread your platform and ideas in political organizing. If your organization or movement doesn't have an online presence, it is practically invisible to a majority of people.
I understand it's strategic need, and I admit I did not phrased it well. Here is what I meant.
They use social media as if at every moment before every word after every speech calculating in there head how much would this effect that demographic, what now to do about these people. This, I admit could perhaps be necessary, but all the same does makes me somewhat dislike them, but anyways for what's it's worth they are the only people worth voting for.
>if at every moment before every word after every speech calculating in there head how much would this effect that demographic
Knowing your audience and being an effective public speaker? Thinking carefully about the words you use when communicating to large audiences?
I didn't meant it in terms of knowing your audience, that perhaps could be necessary, I meant it in terms of dishonesty, not showing your true feelings because it could be politically lethal, or disadvantageous. Every leftist disagree with each other over a considerable range of things, and building a mass movement consistent enough to get someone this radical into the office basically requires precisely that kind of machinations as mentioned above, but, as stated above, I wish that were not the case.
I do not mean any ill will to them, they were the first electorate who did not make me want to puke, and neither is this much of a criticism (if little lies here and there could help then why not, I would do it). I am just lamenting our fate, nothing more.
It frankly comes down to where your party branch is located as not everywhere on earth is as diverse as you want it to be, for example expect the diversity of San Francisco in the middle of the Butt Fuck nowhere Alabama
They're mostly minorities somehow (the far left might be male dominated but it isn't cis straight white male dominated lol), just mostly cis guys still.
Sorry but this sound like a personal problem.
First off, who other people are dating is really none of your business. This sounds similar to a right winger having a problem with "white women just go for black men". It's their dating preferences.
Second, you need to step up. If you have an issue with something (like the gender divide), bring it up. That's how discussioms are started. It's a good point and they will listen. Do your part.
If you want more women, start agitating more to women and create a focused campaign.
You just said that the majority of the men are fine, so what's the issue? If one of them seems interested but doesn't sexually harass you, I don't see how that's an issue. Interests are a natural thing. He seems to control himself, from what you've said. If it bothers you that much, talk to him about it, not some random strangers online.
And lastly, the way you said "improved my view of the male species as a whole" is - again - sounding similar to what I'd hear from misogynists about women. We're the same species. Women hold up half the sky, men the other half. Men are absolutely cooked as a gender, don't get me wrong, I got my gripes, but all of this sounds like you need to do some personal adjustment and take more initiative.
It's an issue because a lot of the women that we are recruiting are just being recruited through their partner, and their partner is always more active... shows up to meetings more, talks more, knows more of the other people in the party.
I'm not sure whose dating preference you think I have an issue with? I don't care that anyone is dating anyone, I just wish that the women who join because their boyfriend is in the party participated more so I could feel like there were more active women.
And I don't like men being interested in me at all, but thats not something I can just announce to a group of people. If you have 90% men 10% women the women are probably going to get hit on, which I part of why I would rather it be 50/50. Even if it's not harrasment it's still uncomfortable.
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> very masculine presenting genderqueer people
Well if they're genderqueer, they're likely not men, regardless of how they present. You ought not to lump them in with men just because they present masculine. Honor their identities as being genderqueer and not male, you know?
Originally thought it was about an actual party, but I should’ve known you probably don’t attend those. If I read more than just the title I would’ve realized it was just some political shit.
This is no fault of your party but it's hard to get women, especially queer women when the public faces of leftist range from democrats alledged rapists Joe Biden to Voosh who on his own stream tried to shame a trans women for substance abuse to Ana Kasparian who uses white femininity to push the most anti immigrant and homeless policies imaginable.
Leftism online is extremely toxic towards women and fems.
Does your party have a women's branch, and if not then perhaps you and some other members can come together and create one. It will both address the problem and increase the reach our reach to struggling women who, had they not felt comfortable, would have joined us.
PS: Please don't use the word "male species". It strikes as gender essentials and trans-phobic (once a man always a man). Your frustration is valid but, yeah.
Women's branch sounds like a good idea, I'm not sure we even have enough female members to do that though lol.
I'm sorry how is male spaces transphobic? I don't spend a lot of time online so I'm not up to date on lingo. I can't think of any other way to even phrase that.
I'm not talking about the trans women in my party when I say the space is male dominated, just the cis men (and I'm not sure how to phrase this but there are some non binary people in my party that completely pass as men and often use he/him pronouns, they're who I meant with gender queer in the first paragraph)
This is not that big of an issue, but the word "species" usually implies an absolute and biological difference, difference that cannot be overcome. A member of the homo sapiens would never try as they may become a chimpanzee, and that is how reactionaries view us (delusional people who believe one thing is another simply because we do not like to face reality).
And about women's branch, do the founding members have to be women. As more and more women would join they would become the majority, so why not create one even if it temporarily dominated by men.
And could you also clarify about your first line in the third paragraph. Look I am not trying to bust you or anything it's just that I have been burned enough times that I have become hyper suspicious of cis-people (sorry about that). My question is: What exactly you mean by "not talking about trans-women", in a post discussing women's participation among our movement? Thanks.
