Palestinian Americans Worry Anti-Gaza Rhetoric Will Turn Into Islamophobic Legislation

Palestinians across the U.S. are speaking out about what it’s like living in the U.S. right now and seeing their country seemingly turn against them

By Lajward Zahra

November 12, 2023No Comments6 Mins Read
Source: Prism


In his initial remarks after the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, President Joe Biden stated, “As long as the United States stands—and we will stand forever—we will not let [Israel] ever be alone.” Over the past month, the U.S. has maintained its position of unwaveringly backing the occupation State of Israel, even as casualties in Gaza rise to more than 10,000 and calls for a ceasefire mount. Congress, as a whole, has maintained a similar stance to the White House. The Senate and the House have introduced resolutions condemning the Oct. 7 attacks, calling for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas, and “affirming the support of the United States for Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.” But some conservative lawmakers have taken even stronger anti-Gazan stances, calling for the redirection of humanitarian aid funds from Gaza to Israeli defense and characterizing all Palestinians in Gaza as antisemitic.

Some of this anti-Gazan sentiment has evolved into broader anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic sentiment with many Muslims and Muslim organizations comparing this rise in Islamophobia to post-9/11 levels. Violent hate crimes, such as the killing of 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume, the stabbing of Dr. Talat Jehan Khan, and the running over of an Arab-American student at Stanford University, are also on the rise.

“Hate crimes have increased dramatically since Oct. 7, and it is extremely concerning,” said Niala Mohammad, the director of policy and strategy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). “Our elected officials need to address the bullying and retaliation against Muslim families, students, and employees by providing them with the support and safety to ensure that the American Muslim and Arab communities are not treated as suspects nor continue to suffer from the collective trauma experienced since 9/11.”

She also pointed out that MPAC is “concerned that [Islamophobia] will amplify in conservative states where the great replacement theory narrative is echoed freely.” The “great replacement theory” is a xenophobic, white supremacist idea that white individuals are being replaced by immigrants and people of color, and some conservative lawmakers have espoused similar xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. Former President Donald Trump asserted that the “same people” who were attacking Israel were crossing into the U.S. through the southern border to commit attacks before calling for a reinstatement of the so-called “Muslim Ban.” Mohammad finds this particularly concerning, highlighting that “this ban garnered significant support from Trump followers, and we are concerned the current state of affairs will justify the proposition of similar executive orders.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s top opponent in the Republican primary, has promoted similar rhetoric, stating, “You have to recognize that if that can happen in Israel, what do you think can happen in our country with an open border where 7 million people at a minimum have come through illegally?” DeSantis has also stated on multiple occasions that the U.S. should take no Palestinian refugees, citing that Palestinians “are all antisemitic.”

In his home state, DeSantis has shut down chapters of the pro-Palestine organization Students for Justice in Palestine, citing their alleged support for a “terrorist organization,” even as some argue that this is a violation of free speech. Haneen Jabbar, a Palestinian-American student at the University of Florida, told Prism, “The entire conservative state of Florida is very anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian … Whenever people speak about Palestine in Florida, it risks their future and education, and people are definitely being silenced. People are scared to speak up because of the repercussions.”

Republicans have already commenced immigration restrictions by introducing the Guaranteeing Aggressors Zero Admission Act (GAZA Act) “to make aliens who are holders of a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority ineligible for visas, admission, or parole into the United States.”

Noor Hamed, a Palestinian American from Wisconsin, told Prism, “I’m seeing my politicians not stand with me. I’m an American citizen; it’s sad to see.” A broader example of this new wave of restrictive immigration legislation is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s bill to cancel visas for foreign nationals who have “endorsed and espoused the actions of foreign terrorist organizations,” such as “pro-Hamas demonstrators.”

Both Hamed and Jabbar also say they feel “dehumanized” right now living in a country that is not backing them.

“It feels like no one really supports not just the Palestinian cause, but even cares about Palestinian lives in general,” Jabbar told Prism. Jabbar explained that for her mother, who was born in Palestine, the current situation in the U.S. has been affecting her mental health.

