A Cautionary Tale for Black Females Who Experiment with Science under Capitalism

Sixteen-year-old high school student Kiera Wilmot was recently expelled and charged as an adult with a felony: possessing or discharging weapons or firearms at a school sponsored event or on school property and making or attempting to make a destructive device. No one was injured, and the young lady had no prior disciplinary infractions.

After international outcry about the unjust harshness of the punishment, Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty dropped the charges. However, Wilmot was still forced out of her high school and ordered to complete her degree through an expulsion program, separating her from peers and her twin sister. This type of displacement has been shown to negatively effect socialization, as well as student achievement. Not only could Wilmot's school change negatively impact her own mental health, socialization, and academic performance, it could also negatively affect her former and future classmates. Professor of economics and policy studies at the University of Notre Dame, Jennifer Warlick, discovered that students who change schools "can suffer psychologically, socially and academically" while "academic achievement of...students who stay in one school is also negatively affected by the school’s mobility rate." 

While some blame the institutional overreaction on "what a large, unbending bureaucracy can do to its people, including a curious, precocious child"(1) and the "mindlessness" of "zero-tolerance laws," Jesse Lava at Daily Kos considers this primarily a racial issue. The racial discipline gap has been widely documented, with Andrea Ayres-Deets at PolicyMic noting, "...African-American students were 3-1/2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers" and Tamar Lewin at the New York Times pointing out that "over 70 percent of the students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or black." 

Christopher Emdin at the Huffington Post also thinks the Wilmot incident highlights race-based discrimination, as well as discrimination against women and disabled persons, that is already rampant in science and engineering fields, pointing out:

"The National Science foundation recently released data indicating that women, persons with disabilities, and three racial/ethnic groups--African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians--constitute smaller percentages of science and engineering degree recipients (as well as employed scientists and engineers) than they do of the population...[T]he science and engineering workforce is largely white and male, and minority women, especially African American women, comprise about 1 in 10 employed scientists and engineers."

While the initial disgraceful overreaction of Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty and the school board was certainly racially motivated and a result of a deeply flawed, assembly-line educational system, there are other factors at play, including the consequences of a disruptive gender performance and capital's insatiable need for unpaid and exploited labor.

Kiera Wilmot failed to perform her (female) gender properly, resulting in punishment by the patriarchy. According to Judith Butler, those who fail to properly perform the rituals and acts traditionally associated with one's gender are punished by a patriarchal society that relies on rigid and heteronormative gender performances to maintain its structure. By displaying curiosity about science, being adventurous, and conducting a hands-on experiment, Wilmot deviated from the female gender role (i.e. female as passive, compliant, verbal/non-physical) that patriarchy requires of women to reproduce itself. Therefore, she will suffer the consequences. Because Wilmot is a person of color, these consequences are further complicated.

The privatized (i.e. for-profit) prison system is no longer satisfied to obtain cheap labor by ensnaring young persons of color with systematic racial police oppression and violence in communities of color and has begun to rely on school expulsions and other civil matters on newly militarized campuses. As the demand for virtually unpaid prison labor increases, capital must increase incarceration rates. Since persons of color are incarcerated at a much higher rate than whites, these systemic efforts to sustain the pool of inexpensive labor disproportionately effect persons and neighborhoods of color. The racist foundation of the school-to-prison pipeline is obvious when a precocious 16-year-old student with no disciplinary history is carted away in handcuffs and tears then (almost) charged with a felony and expelled for mixing a couple of household chemicals together to learn what would happen. 

The school-to-prison pipeline supplies a steady flow of cheap labor to companies, as well as disenfranchises (primarily) citizens of color in many states. The most efficient way to ensure that working class persons of color trapped by the school-to-prison pipeline are unable to defend themselves from relentless attacks by a capitalist state hellbent on obtaining increasing amounts of inexpensive labor for the longest possible period of time is to drain them of energy and financial resources. This is exactly what is happening to the Wilmots. The Wilmot family resources are being steadily drained, as Kiera's mother misses days of work and pays attorneys with her single-parent income. The Wilmot family morale is also being steadily eroded: The forced school switch has separated Kiera from her twin sister, and she has been forbidden from playing cello in the local orchestra and attending its annual banquet and spring concert.