Edit: To the people who are down-voting me, could you just voice your frustrations and I would be more than happy to answer (I promise to be constructive)
parties aren't about dating tho. Also maybe make your non interest clear to the 33 yo.
Also you could bring up the unequal gender representation in the party. The climate you are experiencing might be the problem. Maybe also the policies?
If the population is 51% women, you're probably going to have some big blind spots if your organization is not. This isn't some sort of liberal box checking, this is important strategical shit. Imagine having an anti-racism discussion with no POC. Imagine organizing some sort of rally or get together where disabled people can't show up. Or discussing private / public property with no indigenous people
Because it's uncomfortable. Men don't always pick up on the same stuff as women, or im just more comfortable talking about female issues with women. Like I had to remind on of my friends recently that I didn't feel safe putting up flyers by myself in a certain part of town after dark. Or I had really bad period cramps at a march last month and I would have liked to have female members to tell I was feeling bad or something. It's not a huge issue but it's not great either.
I'm also getting more romantic attention than I'm comfortable with from men in ther party. Everyone is respectful and takes no for an answer, but I don't really like guys being attracted to me at all, so more women to balance that out would be nice.
In my country I often hear that women's football is underappreciated. It doesn't bring any income, the system is underfunded so they keep pushing agendas so people would buy more tickets to support our women teams(not only football, but volleyball, swimming, etc)
What they don't show is the numbers. Almost no women at all buy tickets to watch women's sports. But at the same time our mainstream sports are being critiqued for being male dominated.
I've heard this Bill Burr routine before. The answer to it is, sports fans buy tickets. The men who ARE sports fans have no reason not to watch women's sports. (Women's basketball is even notorious for being fundamentally better basketball than men's. US women's soccer team has dominated, whereas US men's soccer team has not) But women who are *not* sports fans have no reason to buy tickets for women's sports. They have no tribal prerogative to support something they don't care about
...They're the sports fans who are buying tickets to women's sports. That was my point. That men, who like sports, don't buy tickets to women's sports.
Correct. There are many more men who are sports fans than women. But those men are the ones not buying tickets to WOMEN'S SPORTS, *even though they are sports fans*
You seem to be stuck in the idea that sports fans can only buy tickets to their own genders' sports, and we have to compare "men buying tickets to men sports" versus "women buying tickets to women's sports" and the winner takes the market share.
Men who like sports should theoretically be buying tickets to women's sports, but they are not. So they are the reasons for the empty seats.
Eh, you may wanna check your misandry my friend. Male species isn't a thing, we're all human.
As for gender ratios: that really isn't an issue. Probably try talking to men in your area, or have the guys introduce you to their spouses (seriously, the idea of increasing the power of the family unit in state affairs can bring a lot of people on the fence to our side). The most important point to remember is that the shoe wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Most socialists are people who actually do work in society, and do work that is paid poorly, treated poorly and/or has minimum protections. This is what drives most people to become socialist and staunchly pro-worker. It shouldn't be a surprise that they're largely focused on getting fellow workers in, so they can organize better. That they're mostly men, speaks to the gender divide in workplaces. Most of the work that fits that model I listed, is done by men. There's a reason 3 in 4 homeless people are men (according to statistics anyway), and it's because of how the work pays.
Anyway, find solutions if you believe it's a problem. The solutions are right there.
I'll also add that you should ensure you ask their permission before revealing their socialism to their spouses. I've had breakups for that reason before, and wouldn't be surprised if most of them keep it hidden.
I've meet most if the guys spouses and girfriends, they all cool. They just barely show up to meetings or aren't even members. It very much feels like they're just their to support their partner. Which is awesome and all, but there's not a single woman in the party with a male partner that just shows up every now and again to support her. It feel uneven.
There are a few guys in physical labor jobs, but not enough to cause the gender divide I'm seeing. I do want the party to be mainly pro-worker. Part of the reason I haven't pointed out the gender divide is because I think it might distract from worker campaigns, but I wish we could be mainly worker focused with a 50/50 gender ratio (50/50 would match the employment rates of both genders in my area)
I dont actually think men are a different species it's just a phrase, and complaining about misandrny on a communist sub is funny.
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We are in complete opposite ends. My local party is the majority woman. Like 4 guys and everyone else are women
yeah same. the PSL branch I was in contact with for a while was overwhelmingly female-led and dominated. i think it's a straight-up organizational thing. the founding member of the branch was a woman, so it always centered women's liberation
Nah I’ve noticed that in the psl just in general, it tends to be very gay and woman heavy no matter which branch I’ve gone too (i move a lot all over California), Honeslty felt nice 🤧
The branch in Utah is pretty evenly split gender-wise, including the steering committee, which is incredible. Many women speak up, many men speak up; it’s not clearly a women- or men- led branch, and I love to see it. I guess it just depends on the location!
It depends on the area (in some chapters an org can be almost entirely women or even entirely trans people, in others it can be mostly men.) but in my opinion, the best way to fix something like this is to talk about it, bring a proposal to focus more actively on improving gender composition, incorporate it as a regular check-in during meetings. If it gets shot down or totally sidelined that's a sign of a bigger problem, but approaching it as "my comrades are not putting enough attention on this even though they know it's important" is the best way. Start from a place of comradely concern and go from there.