Hamed added that because of the response around her, she feels gaslit. “I look at what’s going on, and I feel for my people. Then I look up, and I feel insane. Nobody around me other than my close friends is supporting me. My politicians are not supporting me, and my peers are not supporting me … I feel like nobody else sees it, like I’m insane for seeing what I see.”

Both Hamed and Jabbar highlighted that misinformation and the rise in Islamophobia are particularly problematic as the Isreali genocide of Palestinians continues for the 32nd day, citing the rise in hate crimes and the suppression of Palestinian voices. Mohammad added that Islamophobic sentiment being pushed in general “under the guise of national security” is another concern. She cited the attorney general of Virginia’s announcement that his office is launching an investigation into the nonprofit American Muslims for Palestine for a possible violation of Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws based on accusations that the nonprofit is supporting terrorism. “We are treated as a suspect community for showing solidarity with Palestinians,” Mohammad said.

The increased suspicion likely fuels the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ report finding an 182% increase in reports of “bias incidents” against Muslims in the period from Oct. 7 to Oct. 24 compared to the same period last year.

Hamed said finding ways to show solidarity is the most helpful way people can show support for Palestinian Americans and Palestinians right now, including vocalizing support for Palestine and Palestinians on social media, attending protests, and educating oneself and others.

“I’ve had friends who have reached out to me and been like, ‘I hope everything is OK with you; I hope you’re doing fine,’” Hamed said. “I don’t want your condolences … I want people to stop being cowards. I want people to realize that there’s nothing to lose … You can do something. Everybody can do something. I want to see people care and use their privilege in a good way.”

CANADA

Repression of Palestinian Solidarity on Campuses Must End

By Independent Jewish Voices

November 12, 2023
Source: Socialist Project

Organizer Sara Kishawi holds a sign at the "Rally for Palestine" at Vancouver Island University on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023 organized by the Muslim Women's Club. Photos: Mick Sweetman, CHLY 101.7FM, Local Journalism Initiative.

Following the deadly Hamas attacks, Israel has engaged in non-stop bombing in the last weeks on the 2.3 million people living in the Gaza strip. We are witnessing civilian Palestinian casualties in the thousands. Meanwhile, Israel has cut off electricity, water, humanitarian aid, and internet and phone service to the people of Gaza. These restrictions on vital utilities are considered war crimes. People have lost entire families and Palestinians and allies all over the world are watching the news in grief and rage.

As politicians like Justin Trudeau continue to pledge their support to Israel, more and more people are mobilising to show our governments that the people of Canada want a ceasefire now. Rallies have taken place from coast to coast, in large cities like Toronto, and Vancouver, smaller cities like Halifax, and across university campuses. Even high school students in Toronto are organising walk-outs to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.


Solidarity Groups on Campus

Speaking up for Palestinian human rights in Canada has often come with a cost, particularly within institutions of higher learning. In 2022, Independent Jewish Voices released a report documenting the repression of Palestinian solidarity that students and faculty are facing on campuses across Canada. Now, during the latest round of Israeli brutality against Gaza, the climate at universities has only grown more suppressive and punitive.

Student groups at McGill, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, and York University have held rallies and released statements showing their support for the people of Palestine and calling for an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response, university administrations have condemned their students and threatened to decertify student unions.

Universities are meant to be places where young people learn and explore new ideas, and begin engaging in public discourse. It is therefore inappropriate for school administrators to threaten to intervene in and crush these students’ academic careers because of their political beliefs. If the University administration disagrees with a statement, it is fully within the right of the administration to publicly express its strong disapproval and disavowal of the positions therein – as has already been done. Similarly, if a student body disagrees with the actions of their union representatives, they may remove these student leaders from power through existing union mechanisms such as elections. For the university administration to aggressively interfere with these students’ academic careers, however, sets a precedent for an unjust and dangerous overreach.
Free Speech

Universities have a special obligation to protect free speech and diverse views on their campuses. Executives and administrators need not agree with all sentiments and statements that their students and faculty make. Indeed, this is the cornerstone of academic freedom enshrined in university protocols such as faculty tenure. While some may disagree with what is said, the right to speak up for Palestinian human, civil and political rights on campus is sacrosanct. The punitive precedent that the administration is setting will harm all equity-deserving groups at universities, including Jewish students who support Palestinian rights.

