#Socialism2014 Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite!

Posted on | June 28, 2014 | 54 Comments

Sherry Wolf (@SherryTalksBack) has described herself as a “a lesbian Marxist who came of age in the neo-Cold War, AIDS-ravaged 1980s,” and has been praised by a fan as a “fire-breathing, Marxist dyke.” The real mystery is why she doesn’t have a Cabinet position in the Obama administration. We don’t have video or a transcript of the speech she gave Friday at the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago, but we can quote Sherry Wolf at length, from her 2009 book, Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation:

Obviously, there are some physical differences between men and women, but it is our culture and not biology that gives them their meaning. . . .
It is society, not biology, that imposes the capacity for nuturing uniquely on women as a result of child-bearing, however. Even differences in female and male muscularity have been shaped over thousands of years by our gender roles, diet, and shifting cultural preferences. . . . Contemporary American men and women are more likely to be muscular if they have either manual labor jobs or leisure time to enjoy physical activity, both of which are shaped by class, not biology. . . .
Even when it comes to hormones we have been misled. Scientific investigation into the hormonal secretions of testes and ovaries, beginning in the nineteenth century, presumed inherent differences and female inferiority. . . . Despite the fact that these hormones affect bones, blood, liver, kidneys, and heart, testosterone and estrogen took on properties that were entirely social, not biological. . . . There is a correlation between amounts of testosterone and estrogen and one’s physical sex. . . . But the popular concept that they are exclusively sex hormones does not correspond to science. . . .
The fact that conventional gender roles today prevail throughout much of the world is not proof of their biological link but a testament to the globalization of capitalism and its social prerogatives. Class society’s need for the nuclear family and its attendant gender roles have allowed gender to acquire the status of human nature — as have greed, competition and militarism.
Under capitalism, the ongoing oppression of sexual minorities serves the interests of the ruling class — those who own and control production, the dissemination of ideas through media and education, and other resources. The ruling class needs the nuclear family and divisions among workers to continue making profits and to maintain its control over the majority. . . . If any and every sexual and gender arrangement were permissible, the wage gap between men and women and the privatized burdens of family life would be placed into question.

It is not necessary to argue with any particular detail of Ms. Wolf’s analysis to see the point I wish to make: She insists that everything most people consider normal and natural differences between the sexes are basically an illusion created by society and culture. Ms. Wolf further insists that the influences of our society and culture reflect the interests of a parasitical “ruling class” under capitalism.

Once you decide that capitalism must be destroyed, viewing “society” as an oppressive system of artificial control imposed upon the downtrodden masses, every aspect of normal human life becomes a target for this kind of critical analysis. And the logic of the Marxist worldview has no stopping point short of revolution — or insanity.

We may imagine what could happen if you gave Ms. Wolf’s book to a suburban soccer mom who started reading it out of idle curiosity and, taking it seriously, suddenly developed a revolutionary consciousness: “Why are these children calling me ‘mother’? Maternity is a social construct, a concept imposed on women by the ruling class in order to maintain control of the means of production!”

Of course, revolutionary consciousness seldom arrives in adulthood. Young people with intellectual aspirations are attracted to radical ideas and, having no experience of the practical responsibilities of adulthood, become so enamored of “critical theory” that they are permanently prejudiced to view the world from that perspective. No factual reality they encounter in their adult life can dissuade them of their radical beliefs. Where facts seem to contradict the leftist dogmas they learned at college, the facts will be ignored or interpreted (“theorized”) to mean something other than what common sense suggests.

These people become intellectuals, and they wouldn’t be harmful to anyone but themselves, except for the fact that they are in charge of academia, the major news media, the entertainment industry and, whenever Democrats are in office, they run the government, too.

Yet all the Hope and Change in the world can never satisfy the totalitarian vision of the radical intellectual, which explains why Sherry Wolf isn’t in the Obama administration: She hates them, for not doing enough to destroy America’s capitalist society.

Patience, ma’am — they’re wrecking the country as fast as they can.

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Category: Feminism, Gays, Intellectuals

Comments

54 Responses to “#Socialism2014 Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite!”

Political Rift » #Socialism2014 Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite!
June 28th, 2014 @ 11:45 am

[…] Read more here: #Socialism2014 Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite! […]
Separated at Birth: Huma Abedin and…? | Batshit Crazy News
June 28th, 2014 @ 11:56 am

[…] Chip S. made this request. At first I thought sure, but it was hard to find a good match. But they do have similar mouths: EBL: Hillary’s Secret Deal with Huma and Weiner? (Aridog has some great comments) Rule 5 and FMJRA More tapes of Hillary and Bill! Update: TOM: You magnificent Lesbians–I read your books! TOM: Gender neutral restrooms at the Socialist Convention! […]
Chris Cassone
June 28th, 2014 @ 12:02 pm