The reversal of the decision to prosecute Wilmot as an adult on felony charges for a harmless high school science experiment reveals that the school-to-prison pipeline occasionally fails to deliver to capital nearly unpaid labor and subsequently a disenfranchised citizen. The failure of the pipeline to extract cheap labor from Kiera Wilmot then strip away her voting rights is wonderful news for her. However, even when the school-to-prison pipeline ostensibly fails, it nonetheless serves as a warning, an ominous scarecrow of sorts. This scarecrow warns: even if you're a well-behaved young person of color with a healthy interest in science, you remain at risk of being incarcerated, exploited for labor, and disenfranchised; furthermore, properly perform your gender role or you will be separated from friends and loved ones, forbidden to perform extracurricular activities, and psychologically endangered. The scarecrow is a reminder that we are all constantly being monitored by the patriarchal capitalist police state and that very real consequences await those who dare to challenge it.

(1) Bill Bucolo qtd. on WMNF, 5/7/13

How Capitalism Failed Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight

Three young women go missing from a working class Cleveland neighborhood and are held captive in ropes and chains, beaten, and raped for nine to eleven years, one bearing a child and one having five forced miscarriages. Neighbors called police on kidnapper/rapist Ariel Castro multiple times to report odd behavior, including bags and plywood over the windows, three naked young women on all fours being walked on leashes in the backyard, loud banging, and a mysterious woman holding a baby in the attic making distressed gestures (1)(2). Police ignore the calls or arrive, knock a few times, and leave. Only when one of the three women breaks free from her bondage and a courageous neighbor (3) kicks in the door are the women and a captivity-born 6-year-old rescued. This leaves so many unanswered questions, the most pervasive being: how could this have happened without anyone noticing?

The kidnapper/rapist Ariel Castro has a sordid history of gruesome violence against women and children. He tormented his wife with cruel psychological games and brutally beat her frequently, resulting in knocked out teeth, dislocated shoulders, broken noses, cracked ribs, and a blood clot on her brain. He confined her and children inside their house against their will. He controlled every aspect of his wife's life and threatened to kill her if she left him. He viciously beat her with chains, which her family thinks eventually resulted in brain trauma and death. His daughter Arlene was best friends with Gina DeJesus and was the last person to see her before her disappearance. Furthermore, a police sketch released clearly portrayed Castro. Despite his misogynist and abusive history, his previous kidnapping and abuse of his children, the confinement of his wife, his familiarity with and proximity to DeJesus, and a suspect sketch uncannily resembling himself, Castro was never investigated for the rash of kidnappings.

Neighbors claim that in numerous instances police were called for suspicious behavior but were unresponsive. One neighbor, Israel Lugo, called the police in 2011 when his sister noticed a woman with a baby banging on the attic window looking as though she wanted to escape. Lugo said, "The cops came. They pounded on that man’s door around 15, 20 times, real hard. They looked in the driveway, they got back in the squad car and left." Lugo ends one interview by saying, "Anytime you call the police, it doesn't get done around here."

Another neighbor reported seeing a naked woman in the backyard and staring from an open window for a little while each day. When she called the police to report these disturbing observations, they assumed that it was a prank and did not respond. Soon afterward, the kidnapper/rapist obscured the yard and house with tarps. A neighbor who lives three doors down from Castro, 55-year-old Elsie Cintron, said that about a year ago her granddaughter saw a naked woman crawling out of the house on all fours then went back inside. The granddaughter called the cops, who never responded. Juan Perez, who lives two doors down, and his mother heard a disturbing scream from the basement about three years ago. "It was the kind of scream that made you uncomfortable so my mom called the police," he said. They never responded.

Police claim to have no records of the numerous neighbors' calls. After denying that they had ever received any calls whatsoever about the kidnapper/rapist, police finally admitted to visiting Castro's home twice. They claimed to be responding to his call about a fight in the neighborhood and to investigate his negligence on his school bus driving job when he abandoned a student on the bus, ordering the child to "lay down, bitch." Were police negligent and lackadaisical because the reports were coming from an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, because the callers were persons of color who spoke with accents, or because the allegations indicated crimes against women and children? Whatever the reasons for the police's unforgivable failures, they weren't the only ones turning a blind eye to a disturbing character and situation. Plenty of men in Castro's life were, too.