We call on these schools to cease their punitive response to students, staff, and faculty who speak up for Palestine. •

Wave of Suppression Targets Palestinian-Canadian Workers

BY JEREMY APPEL

NOVEMBER 13, 2023Facebook

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Supporters of Palestine rally on Oct. 24 in Toronto during Israel’s attack on Gaza. (Flickr/Boris Terzic)

In the wake of the brutal Oct. 7 surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel and Israel’s merciless bombing and invasion of Gaza, Palestinian-Canadians have been under attack from their employers, academic institutions, law enforcement and the country’s op-ed pages.

There have been far too many examples over the past month of Palestinian-Canadians facing repercussions simply for speaking out about the root causes of 10/7 and advocating for an end to what Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations agree is an apartheid regime between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

Any social media posting, rally appearance or expression of solidarity is scrutinized for its most uncharitable interpretation to depict Palestinian-Canadians as an active threat to the safety of Jewish-Canadians.

In Calgary, Palestinian activist Wesam Khaled was charged with a hate crime for leading a chant of From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which police described as an “offensive antisemitic comment” without elaboration.

As a condition of his bail, he’s not allowed to attend any pro-Palestinian protests.

This is the most recent and glaring example of the suppression of the right of Palestinian-Canadians to simply exist, but it’s been happening since 10/7 out in the open, with those who are quickest to proclaim their support for free speech without any consequences actively encouraging the censorship of Palestinian perspectives.

On Oct. 8, Air Canada pilot Mostafa Ezzo attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal. These rallies were smeared by politicians across the political spectrum as “pro-Hamas,” as if nobody knew that Israel’s response to 10/7 would be deliberately disproportionate and that there might be cause to express support for Palestinians who were about to be buried in rubble.

Two days later, the X account Stopantisemitism, which mainly targets those who post pro-Palestinian sentiment on social media, posted a photo of Ezzo wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh in his pilot uniform.

“NO JEW would feel safe flying with this antisemite,” the anonymous account wrote, managing to be both anti-Palestinian and antisemitic in the assumption that all Jewish people feel threatened by displays of Palestinian nationalism.

In a second tweet, the account showed three other posts from Ezzo’s Instagram stories:

1. A flyer for the Oct. 8 rally with the caption, “Fuck you Israel, burn in hell.”

2. A photo of him at a rally with a sign reading, “Isr*el, Hitler is proud of you.”

3. A photo of him at another rally with a sign saying, “Keep the world clean,” with an image of someone putting an Israeli flag in a trashcan.

Were these posts inflammatory? Sure. Did they express hatred for the State of Israel? Of course. Did they express hatred for Jewish people? Unless one thinks he was complimenting Israel by comparing it to Hitler, the answer is no.

Toronto Sun columnist Joe “Nightscrawler” Warmington was the first to report that Ezzo had been “grounded” by Air Canada on Oct. 10, citing Ezzo “wearing pro-Palestinian colours while in uniform” and a “shocking number of social posts” — that number being three — “containing profane commentary about Israel.”

Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick, unsurprisingly, condemned Ezzo, saying his “opinions and publications on social media do not represent Air Canada’s views in any way.”

“We firmly denounce violence in all forms,” read an Oct. 10 X post from the airline, although there’s no indication that Ezzo endorsed any sort of violence in any of those posts.

Most disturbingly, Ezzo’s union, which has a legal obligation to represent its members in any grievance filed against an employer, made a statement virtually identical to Air Canada management, calling into question its ability to represent Ezzo fairly.

“We condemn all violence and hatred, and any promotion thereof. It is our firm expectation that all of our members abide by this principle and our professional code of ethics,” reads the statement to the Sun from Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Canada.

