Ends and Odds: The Ravings of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Nine: Why Feminism Didn't Lead to Socialism.

   Why Feminism Didn't Lead To Socialism: chapter Nine by Dave Jaffe.




       In the late 1960"s and early 1970's, the business class and other conservatives zeroed in on the New Left and other progressive groups as the main threat to the capitalist system. Now  50 years later the main threat to democracy is coming from the extreme right wing. In the U.S. the Trump administration seems to have contempt for democracy. In Italy the new right wing coalition seems to have the same feelings for the vast majority though it promises improved social programs for Italian citizens.Yet like Donald Trump it has no love for immigrants from poor countries. And the sane is true of the National Front in France, the Brexit supporters in Britain and many other right wing populists across Europe.
    Yet in the past 50 years the new groups of people who emerged after the great rebellions of the late 1960's had been defeated, did win many victories. Through picketing, mass demonstrations, occupying government offices, leafleting and even sometimes violence, they changed the countries across Western Europe and North America.
      "You dance with the lady that brought you," the conservative leader of the right wing Progressive  Conservative Party Brian Mulroney said in the 1980's. Mulroney was a conservative. Still, he persuaded his own party and U.S, lawmakers to ban sulfur emissions and stop acid rain. Green activists shut down nuclear power plants across the U.S. and in other countries. Environmentalists allied themselves with First Nations people and targeted oil pipelines and Kinder Morgan and the Keystone XL line as dangers to the environment. Green politicians in Europe  ran for office in Europe and in North America. In Germany green politicians even entered government
     Openly gay and lesbian politicians ran for political office and often won. Women became lawyers, doctors, carpenters, bus drivers and many other things. They won the right to abortion and some even impressed tough blue collar male workers. "Women get it," a foreman in Richmond, B.C. said. "They work hard and are very good on safety issues." Women ran for political office and gained power in politics. Kim Campbell, was briefly Prime Minister of Canada. The present Prime Minister of Britain is a woman, namely Teresa May. Other women sit in legislatures all across Europe. In contrast in the late 1960's women had very little power at all.
    Some women though only a few right now lead big businesses like the American Cheryl Sandberg and the Canadian Heather Reisman. Thousands of other women run businesses in many fields. Gay and lesbian people in many countries won the right to get married
     The dreams of the old left and the New Left are now history. Capitalism now rules the roost. Dick the man who believed that capitalism could safely absorb feminism passed away in 2007. He remained a socialist to his dying day.  Jackie was last seen trying to organize Hispanic American workers  in the American South. She remains a socialist although probably a more realistic one now.
     As one progressive said recently, "Socialism is history but the struggle for social justice still goes on." Jackie and Dick would have agreed with that.