The Smug Face Of Left-Wing Feminism

The problem goes way beyond gender woo to basic reasoning skills

This week, Labour MP Rosie Duffield made the noble decision to step down from her role in protest of Keir Starmer’s - in her eyes - corrupted leadership. To quote two lines from her scorching resignation letter: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”

While her news has been greeted with a chorus of admiration from many as well as dismay to have lost such a uniquely principled politician, there has been predictable gloating and posturing from gender ideologues and extremists who did their best to monster Duffield for her commitment to women’s rights and the material reality of womanhood.

One such crower was former Baby Of The House and possessor of one the most smug faces in parliament, Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who posted on X the following:

No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society. She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.

I’m not going to dwell on Whittome’s venomous as well as much-debunked hyperbole. Emotive exaggeration is a well-worn staple of hollow “pro-trans” rhetoric. Instead, allow me to deviate with a story.

Back in June of 2023, I attended an all-day open conference at the Scottish Parliament. It was advertised as a proudly feminist event, for “people who identify as women” who were interested in getting involved in politics on any level. The ideological wording on the application form made me highly wary but I went along regardless, having been tepidly considering joining a party at that time.

The opening speaker, a high-profile DEI consultant and CEO who I won’t name and implicitly shame, began the introductory session by looking around at us all - at least 300 - and breathing a big performative sigh of relief. It was so lovely, she trilled, to be standing in a roomful of people who “looked liked this”, by which she meant Not Men (even though there were several males in the front rows). Much of the panel discussion that followed was focused on the patriarchal barriers that impinge women in politics; the misogyny, the sexism, the online abuse etc. It terms of the originality of themes, it could have easily been a conversation from twenty, thirty years ago.

One of the workshops I attended was specifically for young women, meaning under-30 (I was 29 at the time). The first thing we were asked to do by a panel of self-congratulatory she/hers was to write down on a post-it note a female politician whom we admired. I wrote down Joanna Cherry, the Gen-Z friend I was with wrote down Rosie Duffield. Needless to say, our chosen heroines weren’t read out. In fact, we were completely ignored, those running the workshop made a point of blanking us when they came around to check up on group work exercises. It wasn’t just the post-its. We’d almost certainly been spotted sitting at the wrong table at lunchtime (the enby photographer at the event circled us like a shark).

There is great focus from ‘feminist’ conferences such as this one on handsy mansplainers with boorish laughs and prehistoric attitudes to women in the workplace. The biggest antagonists to any young women who dissents against gender and radical progressivism, however, are most likely to be other women; specifically - although not exclusively - young women. I know I’ve banged this drum before but the problem isn’t getting better and with the loss of the likes of Duffield - as understandable as her quitting Labour is - the problem is going to get worse. It’s not just the whispering campaign you’ll potentially endure if you are “ousted” as sex-realist or an EDI sceptic, it’s that due to the disproportionate influence so-called intersectional feminists hold at all levels of left-wing politics, you’ll be lucky if you manage to blag your way through the proverbial gates into the meeting room. Thanks to the likes of Whittome doing their best to put fellow female leftists’ heads on spikes, some will be too intimidated to even try.

This Is A Left, Not Right Problem

Whittome’s conduct to Duffield may personify this vicious, elitist, petulant meangirlism but she’s not the only one in recent years. The now-resigned SNP MP Mhairi Black, who denounced women opposed to the Gender Recognition Form in Scotland as “50-year-old Karens”, also fit this mould. MSP Emma Roddick, who was the Equalities, Migration and Refugee Minister until recently, is another example. Labour MP Kate Osborne is a a good older example of what these young idealogues might grow into. And this is only citing public representatives - youth wings of parties, affiliated external campaign groups and the civil service generally, are hotbeds of baby Queen Bees in waiting.

It can’t be stressed enough that the problem with such “inclusive feminist” political sector workers transcends allegiance to gender woo; they can believe in what they want. It’s not even that they implicitly condone unhinged abuse and misogyny against women they don’t like, including in their own parties. The biggest issue is that such women can be championed as role models despite a demonstrative inability to reason logically and debate in non-fallacious, professional terms. Emma Roddick, for instance, did not behave nastily per se (that I know of) but she was promoted way beyond her experience and, without meaning to sound unkind, her intelligence. These young women are at best, vastly overestimated and, at worst, devoid of basic comprehension skills and maturity. The fact that they are young, female, and progressive should not give them a free pass. That their lack of verbal intelligence in debate is seldom called out, I can’t help but read as a depressing indication of how embarrassingly low the bar has become in terms of the intellectual rigour expected from young left-leaning women.

I am specifying left-leaning women because from where I stand, I don’t see this problem with young conservative or non-left women, quite the opposite. If my niece was looking for a young political role model, I’d likely point her in the direction of former Conservative MP Dehenna Davison, former Conservative councillor Samantha Smith or the SNP’s socially conservative Kate Forbes. I disagree with a fair amount of their individual views but they exude professionalism, maturity and merit, qualities that young girls should aspire to far more than virtue-signalling conformity - even if the latter reaps so much more reward presently.

Indeed, the likely reason young Conservative women seem (generally) on a different maturity plain from their progressive contemporaries is that their political beliefs make them automatic swimmers against the tide in a near-culturally homogenous demographic. They’ve almost certainly endured - and survived - a social cost for taking an alternative, “uncool” political stance and are more resilient and independent-minded as a result.

I’m not saying that there are no competent or resilient young women on the left in politics - it’s early days but the recently elected Rosie Whiting (Labour MP) to all appearances seems promising. However, with almost all the career incentives encouraging otherwise, it is more difficult to foster such qualities in young women on the progressive end of the political scale.

Recently, the organisation behind the feminist conference I attended in June 2023 sent me a survey. One of the questions asks the recipient if they feel they belong to an underrepresented group as a women based on race, religion, gender identity, disability, sexuality or other. If I fill it in, I might select “Other”. Yes, as a young leftish women who values honesty, rationality and resilience, I - and many others - are woefully underrepresented at the moment.