Several men acquainted with the kidnapper/rapist were ignoring red flags galore. For years, the kidnapper/rapist's son was forbidden to enter three locked areas of the house--the attic, the garage, and the basement. Two weeks ago when he visited his father, Castro wouldn't let him enter the house at all. The owner of the house next door and longtime Castro enemy, Doug Parker, claimed that the kidnapper/rapist had always had a suspiciously secured home with multiple locks and "in the heat of the summer...As sweat poured from his brow, he would notice that next door was buttoned down—windows tightly sealed, no air conditioning, all the blinds shut. And he knew Castro was in there because his car was parked out front." While recently inside the house, Ricky Sanchez heard "banging on a wall" and noticed multiple locks on the outside door. A little girl came out from the kitchen and stared at him silently. Then he couldn't leave "because there were so many locks." Yet Castro's creepy behavior didn't prompt the younger Castro, the enemy Parker, or friend Sanchez to act.

Band leader Ivan Ruiz also knew Castro was dangerous and predatory, yet did nothing. Castro invited Ruiz's17-year-old son over to play drums, but Ruiz quickly forbade him to go. "I didn't trust having him with my child. He was a senile kind of person. A crazy kind of person. He was weird," Ruiz said. Ruiz found it strange that Castro would never allow bandmates inside to unload heavy band equipment nor allow visitors to pull into the driveway, claiming there were nails in it. Another aberrant behavior was Castro's reluctance to stay overnight with his band, which booked hotel rooms for gigs in Toledo, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. "He was the only one who never stayed," Ruiz said. "He would say, 'I have to get home.' It was weird." Miguel Quinones, manager of a band Castro played with in 2008, observed that band practice was never held at Castro's place and his bandmates never entered his home. Despite his bandmate's suspicions, none of them ever felt the need to investigate the situation.

Numerous neighbors, friends, relatives, and bandmates observed disturbing occurrences at the Castro house. The women who reported the incidents to police to police were ignored; the men who observed suspicious behavior failed to alert the authorities or to investigate the situation independently. Women have historically been ignored by authority (often with the consequence of being diagnosed with hysteria, locked in institutions, and subjected to electroshock therapy). But what of the men who did nothing? Perhaps the men were hesitant to involve police since police have a documented history of harassing and assaulting men of color, but this does not explain why the numerous men who were suspicious of the kidnapper/rapist did not confront him or otherwise investigate the situation themselves.

One possible explanation for the men in the community's (including the police's) lack of intervention in the inexplicable happenings at the home of the kidnapper/rapist is the culture of silence and secrecy surrounding domestic violence. Domestic violence is still widely considered a private matter in which outsiders should not intervene. We are socialized to consider domestic violence Someone Else's Problem. We frequently falsely perceive it as an equal dispute between consenting parties when, to the contrary, it primarily arises from an inherently unequal relationship between two genders, one of which has been oppressed in nearly every culture for centuries due to the biological nature of femaleness and the consequent sole burden of performing all of the reproductive labor for any given society. Domestic violence harms everyone in the community, and comrades must struggle to overcome our individualistic socialization to stop the epidemic of violence behind closed doors.   

What of the failures of the police? Aside from complacency about calls from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and a misogynist reluctance to respond to potential domestic violence calls, there is yet another reason police might not have sufficiently responded to complaints about Castro and failed to maintain reliable records about 911 calls over the years. Public sector workers cannot effectively function without proper funding and resources. And Cleveland, like many other cities across the US, has faced severe cuts and layoffs in recent years.

The gutting of the public sector partially explains why police were unable or unwilling to respond to calls about the kidnapper/rapist, as well as why they failed to thoroughly investigate even the very neighborhood from which the three young women disappeared. When public service sectors are undermined by austerity measures, public servants lack the resources to competently perform their jobs. Don't misunderstand me: I have no reverence for the armed gangs of thugs called police that protect capital and terrorize working class neighborhoods, persons of color, women, and young persons, but they occasionally perform certain vital functions within society (e.g. apprehend rapists, recover missing children, locate stolen cars). While police forces continue to exist, we should ensure that they are properly funded.

Of course, while public services in poor neighborhoods are being gutted, there is always a way to fund the rejuvenation of certain parts of the city. Wealthier and whiter sections of the city build new police stations as working poor neighborhoods like the one in which Berry, Knight, and DeJesus were held captive are virtually ignored by police, allowing rapists, kidnappers, and murderers to flourish. And flourish they have. Castro is not the first woman-hating rapist, kidnapper, and murderer to operate in this forgotten Cleveland neighborhood. Anthony Sowell, also known as the Cleveland Strangler, kidnapped, raped, murdered, and dismembered numerous women just blocks away for years as police ignored calls from multiple rape and kidnap survivors.