Then why does the “woman” wear a dress in the sign? Their insanity knows no bounds. “2 + 2= 5, Winston.”
kilo6
June 28th, 2014 @ 12:07 pm

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.de/2014/06/what-feminism-is-all-about.html

Counter demonstration against the “March for Family”, Vienna, Stepensdomplatz, Saturday, June 14th, 2014.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-FyGMHJQ0pgk/U6wpnpW3VeI/AAAAAAAAPBQ/0FXfrgh2J_w/s640/blogger-image–2114500781.jpg
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2014 @ 12:41 pm

You are mistaken, that is the “guy”
MrPaulRevere
June 28th, 2014 @ 1:16 pm

Man I must be getting old. It just seems like yesterday that Marxists were primarily interested in class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat and dialectical materialism, you know the kitchen sink stuff. This is a bunch of hydrogen bomb quality kookery that’s been MIRV’d.
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2014 @ 1:17 pm

The sentence on the poster resembles a quote that I have seen attributed to Jerry Falwell. It is often cited by liberals in a mocking way: “Oh, those crazy wingnuts!” Except of course that the description is reasonably accurate. The reference to witchcraft makes it seem wacky. However, (a) I can show you plenty of pagan lesbian web sites out there, and (b) go to any gay/lesbian bookstore and you are guaranteed to find lots of occult-themed materials, astrology, “New Age,” etc.

Nothing can be clearer than the origins of the Women’s Liberation movement (“Second Wave” feminism) in the context of the 1960s New Left. Many of the leaders of that movement were “Red Diaper” babies and their analysis of women’s oppression was explicitly Marxist.

Of course, the facts are irrelevant when dealing with the Left, who are ignorant even of the facts of their own history.
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2014 @ 1:25 pm

This article on “Dianic Wicca” makes the point:

“Born of the feminist movement … Dianic Wicca embraces the Goddess … Most Dianic Wiccan covens are female-only … In some areas, the phrase Dianic Wiccan came to mean lesbian witch …”

Are all Wiccans feminist? No. Are all feminists lesbian? Again, no. However, there is an entire category of modern paganism that (a) sprang from the feminist movement and (b) is notoriously associated with lesbianism.
ThePaganTemple
June 28th, 2014 @ 1:37 pm

Actually, she does have some valid points, but she carries them to extremes, to put it lightly. But her major failing is that she doesn’t see, or maybe ignores the fact that many of those hated social constructs evolved from the prerogatives of nature. So basically, what she is wanting to do, is manipulate nature itself. People like her attempt to do this by insisting in a far past reality that never actually existed, or if it did exist, it did so only in a very small minority of secluded environments. A perfect example of this would be the belief in a long-ago “matriarchal society”, which did exist, and still does, among a very remote tribes.

As for Obama, she would probably agree with you, and with me, that Obama and the Democratic Party represents another version of fascism, maybe even a form of national socialism, not as bad as that of the Third Reich, but still. virulent in it’s own right. And in reality socialists of the internationalist variety see fascists and Nazis as competitors.
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2014 @ 1:55 pm

Read the Wikipedia biography of Dianic Wicca’s founder.
The Daley Gator | Oh goody, here come the Gender-Neutral Marxists
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:01 pm

[…] Someone with a name like Sherry Wolf seems normal enough right? Well, not this Sherry Wolf […]
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:03 pm

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y7mUQQVtllk/U67icP9RUxI/AAAAAAAAjKg/EVDFA-T6n5I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-06-28+at+8.41.42+AM.png

Either one could use that bathroom or could be seen at that socialist conference!
Lisa Graas
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:04 pm

According to a recent Motown study, female attraction to men is caused by global warming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k0GDQrK2jo
kbiel
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:39 pm

If Ms. Wolf truly believes that there are no gender differences except for what society imposes, then why is she a lesbian? If she prefers nurturing and femininity in her sexual partners, there are plenty of men who fit that bill; some of them might even be heterosexual. It sounds to me like she is the one with a bias, imposing her gender stereotypes on everyone else.
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:43 pm

Source of the original quote was a 1992 fund-raising letter in opposition to an Equal Rights Amendment ballot measure in Iowa.
robertstacymccain
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:45 pm

We’re all victims of her bias!
mojo
June 28th, 2014 @ 2:47 pm

Yeah, I’m sure genderlessness is a hot topic amongst the shallow learning curve set.

Socialists. What can you say?
Phil_McG
June 28th, 2014 @ 3:41 pm

“came of age in the neo-Cold War, AIDS-ravaged 1980s”

I don’t remember the 1980’s being “AIDS-ravaged”. I remember it being a fun time to be young, almost wholly innocent of the politically correct bullshit and tired hipster snarkiness that now chokes a lot of popular culture.

