something I see more often as a talking point in leftist spaces is that all misogyny is idpol fodder meant to divide the working class. and this is simply something I don't believe! this is a perspective that pops up a lot in certain breadtube-adjacent or "class-first" circles, and it always tastes a bit like recycled 1970s reductionism. the idea is usually presented as the "ultimate" materialist take: that gender struggle is just a distraction from the real fight, which is the economic one.
“the elites want us fighting a gender war so we don’t notice them stealing our surplus value!” and while, sure, the ruling class loves a good distraction, we can't treat misogyny as a top-down invention rather than a foundational, structural reality. It implies that if we just fixed the bank accounts, the way men treat women in private and public spaces would magically recalibrate to neutral. misogyny predates modern capitalism: you can’t claim a system is purely a capitalist distraction when its roots are entwined with thousands of years of property rights, domestic labor, and the literal control of reproduction.
it ignores that there is a specific kind of status - a psychological wage - that even the most exploited man can receive by being above a woman. to say this is just "idpol" ignores why so many people cling to it so fiercely even when it doesn't help their bank account. by calling it "identity politics," it implies to women that their specific experience of exploitation is divisive to bring up, while the male experience is treated as the universal human default.
true solidarity isn't ignoring the ways we are hurt differently; we should be acknowledging those differences so we can actually stand together without one person's boot being on the other's neck. we aren't "dividing" the working class by pointing out misogyny, we are pointing out that the class is already divided by it, and we'd like to actually fix it.
P.S.: it’s always funny how the people who scream the loudest about "identity politics" being a distraction are usually the ones whose identity is never the one being up for debate