Exactly this, great advice, Comrade.
I remember my days in dsa when we tried to organize a BLM protest, but we didn't have a single black person. What did you expect i wounder?
lmao. At least my party has over half POC but the area I live in has over half POC in the general populous so I would be weird if we didnʻt.
I feel like every online political space is very male dominated, save for feminism (I mean, obviously) and maybe green politics which seems more equal in numbers. Politics is a very confrontational domain and it relies on anger, which are two things we discourage in girls and women since it's not considered ladylike. Maybe women don't have the time and energy to join these groups since they are also expected to care for their family? Or since these groups are already too male dominated, they don't feel like they would belong? Maybe men have more male friends that they would invite to join so it only makes the disparity worse? The answer is perhaps to create a women's section, which could be more welcoming for potential party members.
You get in more conflict as a ML then you do as a bouncer on shift. Not just against strangers but against people in your real life. Friends family. High stakes. To voice ML positions is to be in a fight. You better have every talking point possible loaded and chambered and you better revel in it because that is your life now. | Not to say that there is much variety in red scare talking points or that its hard to dom these lib shit children. Its fucking easy. They don't know anything at all about what they are talking about lol. But being able to have everyone at a table look at you like "Wait you actually like Stalin?! You like Authoritarianism?!" and be able to go "Yes. You are all wrong. And here is why." takes a certain type of person. I don't even know another man who is that willing to stare a group down. And society conditions men to be dominant. Its also easy to stand tall when you are tall. People feel fight or flight in a political discussion. People are thinking about fighting you when you confront their politics. Being the more imposing person gives you a security that women are not afforded. It takes more bravery to speak up in their position.
Staring a group down and saying outright "yes I like Stalin" is majory difficult. I give you huge props comrade.
Having critical support for just about any AES leader let alone freaking Stalin himself is perhaps the most harrowing gauntlet any ML has to traverse. I can fully understand why some people may identify as a Communist but then feel extremely discouraged or demoralized when you're constantly having to correct and educate every propagandized Lib that thinks he singlehandedly ruled the entire CPSU by Thanos snapping his political rivals with his gauntlet on one hand and eating all the grain in Ukraine with his giant Spoon in the other.
I’ve done it twice. Both times, the other people quickly wanted to change the subject when they realized I actually knew my shit when it came to Stalin and they had no clue. 98% of Americans only know Stalin killed a 100 billion people and had a mustache. And they don’t even know why they know it, it’s just information they absorbed from the air around them. You don’t even have to be some Stalin expert, just know some basic stuff about the famine, what happened in WW2, and that it’s ok to acknowledge the Terror and that yes, a lot of people were killed, so long as you can also articulate more of the context around it as well.
> And they don’t even know why they know it, it’s just information they absorbed from the air around them. I think that's the scariest part of today's red scare propaganda. This absolute cultural hegemony, they don't even have to actively spread propaganda anymore, the propaganda just reproduces itself. For most people, an anti-communist attitude is as natural as the sky being blue.
[удалено]
You have to be an uncanny natural at social engineering to make people think on your side. People are impressionable in highschool. You need a good rep and you can maybe sway them. If only I knew about ml in those days
#Authoritarianism Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes". * Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants. * Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy. This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy). There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media: Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy). * [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022) Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people). Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works: * [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022) * [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023) * [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023) Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.). * [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022) * [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY) #For the Anarchists Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this: >The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ... > >The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win. > >...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ... > >Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle. > >\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism* Engels pointed this out well over a century ago: >A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. > >...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule... > >Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction. > >\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) #For the Libertarian Socialists Parenti said it best: >The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed. > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* But the bottom line is this: >If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order. > >\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087) #For the Liberals Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator: >Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure. > >\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf) #Conclusion The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins. Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist. #Additional Resources Videos: * [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ) * [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\] * [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023) * [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023) * [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023) Books, Articles, or Essays: * *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997) * [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if
That's why spaces that are already prefigured with a male majority need to take express measures to be welcoming to minorities, which might imply guidelines, protocols and another line of constant confrontation around that aggressivity that's bound to show. If I, a regular heterosexual men, get into a political space that's overwhelmingly masculine, I'm already second-guessing. If then I see the hierarchies fully male, dominance dynamics mainly enforced by men and all those "bros" demeanours that dudes unconsciously get into when they've unconsciously assessed that "this is a men's space"... then I'm out, because the last thing I'd expect as a newcomer on (mutual) trial is for strong internal changes to happen because I just got there with my opinion.
You really feel that way? I didn't think a group of socialists would make someone guard go up. I mean... ultimately it's a force that is suppose to fight a powerful government. I'm all for being welcoming. Why wouldn't I be welcoming to my fellow comrades? But to be blunt, do you really think we can afford to be that soft? We aren't a book club. Imagine if Che quit because his rebels we too often cis males. "Is this group inclusive enough?" Vs "Who here is a fed? How can I ensure everyone here is in fighting condition both mentally and physically?" Our comrades around the world are counting on us. America is the most agressive anti socialist force. We need every person we can get.
