The tweet, Androsky later explained, was meant to be a criticism of Hollywood in the wake of revelations about Weinstein: The caption, "Hey libs try taking THIS statue down,” was a reference to conservative responses to calls to dismantle Confederate statues.
But both have vocal, overlapping fan bases who are active online, and both have gained an outsize visibility on the left - Chapo and its fans don’t represent the full spectrum of American socialism, but few socialists, other than Sanders himself, have as big an audience or as large a platform from which to broadcast their views.Įarlier this month, Josh Androsky, an officer with the DSA in Los Angeles, tweeted a photo of himself and two of the hosts of Chapo Trap House - Menaker and Christman - posing with Bill Cosby’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the tweet has since been deleted). The hosts of Chapo have actively promoted the DSA, while Cum Town is less political. (One of Cum Town’s hosts, Adam Friedland, was a Vox Media employee.) The two shows openly swap compliments and promote each other, though Cum Town is much more vulgar and says it is not interested in politics.
A series of controversies over the past two weeks - many of which have stemmed indirectly from sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein - has reinvigorated a debate over whether the socialist left has done enough to condemn the misogyny in the ranks of a movement explicitly devoted to gender equality. To many leftists, these criticisms felt like a smokescreen to distract from centrists’ unwillingness to confront more fundamental class divides.īut now similar criticisms are coming from within. During the 2016 primary, some Hillary Clinton supporters argued that misogynist "Bernie Bros" were unfairly criticizing their candidate.
“It comes out through harassment, abuse, mansplaining, or ignoring women.”Īllegations of sexism against the socialist left aren't new. Other socialist women have told her they’re “tired of men not paying attention to the world outside of them,” she said. “At steering committee meetings, I’m interrupted by men who feel they can talk over me,” she said of her organization, which is 65 percent male. And the Democratic Socialists of America, where she is the Washington, DC, chair, isn’t always a refuge. Like many women, Margaret McLaughlin is used to dealing with sexism and harassment, whether it’s on the street or in the workplace.