I reached out to ALPA Canada to inquire whether they had spoken to Ezzo before denouncing him and how they square their denunciation with their duty to fair representation. In response, an unidentified ALPA spokesperson sent the identical statement it sent to the Sun, which answered neither question.

An Oct. 11 post on the Vancouver Is Awesome blog, headlined, “’He belongs in jail’: Air Canada pilot fired after making hateful anti-Israel posts,” compiled replies from Vancouver residents to Air Canada’s post distancing itself from Ezzo, including embedded tweets, such as the one in the article’s headline.

One which was hyperlinked, rather than embedded, was described by writer Elana Shepert as expressing “fear of violence against Jews.”

Here’s what it said: “I’m about to get on an Air Canada flight … I’d hate for us to get flown into a building or something.”

Thus nakedly Islamophobic rhetoric is recast as a legitimate concern about “violence against Jews.”

Two Palestinian journalists have been fired by mainstream news outlets for advocating for Palestinians as Israeli bombs rain down on Gaza.

The expectation that journalists remain neutral, unbiased and objective as their people are being killed is a weapon used to beat racialized journalists over the head, as Pacinthe Mattar wrote much more eloquently in an August 2020 piece in The Walrus.

As of writing, 39 journalists have been killed in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon since 10/7 — 34 Palestinians and one Lebanese killed by Israel and four Israelis killed by Hamas — making the past month the deadliest on record since the Committee to Protect Journalists began tracking data on journalist deaths in 1992. According to Reports without Borders, two more Palestinian journalists have been killed, bringing the total to 41.

On Oct. 25, Al Jazeera reporter Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, where they had sought shelter after Israeli forces ordered them to evacuate their home in northern Gaza on Oct. 13. Al-Dahdoug learned they were killed as he was reporting from Gaza City, where he stayed behind to cover Israeli airstrikes.

Earlier that day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, whose government funds Al Jazeera, to “turn down the volume” of its Gaza coverage.

Israel is preventing Palestinian journalists from telling their own stories to the world and mainstream Canadian media has proved a willing partner to that end.

Palestinian-Canadian Global News journalist Zahraa Al-Akhrass, who’s based in Milton, Ont., was fired while on maternity leave for social media posts expressing her perspective on Israel’s attack on Gaza, which Israeli-born and educated Holocaust and genocide studies scholar Raz Segal has called a “textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”.

“I was told the problem is with me expressing my beliefs, my opposition [to] Israel’s genocide of my people,” she said in an Oct. 29 Instagram video. “Global was literally asking me to look at these horrific images, this genocide and detach myself from my own identity, my own people. Is this ethical or moral, humane or diverse or inclusive?”

Al-Akhrass was the only Palestinian person in her newsroom, which ought to have been an asset for a news organization with a stated commitment to diversity.

Yet a workplace investigator requested a meeting with her to discuss a lack of “balance” in her posts. She was never told which specific posts were in question, but told to delete all of the ones about Israel and Gaza.

In response, Al-Akhrass sent her colleague an image of a dead Palestinian child, telling her that this is her people’s daily lived reality. Al-Akhrass was then further berated for sharing a “disturbing” image without warning.

“Nobody in my workplace would even acknowledge my pain,” Al-Akhrass said in the Instagram video.

She added that her union told her that, despite the fact that this was her lived reality, Al-Akhrass has no business sharing it with other employees.

Global journalists are part of Unifor M-1. Unifor national representative Liz Marzari told The Orchard in an email that a grievance has been filed on Al-Akhrass’s behalf.

In a statement to Hamilton, Ont., news site inthehammer.com, Global News spokesperson Rishma Govani implicitly accused Al-Akhrass of supporting antisemitic violence.

“Commentary by our employees expressing or amplifying violence or discrimination against any group is not condoned and is a violation of our company policies,” said Govani, who also emphasized that Global journalists are obligated to “remain fair and unbiased.”

In a Nov. 2 video update, Al-Akhrass said that Global offered her money, despite the company’s position that she was fired for cause, meaning she isn’t entitled to severance, under the condition that she refrain from speaking publicly about her firing, which she rejected.