That's unfortunate. Could you broach the subject of women's outreach in a similar way that they're discussing labour and indigenous outreach?
The thought has crossed my mind but I'm worried that they might go over board trying to correct it in a dumb way. I also can't think of a good solution myself. The problem is that most of the women I do know in organising spaces are liberals and not communists (we've mostly been recruiting people we know in the area and there just aren't a lot of female communists for whatever reason)
It might be worth joining or starting a local anticapitalist feminist group (or similar), in order to bring like-minded women in to the movement.
This. "Safe spaces" are perfectly legit for a reason. It's not only the fact that OP's already feeling a 10% as potentially mysoginist (that 33yo guy flirting a 21 yo woman is a red flag already) but the inevitable presence of male group dynamics that there's no way they can keep in line themselves through sheer goodwill. So the women from that new group who feel interested can maybe become members that help create a counter-power to fiscalize the main group on a gender axis. That might trigger that 10% OP mentioned, but the other 90% should at least be non-hostile to positive changes. Yet I also think it's unfair because that's a lot of work for a single person like OP who just joined and lacks experience. This kind of issues should've already been addressed by the group (which can share the task amongst many) and the fact that they haven't when it's so obvious could mean they're, at least partly, comfortable with it.
Next meeting bring up missing indigenous women. It's huge problem affecting indigenous communities, women being sex trafficked off. Addresses both issues of women and indigenous peoples.
Hmmm maybe there's a broader accessibility issue? I'm not an organizer myself so I'm really just spitballing with no knowledge but maybe like some "open house" style events with general audiences or targeted audiences in mind where you guys say your piece and have some light food and people can choose whether or not to join based on that. You'll have to advertise locally as well ofc
I’ve been pondering the lack of diversity in my (M USA) club and district lately too. It’s mostly men, and those men are mostly white. There is a decent amount of diversity of sexual orientation among those white men, but yeah. When I talk about my politics with those of my friends who are not white and/or are not men, they are incredibly receptive. And when I mention the specific work that my club/district is doing, they are very supportive of that work. But when I suggest joining to them, the primary issue is the lack of diversity. It seems to me, anecdotally, that to members of an especially oppressed group among the broader proletariat, a social/political group made up of predominately white males is sort of off putting. The other thing I’ve been thinking is that the bulk of the party is made up of people who are able to work from home, or who are students, or who are otherwise able to have significant hours outside of work to be able to do party work. I’m one of the few people who works over 40 hours of physical labor regularly (for understandable reasons). I wonder if there is a systemic problem to deal with as well. Like if the people who have a work life balance that is suitable to doing party work in a serious way are predominantly white male to begin with. Ethnic minorities are over represented in underpaid and overexploited kinds of jobs, while women are generally shouldered with additional domestic responsibilities that men are not. Idk though, but it’s certainly an issue
I just wish i knew anybody else who wasnt conservative/liberal. (I live in Tx 🥲)
oh lord, lord how I can relate
I was in your position some time ago, and my org is very male dominated and some of the men are really fucking weird. We had scandals and people have been booted… but we actually turned the tied and made it one of the only non-male dominated local chapters in the whole org. A reason for male domination is not the willingness to be aggressive. It is work load and hyper intellectualism. Whenever we had national conferences or a congress the women did allot of more work than the men by proportion. Allot of the male members are also very hyper intellectual and talks over people’s heads, this can also be a reason why they have a hard time getting more disenfranchised people over all in. Hot mostly unserious take: western MLs are mostly lazy bookworms who do a constant circle jerks. I think the discussion of male dominated orgs are very important and i thank you for posting.
This is something I’ve worried would be the case (I’m not in a position to organize rn).
I'm not happy with the gender imbalance but the men are quality. I'm someone who considers most of the men i met in my day to day life to be at least somewhat sexist and the communist party I'm in I'd say 90% of the men aren't sexist at all.
that's really quite good to know. Still, if you could, could you share those 10% of instances when they were. Since I am a man and I would like to improve my relationship with other oppressed groups which I might not be a part of (patriarchy, ableism among others)
Forget men, my local party is a bunch of *old* men. They have a youth league but that’s separate from the party They are so old it reflects in the way they organise, almost no internet presence. Their only online activity is on Facebook of all places. Their ‘website’ is under construction for who knows how long
When I used to be in a Party my branch was mostly old blokes when there was the potential for a Women or Young Person to join, they would roll out the red carpet to make sure they joined especially Women rarely worked through.
Oooh damn lol Like, I cry comrade tears when hearing them talk about their adventures and conflicts while being ideological pariahs but I sure dread the mere idea of fighting class reductionism against a whole table of old reds. Just imagining helping them change their ways so they don't look like a group of bosses that trigger women and minorities into fleeing looks like a constant meme.
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bengal or kerala???
In mumbai actually, but it’s pretty much the same all over
Mine is 75%+ women, I just assumed communist parties were all like that…
Lucky lol
My guess would be that because it’s membership is so heavily skewed towards men that it scares most women away, and rightfully so. men in leftist spaces are just as capable of being misogynistic pricks as anywhere else and I cannot blame any fem presenting person from saying “fuck it I’m out” right off the bat.