Police neglect of numerous neighbors' complaints, as well as the cultural norm of ignoring the warning signs of domestic violence can be attributed to the fact that capital benefits from disturbances in the poor, dark side of town and in sexual abuse and violence against women. A steady stream of conflict in working class neighborhoods prevents the community from unifying and organizing against exploitation at the workplace or the rental home. Battered women are often too preoccupied with an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness to become educated about the companies polluting their air and food while exploiting their labor. Beaten children are less likely to grow into confident adults who challenge exploitation of their labor and often become domestic abusers in adulthood. Domestic abusers perpetuate this cycle and often end up in the privatized prison system where their labor is exploited as they provide cheap labor for companies.

Capital has a vested interest in perpetuating the cultural norm that kidnapping, rape, and domestic violence are private matters that should be handled by the persons involved, not intervened upon by the community or the underfunded police. The bourgeois nuclear family enforces a competitive, individualistic hierarchy that mirrors the manner in which capital exploits labor. The competitive drive between individuals under the guise of providing for one's family at all costs is perpetuated by capital and damages communities. The bourgeois notion of a nuclear family with its own individual agenda lends cultural legitimacy to the false but dominant perception that one's family must flourish at the expense of others and is one cultural justification for exploitation of workers.

Our autonomist friends are onto something when they tout the virtues of community-building. Although gardens and bartering cannot effectively threaten capital on their own, community-building activities are effective ways to combat the secrecy of domestic violence as well as the dangerous notions of the nuclear family and its competitive individualism, all the while developing comradely bonds. These bonds can become revolutionary when workers finally refuse to be further exploited by capital and seize control of the means of production. Only then can we begin to expect radical equality and a dismantlement of a patriarchy that discourages community intervention in situations--such as the Berry, DeJesus, and Knight nightmare--that capital perceives as private.

 (1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm831Wcun28

 (2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/ariel-castro-neighbors-police-naked-woman_n_3233340.htm

(2) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/10/my-neighbor-the-monster-life-next-door-to-ariel-castro.html

(3) Charles Ramsey was as perpetrator of domestic violence in the past, which does not negate his heroic intervention in this scenario and which, if I put aside my aversion to lauding wife beaters, might have prepared him to intervene in what he perceived as a domestic violence situation that most persons, including police, ignored (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/08/cleveland-hero-charles-ramsey-was-jailed-for-domestic-violence/).

A MF Response to Silvia Federici's "Wages Against Housework" (1975)

Since my self-identified women only feminist discussion group explored the text, several folks have expressed an interest in my response to Silvia Federici's "Wages Against Housework" (Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975). Here is a link to the complete text: http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/silvia-federici-wages-against-housework/. Here is my analysis:

1.) This is a fun read. It's short and powerful while making a very strong case for the importance of earning wages for housework. Federici strategically and successfully uses "cunt" and  "fucking" to jar and challenge readers and to emphasize the sexual objectification of women through common gendered slurs. The opening epigrams are defiant; the essay comes out swinging:

"They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.

They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism.

Every miscarriage is a work accident.

Homosexuality and heterosexuality are both working conditions…but homosexuality is workers’ control of production, not the end of work.

More smiles? More money. Nothing will be so powerful in destroying the healing virtues of a smile.

Neuroses, suicides, desexualization: occupational diseases of the housewife."

2.) Wages for housework is a wonderful idea. I stand in solidarity with and will fight side-by-side with anyone struggling for wages against housework. I accept Federici's premise that "...we are all housewives, we are all prostitutes and we are all gay, because until we recognise our slavery we cannot recognise our struggle against it, because as long as we think we are something better, something different than a housewife, we accept the logic of the master, which is a logic of division, and for us the logic of slavery. We are all housewives because no matter where we are they can always count on more work from us, more fear on our side to put forward our demands, and less pressure on them for money, since hopefully our minds are directed elsewhere, to that man in our present or our future who will 'take care of us'." I strongly agree with Federici's point that domestic laborers should be considered part of the workforce and should be able to organize for better conditions and eventually to revolt. Domestic labor is labor and should be considered by everyone and compensated as such.

3.) My idea of what constitutes a "revolutionary perspective" differs from Federici's. For her, revolutionary programs need not damage or seek to end capital, but only "attack[s] capital and force[s] it to restructure social relations in terms more favourable to us."* For me, revolutionary programs must absolutely damage and seek to overthrow capital. Therefore, while for Federici wages against housework is a revolutionary demand, for me it is a transitional at best, reformist at worst, demand. While it would undoubtedly ease the suffering of many working class women (and men) and perhaps strike a great blow to patriarchy, it would not destroy or even necessarily weaken capital.