And I remember Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Regan, and Pope John Paul II standing up against the monster that was communism, mercifully laying it to rest by the end of that decade.

Was I hanging out with the wrong people or something?
Phil_McG
June 28th, 2014 @ 3:48 pm

I know… I can’t see those women finding husbands either. Not till their biological clock is running out and they desperately settle for some poor beta schlub like that deballed IT guy Abortion Marcotte is shacked up with.
ChandlersGhost
June 28th, 2014 @ 4:15 pm

It’s also the decade when all these loonies started getting their Ph.Ds.
JeffS
June 28th, 2014 @ 4:18 pm

AIDS became known during the Reagan Administration, in 1981, but wasn’t fully accepted as a medical issue until the late 1980s. It was an excuse by lefties to beat on conservatives because we correctly pointed out that the disease spread could be mitigated by changing behavior, i.e., prolific and/or unprotected sexual lifestyles. Not unlike other sexually transmitted diseases, and something that had been pushed for generations.

Comrade Wolf’s statement is hyperbole aimed at the primary “victims” of that mitigation strategy: the San Francisco based male homosexual.
ADL: Gary Oldman Still Sucks | Regular Right Guy
June 28th, 2014 @ 4:18 pm

[…] #Socialism2014 Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite! […]
ajpwriter
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:05 pm

I read the self-reversing bit about hormones, and I remember a line Camille Paglia had (got her on the brain lately) about anyone who doubts the role of hormones should spend some time with a transexual, who have to take prodigious amounts of them just to maintain the semblance of their assumed sex.

Perhaps this partly explains why the radfems so hate the trans. If you can “become a woman” with a bit of discreet surgery and the right estrogen cocktail, then there’s something essential about being a woman, which no amount of Derrida will destroy.
Julie Pascal
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:12 pm

The girls holding that sign can’t possibly be honestly promoting it.
Kirby McCain
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:15 pm

If you knew RSM’s wife, mother of six, you’d realize that’s not a dress. She’s a super hero that’s a cape.
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:21 pm

Why does every “femi-nazi” article sound as if it were a parody from “The Onion?”

Seriously, when I first started encountering some of these “theories” I assumed it was an over-the-top spoof. The truly scary thing is, they are teaching this insanity at colleges and universities all over the world.

And someone can spend $200,000 to get a degree which amounts to little more than “Marxo-Lesibianist” indoctrination. These people probably come out of college with lower IQs than when they entered. And they are not only unemployable but ticking time-bombs waiting to go off if they ever managed to get hired.

If it wasn’t the future of the country at risk this would be laughable.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:22 pm

Ronald Reagan was hardly homophobic, he was old school Hollywood and had plenty of gay friends. He just did not think it was government’s roll to throw unlimited $$$ at issues such as this. Ultimately it was Reagan’s surgeon general who Dr. Koop who ended up responding to AIDS and HIV in a scientific objective manner. Could it have been sooner, sure, but didn’t the male gay community have some shared responsibility for what happened to them and what they inflicted upon themselves through risky behaviors? Sorry if I have more sympathy for the people who got HIV and AIDS from blood transfusions than junkies and individuals who got it from their own risky behaviors. BTW, most of those who got it from blood transfusions died (it progresses much faster that way). At least some of those who got it from sex ended up living long enough to benefit from the later medical treatments.

I find it curious why they still want to vilify Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan over AIDS. It simply took some time for people to understand what was going on. Back in the 80s the male gay community was completely in denial too, freaking out if anyone suggested wearing a condom might be a good idea.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:23 pm

Nice post modernism reference!
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:23 pm

I am pretty sure none of these ladies had “male parts.”

Wow! https://www.google.com/search?q=martha+reeves+and+the+vandellas&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JzKvU6KjGsK1yAS-5IHIBg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1192&bih=759#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=-40IGQgqZQKfvM%253A%3Bxm5dbn4jdSaRBM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stonewallvets.org%252Fimages%252Fsongs_7%252FVandellas-2006-Gold.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stonewallvets.org%252FsongsofStonewall-7.htm%3B700%3B688
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:26 pm

I wanted to embed the actual picture and not the link.

Let’s see if this works better.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=xm5dbn4jdSaRBM&tbnid=-40IGQgqZQKfvM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stonewallvets.org%2FsongsofStonewall-7.htm&ei=MzKvU5emKJKVyATE24LwBQ&bvm=bv.69837884,d.aWw&psig=AFQjCNHtsUP-ndyMcIz3s6ONhEbSXA2ANQ&ust=1404076973587108
Guest
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:40 pm

Ahh, the Equal Rights Amendment. Seeing that go down in flames was fun.
Finrod Felagund
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:40 pm

Ahh, the Equal Rights Amendment. That was fun, seeing that go down in flames.
JeffS
June 28th, 2014 @ 5:42 pm

“I find it curious why they still want to vilify Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan over AIDS.”