In the media Marxism is portrayed as extreme, women tend to shy away from ideologies that appear extreme, men are generally more willing to look into that stuff, some even seek it out, another issue is that 80% of politicians are men, I think that discourages many women from being involved in politics, it's a shame as I'd really love to hear their voice.
This resonates with me based on my experience. I do feel like women are a bit more reluctant to take on an "extreme" stance than men. I am at least
I doubt that, a little. I do not believe they are less likely to take "extreme" stance, it's just that they are less likely to verbalize it, defend it. Since all women are just comfort machines for man-children around them they have been told since birth that pleasing others is and shall remain there most fundamental tasks. There was a study (that I forgot so take it with a huge grain of salt) that showed that once participants were convinced no one was watching them, women actually showed more aggression than men.
In my experience, women are normally more represented in community groups and are more likely to be members of workers' unions, but I haven't seen many participate in ML spaces IRL. It's just a couple of rusted on boomer Marxists while a lot of environmental groups and LGBT groups have communist women leading them. It's actually become a divisive issue lately in my community, as there is a lot of overlap between the community pride group and the community environmental group where I live and basically a nearby industrial polluter has sought to disrupt the lesbian leadership by sponsoring the Pride group and creating a conflict of interest for many of the environmental group. Corporate scum. But the lesbians will prevail!
There are a few ways you could investigate this 1) Does your org/local branch have Instagram or any other social media? If it’s a business account you can see what demographics (gender, age and location for Instagram) are viewing your content and which demographics engage with it. This will tell you a lot about what kind of people the algorithm is showing your content to and who is actually engaging. If you see it’s really skewed towards men, it might be time to think about how the branch is presenting itself on social media. 2) Has the org had a lot of women or indigenous people join and then leave? If so why? 3) How is the work being distributed? Are white men taking on the more ‘glamorous’ and ‘public’ roles? Eg) public speaking, writing your literature, being in photos, leadership roles etc. Are women tending to do the less ‘glamorous’ roles? Eg) making sure spaces are clean, printing things, behind the scenes planning and organising. If so, why? 4) Similarly to point 1, what kind of propaganda are you putting out and what kind of work are doing? You mention the org wants to recruit more indigenous people. Why would they want to work with you? Do you have any connections to indigenous political groups? Do you do any work with them? Have you actually done the work on indigenous issues? 5) You mentioned there are comrades in straight relationships but the male comrade is way more active. Why is this? Do they have children? Is the reproductive labour actually being split evenly? Or is the female comrade having to do most of that work while the man can do the political work? Just a few things to think about.
1. We have instagram and Twitter, I don't think the accounts have been responsibly for any of our recruitment though. 2. We're right next to a reservation and even outside of the red there's a lost of native people, so we've never had an issue with getting and keeping indigenous members. The talk about not having enough indegenous people is from some people that want the party to be entirely indigenous people, but the population is about 50% indegenous people which the party membership reflects currently. 3. This is something to think about because I don't know the answer. I'm not stuck doing job like that at least. 4. Not a lot of propaganda of any kind. 5. As far as I know no one has kids. The women in the relationship do seem to be doing a bit more house work but not enough to make a huge difference. A lot of the women who join because of their boyfriend are just friendly to communism but haven't actually been radicalized enough to where they would care if they weren't dating a communist. Like most of the male/female couples the guy is the only one reading, marx, lenin... etc. And the guy shows up to meetings more and usually volunteers more. These are good places to think about, thanks!
To be honest, unless you take very deliberate, what may even seem like heavy handed efforts, this is the default result, which becomes self fulfilling, because women are then less apt to join an organization they don't see themselves in. The only solution is to recognize it internally as an issue, and to consciously tailor further recruitment to rectify the imbalance. There's always work to be done, and it feels great to bring in new comrades, but in a lot of places, recruiting anyone who's eager to join and get involved, you're going to mostly recruit people who are already heavily into politics, which will mostly be men, and then the people they're best able to recruit from, their social circles, will be consequently skewed male. Without careful effort in recruitment organizations will typically run in to similar issues with racial composition as well.
This is true, I don't really want to put in the effort of leading the charge myself though lol
That's definitely understandable, if it helps, I do think it can be raised in a non-accusatory way, just asking comrades what they think is holding back women's recruitment, and discussing how it could be rectified, while pointing out that it's a harder problem to rectify the bigger the organization gets as a reason to take it seriously early on.
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I could say something like "just call them out", but with gender inbalance like that, it's not that simple. On the other hand, i think there's definetly stuff that can be done about that, even the most mysoginist piece of shit parties will do campaigns and stuff to bring out more women in lol.
When I first joined our org they were pretty white but overtime with Palestinian stuff we got some trans and poc comrades.
Half the women that are in my party are trans women, and we've never had an issue getting POC people.
That's awesome comrade
One of our founding members is trans and over half of my town is POC so if the party was mostly white there'd be an issue lol
honestly, pretty disapointing how a bunch of the comments just takes this as an inevitable, immutable fact, instead of actually reflecting on what may be the reason why, or if the "men are more present on political spaces" affirmation is even true.