4.) Federici's claim that wages for housework would promote class unity seems to be the most obvious advantage to a wages for housework program. Most of us are threatened with retaliation for organizing for better conditions at work, so would it not be an invigorating development for the working class to be able to come home after a long day of exploitation and discuss work complaints and demands with one's domestic partner? The resentment frequently caused by the friction between domestic labor (e.g. the domestic laborer feels taken for granted and doubly exploited if s/he also works outside of the home) and labor outside of the home (e.g. the laborer feels the pressure of providing for the partner who works at home) would likely be eased by the empowerment that comes with working class unity. Once the domestic laborer and the out-of-home laborer are both considered legitimate laborers, some part of the (social) division of labor dies, perhaps even resulting in some minor alleviation of alienation, and a new bond is formed between them. If both partners work outside of the home, then there will be a more equitable distribution of domestic chores between them because of the new status of domestic labor as paid/socially-contracted labor, as well as because of the blow to the heteronormative gender roles perpetuated by the patriarchy that require and train women to be responsible for cleanliness and chores.**

Federici makes fascinating points about the status of housework as unpaid labor. This is one of the most poignant paragraphs:
"But in the case of housework the situation is qualitatively different. The difference lies in the fact that not only has housework been imposed on women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character. Housework had to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognised as a social contract because from the beginning of capital’s scheme for women this work was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept our unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that housework is not work, thus preventing women from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen-bedroom quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing the protagonist of a struggle. We are seen as nagging bitches, not workers in struggle."

5.) While I agree with Federici that "...housework is already money for capital...," I must side with Alexandra Kollontai on one of their other disagreements. Collectivized childcare and housework should be part of any revolutionary program.*** What a flamboyant straw man that Federici in her bombast has created! No one is promoting the jingoistic flag worship that she claims will be an inevitable result of state-run daycare. In fact, socialism is antithetical to jingoism; therefore, socialist programs, such as collectivized childcare, are also antithetical to jingoism. Socialism, as Marx conceived it, must be an international struggle, thereby making jingoism irrelevant and offensive (not to mention counterrevolutionary). No comrades will be forcing anyone's children to worship a flag.

Federici claims that collectivized daycare would result in a loss of control over workers' lives, with the state determining what children should learn and how they should be disciplined. However, in a socialist society, worker collectives (consisting of parents and domestic laborers) would determine the best practices for these communal care centers. If a worker genuinely fears that the all-powerful state will begin an insidious propaganda and indoctrination campaign against children, then that worker should become involved in the decision-making process surrounding childcare and housework (i.e. join the relevant collective). There will be no loss of worker control under collectivized childcare. In fact, the converse is true. Workers will be the only ones in control of raising and nurturing children under socialism. Once the fierce individualism bred by capitalism becomes passe, childcare can once again focus on raising the best possible people equipped to perpetuate the best possible society.

Housework under socialism absolutely must be collectivized. Imagine two scenarios:
a.) A worker spends eight hours (or less, depending on whether full employment has yet been accomplished) on the job. After work, the worker faces three hours of domestic chores.
b.) A worker spends eight hours on the job. During those eight hours, another worker has dusted, vacuumed, swept and mopped, washed and folded the laundry, cleaned the dishes, and cooked dinner. After their respective shifts, both workers return to clean homes, with no responsibility to conduct further labor.

As a full-time worker, it is apparent to me that choice a.) is the more desirable and more equitable choice because, paid or unpaid, housework after a long day at work is an undesirable burden. Collectivized housework allows both workers to contribute meaningfully to society then enjoy their leisure time unencumbered by the demands of a second job.

7.) I take issue with Federici's inexplicable negative characterization of the "career woman." She characterizes the struggle of the "career woman" as a meaningless one by using the word "worthwhile" sarcastically, then claims that women with careers do not utilize "unity and struggle" to achieve their goals and habitually oppress and exploit other women. While this might sometimes be the case, it is unfair to completely dismiss professional women who are only able to pursue a career as a direct result of feminist battles for maternity leave and workplace equality and who do not build their careers on the backs of other women.****

*The usual left communist argument could be made here: that wages for housework would somewhat ease the burden of living under capitalism, thereby resulting in a delay of revolution. While I am not prepared to support that argument (for is it not self-righteous and privileged--not to mention historically questionable--to suggest that workers should suffer more intensely in order to more swiftly bring about revolution? Do workers not historically fight against capital more effectively when they are well fed, properly clothed, and safely housed?), I do understand  its internal logic, while simultaneously marveling at its icy condescension.