The left hates them, that’s why. No other reason or excuse is necessary, in their (very small) minds.
Cube
June 28th, 2014 @ 7:36 pm

Re: unemployable. C’mon, those new democrat voters have to come from somewhere. Can’t import ’em all.
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 7:52 pm

Yeah, I guess there will always be cabinet-level positions in progressive administrations that have to be filled somehow.
K-Bob
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:31 pm

But crystals, astrology, and transinterdental medication (i think that’s how it’s speld) are supposed to be real science!
K-Bob
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:35 pm

As long as we can still deconstruct, then that’s okay.
alanhenderson
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:43 pm

“[A] lesbian Marxist who came of age in the neo-Cold War, AIDS-ravaged 1980s.”

It was a bad decade for Marxists…
K-Bob
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:54 pm

I’m guessing a bathroom like this would have them seeing red…

http://michaelcorey.ntirety.com/Portals/1101/images/funny_bathroom.jpg
SallyBoy
June 28th, 2014 @ 9:34 pm

Two things got Reagan moving on AIDS: one was the issue becoming personal when long time friend Rock Hudson became ill, and two, Elizabeth Taylor, another friend, and activist, pushed him to take action. People seem to forget that no matter what, Reagan had close ties to the Hollywood community, and even served as the head of SAG.

If Reagan didn’t believe the government should be throwing money for research for AIDS then he was clearly wrong. It is the governments responsibility to deal with a deadly public health issue like HIV. And it doesn’t matter how they got it(your mentality indicates you prefer to see people punished for bad choices, or a lifestyle you don’t agree with)rather than being a reasonable, and compassionate human being, and seeing them cured no matter how they got there. You probably have the same outlook on drug addiction, and believe wasting money locking up addicts in prison, and vilifying them (even though it’s ineffective, and a fiscal and societal failure) is a good idea because you hate addicts and want to see them punished. It’s much easier for you(and far less satisfying on a primal level) than acting compassionately, and reasonably, and trying to cure them of their habit through rehabilitation which is more cost effective, and humane.
Ellen K
June 28th, 2014 @ 9:52 pm

She’s just plagiarizing episodes from The Feminine Mystique.
DeadMessenger
June 28th, 2014 @ 10:03 pm

Ms. Wolf is correct; people were SO much better off in Marxist Russia. Those tens of millions of people murdered there during that regime were “acceptable losses” and “collaterol damage.”

Wolf is a douche.
DeadMessenger
June 28th, 2014 @ 10:07 pm

You’d think they were real science since they’re offered as majors in “college” these days.
DeadMessenger
June 28th, 2014 @ 10:16 pm

Screw the ERA. I WANT to be unequal. I WANT to stand by wringing my hands helplessly while a man changes my flat tire. I WANT to play stupid when the house needs to be painted, furniture needs to be moved, and appliances need to be repaired. Oh, and the toilet needs to be snaked. And yukky insects need to be killed. In exchange, I’m happy to cook, clean and mend. Fine. I get the better end of that deal.
Jeanette Victoria
June 28th, 2014 @ 10:51 pm

Universalist Hell
JeffS
June 28th, 2014 @ 11:00 pm

“…your mentality indicates you prefer to see people punished for bad choices, or a lifestyle you don’t agree with…”

Speaking for myself, and not E.:L B,, I was referring to people accepting responsibility for their choices. And this is something that I learned pre-HIV, in terms of sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea or syphilis.

Somehow the concept of taking certain precautions in relation to sex conduct went out the window when HIV came about, no matter that HIV is far more deadly. So pardon me if I seem to lack the politically correct attitude towards people who didn’t care what happened to others, so long as they got their rocks off.

(See? That’s a totally gender neutral opinion. Ain’t that cool?)
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 11:38 pm

AIDS was the first disease with civil rights.

Telling people not to commit “suicide-by-sex” was (and still is) considered homophobic. While encouraging them to do so was “supportive” in terms of “double-speak.”

If I warn you to use your breaks on hair-pin turns is that hateful? Go figure. Leftists don’t have to make sense.
WarEagle82
June 28th, 2014 @ 11:39 pm

*brakes
News of the Week (June 29th, 2014) | The Political Hat
June 29th, 2014 @ 5:33 pm

[…] Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite! Sherry Wolf (@SherryTalksBack) has described herself as a “a lesbian Marxist who came of age in the neo-Cold War, AIDS-ravaged 1980s,” and has been praised by a fan as a “fire-breathing, Marxist dyke.” The real mystery is why she doesn’t have a Cabinet position in the Obama administration. We don’t have video or a transcript of the speech she gave Friday at the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago, but we can quote Sherry Wolf at length, from her 2009 book, Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation […]
Nan
June 29th, 2014 @ 9:39 pm

That’s “collage,” spell it appropriately.