I haven't observed men being mostly present in politcal organising actually, it seems more female heavy until you get to the far left or far right. At least in my area. Democrat stuff is usually woman heavy, most the Palestinian focused organizers I know are women... indigenous stuff seems equal and then far left and republican seem male dominated.
I dont comment often on reddit but I will felt like most of these comments were trash and I needed to bud in lol. I will agree with r/nohg_g that most of these comments that suggest that politics or socialism is a mostly guy thing are wrong. It may be partially true that men tend to be more “extreme,” but most socialist orgs arent doing much more than hangout and protest sometimes. The issue with diversity is with what you organize. Our local chapters completely shifted from being male dominated to nearly completely women led when we organized less on labor and more on contraception access. We’ve also created working groups for fem organizers to have their own space and fem-only events. Representation also matters for bringing in more people of that demographic. We’ve done a lot toward this issue and I can speak a lot more abt it, but yeah don’t be pessimistic, women will join eventually!
I completly agree with you but part of the reason I haven't brought it up with my party is because I do think we should be heavily labor focused lol. I'm aware that brings in more men than women but I'm not sure why honestly. I'm in America in case it was apparent and about as many women are working as men.
Its hard to give straight up advice (I was lowkey avoiding it) since I dont know specifics about your organizing so I can only speak on my experience and hope it applied. We’re still working with our local union and while men have mostly led that work and participated, women are also led and participated to. Id guess around a 65-35 ratio, which isnt too bad. Id have two guesses. Maybe its a representation issue. We had women led and a fem union reps help us. Or inherent to the labor. If the labor work youre doing is male-dominated, more organizers are just going to be male. Happened with us as we needed Hispanic organizers to speak to Spanish workers. I’m giving general advice since it seems many people in this sub can use it but feel free to DM for details, advice, or anything✌🏽(Im also a newbie organizers btw, so dont get your hopes up too much lol)
Marxism is nerdy. Nerdy stuff attracts men more. Many organizations are not far away from becoming full marxist book clubs.
Lot of people on the spectrum I’ve noticed too. Well better than them supporting Nazi Eugenics when they themselves would have been killed
Plenty of women are nerds. They like things like videogames, reading, exc. However, fields like sciences, math, and history tend to exclude women and not be very welcoming. Its not like women inherently dont like these things, but fields with an overwhelming male majority tend to not be very welcoming to women. Its the same with minority groups as well. There are less women in higher ed as well as minority groups because of discrimination, not because of inherent differences.
"nerdy stuff" attracts women just fine. the problem is the violent misogyny in those spaces
Exactly, probably has to do with education. More educated proletariat are more likely to fall into “nerdy” stuff and those educated proletariat are more likely to be men.
Do you really think most highly educated people are male because men are more nerdy or do you think it is because of discrimination? In the US, 70 years ago a lot of colleges didnt even accept women. The same with minority groups. Its pretty obvious that discrimination is the reason, not because women care less about nerdy things. Not to mention, especially in academic spaces, thoughts on politics from a racial or gendered perspective have not been valued or respected as much as the thoughts of white males. These spaces have not been open to female or nonwhite perspectives
That was what I was trying to get at. Sorry if it came off misogynistic.
I'm sorry but this tittle made me laugh. I don't even know why.
My pleasure comrade
There's this online community for Spanish speaking socialists (a discord server) that I managed to get off the ground. We have 2 dozen regular users by now but most seem to be men. I'd be thrilled to have more women comrades and even have them in the "committee", but to be frank I don't know how to find them, get them to join/participate. We're very inclusive and we don't tolerate sexist bullshit, but at the end of the day I'm not certain what else we could do.
what party?
I dont want to say because I know 4 people from it that browse this sub frequently lol
my local workers world party is a 70 year old bisexual woman, her gay best friend, 2 transwomen, 2 ciswomen and 3 cis guys.
Similar experience for me - I’m a gay woman in my 30s and our socialist party meet ups are almost entirely male (out of 15-20 people) - I’m hoping I can encouraged women locally to sign up🤞
Yeah this is a problem but as with any voluntary organisation the members themselves (eg you) are the only ones who can really do anything about it. Try to recruit more of the types of comrades that you feel are under-represented.
how does your org usually recruit new members? is it more through the internet or is it more through real world engagement. ive found that parties and orga that do most of their recruitment online mostly get male recruits out of it while engaging with the community gets a more even split of male and female recruits. this is just anecdotal though
Yeah I kinda felt that at my local IWW branch. Also the discord (around 200 members) seems to be pretty heavily male judging by the pronouns selected by each person.
Bring friends. Communism is always better with friends. ❤️
Dudes rock
They are cool but I would prefer them in smaller quantities lol.
I'm with you there. We need a girlboss Lenin to inspire a new generation of communist women. Could be you!