**My analysis primarily addresses heterosexual relations of power under capital because that is Federici's primary focus although I would like to examine her occasional provocative comments about homosexuality and labor in a later post.


***The childcare currently in the US is privatized and run by underpaid, underqualified, disinterested (and often abusive) parties charging exorbitant fees or that are subsidized by a state that will not (and perhaps cannot) prioritize child care.

**** Under capitalism it is impossible to avoid building something on the back of some woman somewhere in the world. Therefore, "career women" do oppress other women. However, it is unfair to dismiss "career women" (while presumably allowing others a free pass) with a sneer because they participate in exploitation common to everyone who pays taxes and consumes goods in the imperialist US.

Don't say that Margaret Thatcher never did anything for feminism. I started this blog because of her.

More specifically, I started it because of the vitriolic, misogynist responses to her death from male socialists.

Disclaimer: I despise Thatcher, who was a monster for her atrocities against various peoples, including her destructive policies involving the Malvinas Islands and subsequent consequences for Argentinians, as well as her collusion with the tyrant Pinochet, who violently overthrew the oldest democracy in Latin America at the time in 1974. For a people's history of Thatcher, visit: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/09/297353/margaret-thatchers-criminal-legacy/ For an interesting take on her and Pinochet, visit: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/04/neruda-pinochet-thatcher-chile-murder-exhumed.html. It should be blatantly apparent that I loathe Thatcher and her neoliberal, war-mongering, class warfare that killed thousands and injured more. 

Moving on. The Morning Thatcher Died, my Facebook feed was one long, uninterrupted misogynist slur. The typically equality-embracing, working class defending, feminist critiquing Marxist men who dominate my Friends List were being something they usually are not: misogynist. To clarify, this blatant woman-hating was toned down by the afternoon, once several feminists had noticed and begun protesting it. But first thing that morning, it was overwhelming. 

It is important that comrades be able to separate genuine political critiques from hollow sexist attacks. The blatant misogyny I witnessed that morning came in the form of one-liners, often on top of images of Thatcher, stating: "Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead;" "The big bitch is dead;" "Rest in piss, cunt;" "Bitch;" and so on. Such gendered slurs should be unacceptable in circles that proclaim the virtues of equality and the value of feminism. 

In fact, these empty misogynist attacks actually served to cheapen and waste an opportunity for critical reflection on the damage done by Thatcher to feminism and the working class. Instead of wasting time with mindless knee-jerk gendered reactions to the death of a tyrant, Marxists should have been seizing the moment to raise awareness about exactly what she did that was so atrocious.

When I voiced critiques about this barrage of woman hating, I was met with objections to her policies, assurances that she was no friend to feminists, and accusations of liberal leanings (because liberals were whining that it was in "bad taste" to celebrate her death despite her crimes against humanity, something we shall see if they remember when George Bush II dies).

People seemed unable to differentiate my genuine concern about the sexist manner in which comrades were celebrating her death from a perceived approval of her policies. My objection against misogynist rhetoric did not negate my objection to Thatcher's role in the growth of neoliberalism and the exploitation of the international working class. 

One comrade posted that he thought men celebrating Thatcher's death constituted "violent rhetoric against women." (Please read that sentence closely because some commentators seemed incapable of critical reading and interpretation. It does not say "violence;" it says "violent rhetoric." It also specifies "men.") I have a deep appreciation of a male comrade's ability and willingness to recognize the potential harm done to women as a group by the profusion of misogyny that resulted from Thatcher's death. There certainly was something tribal and primal about the male socialist reaction to the news. It felt like the conclusion of a witch trial might have felt, a self-righteous, paternalistic celebration of the demise of some aberrant woman beast. I definitely felt intimidated and unsafe, as though the (distinctly gendered) hatred were somehow directed at me. This is unacceptable.

This is not a liberal cry to "play nice." I call for comrades to consciously avoid being misogynist, to become acutely aware of its presence, and to call out all instances of it, online and in person. This is a plea to eradicate sexism within our ranks to allow the free exchange of ideas and the unrestricted activity necessary to plan and execute a revolution. We must respect each other in order to stand in solidarity against the ruling class. 

UPDATE: Here is the only Thatcher obituary you need. Thanks to Richard Seymour for redeeming the Left (again), and thanks to the Wolfe for pointing it out to me.