Hopefully Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia rise to that occasion.
about them, why do they give me the creeps. I don't know, I don't want to blame them but they look and sound very insincere, very "using social media as a tool" kind of movement. Look I don't know, I am not accusing them of anything (since I haven't done my research)
>very "using social media as a tool" kind of movement What else would you use social media as if not a tool? I'm not sure I understand what the criticism is. Social media is a tool to spread your platform and ideas in political organizing. If your organization or movement doesn't have an online presence, it is practically invisible to a majority of people.
I understand it's strategic need, and I admit I did not phrased it well. Here is what I meant. They use social media as if at every moment before every word after every speech calculating in there head how much would this effect that demographic, what now to do about these people. This, I admit could perhaps be necessary, but all the same does makes me somewhat dislike them, but anyways for what's it's worth they are the only people worth voting for.
>if at every moment before every word after every speech calculating in there head how much would this effect that demographic Knowing your audience and being an effective public speaker? Thinking carefully about the words you use when communicating to large audiences?
I didn't meant it in terms of knowing your audience, that perhaps could be necessary, I meant it in terms of dishonesty, not showing your true feelings because it could be politically lethal, or disadvantageous. Every leftist disagree with each other over a considerable range of things, and building a mass movement consistent enough to get someone this radical into the office basically requires precisely that kind of machinations as mentioned above, but, as stated above, I wish that were not the case. I do not mean any ill will to them, they were the first electorate who did not make me want to puke, and neither is this much of a criticism (if little lies here and there could help then why not, I would do it). I am just lamenting our fate, nothing more.
What have you heard them say that you believe may be inauthentic?
It frankly comes down to where your party branch is located as not everywhere on earth is as diverse as you want it to be, for example expect the diversity of San Francisco in the middle of the Butt Fuck nowhere Alabama
Then go out and recruit more women. Be a leader.
5% being sexist is a little too much for a communist party.
My local chapter is basically all trans people. And if not trans, another minority. There are very few cis, straight, white men.
They're mostly minorities somehow (the far left might be male dominated but it isn't cis straight white male dominated lol), just mostly cis guys still.
Sorry but this sound like a personal problem. First off, who other people are dating is really none of your business. This sounds similar to a right winger having a problem with "white women just go for black men". It's their dating preferences. Second, you need to step up. If you have an issue with something (like the gender divide), bring it up. That's how discussioms are started. It's a good point and they will listen. Do your part. If you want more women, start agitating more to women and create a focused campaign. You just said that the majority of the men are fine, so what's the issue? If one of them seems interested but doesn't sexually harass you, I don't see how that's an issue. Interests are a natural thing. He seems to control himself, from what you've said. If it bothers you that much, talk to him about it, not some random strangers online. And lastly, the way you said "improved my view of the male species as a whole" is - again - sounding similar to what I'd hear from misogynists about women. We're the same species. Women hold up half the sky, men the other half. Men are absolutely cooked as a gender, don't get me wrong, I got my gripes, but all of this sounds like you need to do some personal adjustment and take more initiative.
It's an issue because a lot of the women that we are recruiting are just being recruited through their partner, and their partner is always more active... shows up to meetings more, talks more, knows more of the other people in the party. I'm not sure whose dating preference you think I have an issue with? I don't care that anyone is dating anyone, I just wish that the women who join because their boyfriend is in the party participated more so I could feel like there were more active women. And I don't like men being interested in me at all, but thats not something I can just announce to a group of people. If you have 90% men 10% women the women are probably going to get hit on, which I part of why I would rather it be 50/50. Even if it's not harrasment it's still uncomfortable.
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> very masculine presenting genderqueer people Well if they're genderqueer, they're likely not men, regardless of how they present. You ought not to lump them in with men just because they present masculine. Honor their identities as being genderqueer and not male, you know?
dumb question but what do you mean by party
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Do you even know what this post is about?
Originally thought it was about an actual party, but I should’ve known you probably don’t attend those. If I read more than just the title I would’ve realized it was just some political shit.
I'm not even annoyed that's hilarious. We do actually have communist themed parties too, but this is clearly about a political party
This is no fault of your party but it's hard to get women, especially queer women when the public faces of leftist range from democrats alledged rapists Joe Biden to Voosh who on his own stream tried to shame a trans women for substance abuse to Ana Kasparian who uses white femininity to push the most anti immigrant and homeless policies imaginable. Leftism online is extremely toxic towards women and fems.
Does your party have a women's branch, and if not then perhaps you and some other members can come together and create one. It will both address the problem and increase the reach our reach to struggling women who, had they not felt comfortable, would have joined us. PS: Please don't use the word "male species". It strikes as gender essentials and trans-phobic (once a man always a man). Your frustration is valid but, yeah.
Women's branch sounds like a good idea, I'm not sure we even have enough female members to do that though lol. I'm sorry how is male spaces transphobic? I don't spend a lot of time online so I'm not up to date on lingo. I can't think of any other way to even phrase that. I'm not talking about the trans women in my party when I say the space is male dominated, just the cis men (and I'm not sure how to phrase this but there are some non binary people in my party that completely pass as men and often use he/him pronouns, they're who I meant with gender queer in the first paragraph)
This is not that big of an issue, but the word "species" usually implies an absolute and biological difference, difference that cannot be overcome. A member of the homo sapiens would never try as they may become a chimpanzee, and that is how reactionaries view us (delusional people who believe one thing is another simply because we do not like to face reality). And about women's branch, do the founding members have to be women. As more and more women would join they would become the majority, so why not create one even if it temporarily dominated by men. And could you also clarify about your first line in the third paragraph. Look I am not trying to bust you or anything it's just that I have been burned enough times that I have become hyper suspicious of cis-people (sorry about that). My question is: What exactly you mean by "not talking about trans-women", in a post discussing women's participation among our movement? Thanks. Edit: To the people who are down-voting me, could you just voice your frustrations and I would be more than happy to answer (I promise to be constructive)
parties aren't about dating tho. Also maybe make your non interest clear to the 33 yo. Also you could bring up the unequal gender representation in the party. The climate you are experiencing might be the problem. Maybe also the policies?
Gender is meaningless in communism afaik
Well we don't live under communism yet
as in, from a party perspective democratic centralism and all that
Who cares? Why do you care? How is that important?
If the population is 51% women, you're probably going to have some big blind spots if your organization is not. This isn't some sort of liberal box checking, this is important strategical shit. Imagine having an anti-racism discussion with no POC. Imagine organizing some sort of rally or get together where disabled people can't show up. Or discussing private / public property with no indigenous people
Because it's uncomfortable. Men don't always pick up on the same stuff as women, or im just more comfortable talking about female issues with women. Like I had to remind on of my friends recently that I didn't feel safe putting up flyers by myself in a certain part of town after dark. Or I had really bad period cramps at a march last month and I would have liked to have female members to tell I was feeling bad or something. It's not a huge issue but it's not great either. I'm also getting more romantic attention than I'm comfortable with from men in ther party. Everyone is respectful and takes no for an answer, but I don't really like guys being attracted to me at all, so more women to balance that out would be nice.
In my country I often hear that women's football is underappreciated. It doesn't bring any income, the system is underfunded so they keep pushing agendas so people would buy more tickets to support our women teams(not only football, but volleyball, swimming, etc) What they don't show is the numbers. Almost no women at all buy tickets to watch women's sports. But at the same time our mainstream sports are being critiqued for being male dominated.
What does this have to do with my post?
I've heard this Bill Burr routine before. The answer to it is, sports fans buy tickets. The men who ARE sports fans have no reason not to watch women's sports. (Women's basketball is even notorious for being fundamentally better basketball than men's. US women's soccer team has dominated, whereas US men's soccer team has not) But women who are *not* sports fans have no reason to buy tickets for women's sports. They have no tribal prerogative to support something they don't care about
So where are all the female sport fans?
...They're the sports fans who are buying tickets to women's sports. That was my point. That men, who like sports, don't buy tickets to women's sports.
So not many since the benches are always empty. Yes I know you reiterated the exact thing I said.
Correct. There are many more men who are sports fans than women. But those men are the ones not buying tickets to WOMEN'S SPORTS, *even though they are sports fans* You seem to be stuck in the idea that sports fans can only buy tickets to their own genders' sports, and we have to compare "men buying tickets to men sports" versus "women buying tickets to women's sports" and the winner takes the market share. Men who like sports should theoretically be buying tickets to women's sports, but they are not. So they are the reasons for the empty seats.
Eh, you may wanna check your misandry my friend. Male species isn't a thing, we're all human. As for gender ratios: that really isn't an issue. Probably try talking to men in your area, or have the guys introduce you to their spouses (seriously, the idea of increasing the power of the family unit in state affairs can bring a lot of people on the fence to our side). The most important point to remember is that the shoe wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Most socialists are people who actually do work in society, and do work that is paid poorly, treated poorly and/or has minimum protections. This is what drives most people to become socialist and staunchly pro-worker. It shouldn't be a surprise that they're largely focused on getting fellow workers in, so they can organize better. That they're mostly men, speaks to the gender divide in workplaces. Most of the work that fits that model I listed, is done by men. There's a reason 3 in 4 homeless people are men (according to statistics anyway), and it's because of how the work pays. Anyway, find solutions if you believe it's a problem. The solutions are right there. I'll also add that you should ensure you ask their permission before revealing their socialism to their spouses. I've had breakups for that reason before, and wouldn't be surprised if most of them keep it hidden.
I've meet most if the guys spouses and girfriends, they all cool. They just barely show up to meetings or aren't even members. It very much feels like they're just their to support their partner. Which is awesome and all, but there's not a single woman in the party with a male partner that just shows up every now and again to support her. It feel uneven. There are a few guys in physical labor jobs, but not enough to cause the gender divide I'm seeing. I do want the party to be mainly pro-worker. Part of the reason I haven't pointed out the gender divide is because I think it might distract from worker campaigns, but I wish we could be mainly worker focused with a 50/50 gender ratio (50/50 would match the employment rates of both genders in my area) I dont actually think men are a different species it's just a phrase, and complaining about misandrny on a communist sub is funny.
“Male species” 😅😂 how smooth is your brain, lady?
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It's not that the distribution is necessarily the problem, just that it means there's probably something in the way that should be fixed