“If a company believed strongly that an employee is inciting violence, why would they pay them money?” she asked. Good question.

So where could she be accused of advocating violence?

In one Oct. 13 tweet, Al-Akhrass said that while many in the West valorize Israeli soldiers, Palestinians regard them as “brutal occupiers who are hungry for our blood,” which simply presents the perspective of most Palestinians. A news organization dedicated to such buzzwords as balance, fairness and diversity might be interested in that perspective.

In another tweet, Al-Akhrass calls the labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization “because they refuse to submit to your occupation,” a “racist narrative.”

Famed Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said — a staunch critic of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians — shared Al-Akhrass’s view on the way the word terrorist is weaponized to remove any discussion of context from discussions of violence.

He said in 1984 radio interview with historian Studs Terkel:

Terrorism is a word without history because the terrorist just does it for the sheer delight in killing. I mean this is the caricature we’ve built up. Now the result of that is that language has lost its meaning. I mean we cannot distinguish between an enemy with a reason to kill, with a reason to fight, with a reason to exist. He’s just a terrorist.

For this expression of nuance, Said was given the moniker Professor of Terror in a 1989 cover story for the neocon rag Commentary. Some things never change.

CTV News reporter Yara Jamal was fired four days after speaking at an Oct. 22 Palestine solidarity march she co-organized in Halifax.

Documenting Antisemitism, another anonymous X account that appears to exist solely to target people expressing support for Palestine for harassment, picked out this line from her speech: “Jews can continue to exist, the Zionist ideology cannot … the state, no, cannot.”

Despite making a clear distinction between the Jewish ethnicity and faith on the one hand, and the political ideology of Zionism on the other, Jamal was deemed antisemitic and fired.

Again, the Toronto Sun’s Warmington was first to the news, comparing Jamal’s remarks to saying, “Muslims can continue to exist, the Islamic ideology cannot.” A more honest comparison would be if she had said, “Muslims can continue to exist, but Wahabist ideology cannot” — but that would have made Jamal’s remarks sound sensible.

Warmington then quoted B’nai Brith CEO, and two-time failed federal Conservative candidate, Michael Mostyn, who called Zionism an “essential component of the Jewish faith,” just as a Saudi theocrat would call Wahhabism a key component of the Islamic faith.

“When members of the media expose their prejudices and biases publicly, something they should have been trained professionally not to do, they have lost their ability to be perceived as objective disseminators of the news,” Mostyn, a semi-frequent National Post columnist, added.

Journalists, like everyone else, are citizens and have every right to participate in civic life. Had Jamal reported on the rally she organized, there would have been a breach of journalistic ethics, but she didn’t.

By contrast, CityNews crime reporter Fil Martino, who volunteers for the York Regional Police while covering them, has not only never been disciplined for it, but the fact is proudly posted on her CityNews bio.

CTV Atlantic journalists are represented by Unifor M-21. The local didn’t respond to an inquiry about whether they are pursuing a grievance on Jamal’s behalf.

Pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting Canada, an outfit so extreme it encourages journalists to refer to the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, and whose executive director denies the extensively documented existence of extremist Jewish settlers, boasted of having gotten al-Akhrass and Jamal fired.

“Let this be a reminder to Canada’s journalists, should you engage in antisemitism and partisan anti-Israel advocacy, whether on social media or in your personal lives, we will hold you accountable,” wrote the group’s executive director, Mike Fegelman.

Meanwhile, in Canada’s op-ed pages, Martin Regg Cohn, Andrew Coyne, Robyn Urback, Rosie DiManno, Barbara Kay, Konrad Yakabuski and their ideological ilk are free to to regurgitate whatever Israeli government talking points they like, with rare rejoinder.

Nora Fathalipour, a Toronto-area lawyer, is offering pro bono legal services to those who have been reprimanded or disciplined for supporting Palestine.

Fathalipour told The Orchard that she’s received hundreds of calls from Canada and the United States since she announced her intention to provide her services on LinkedIn two weeks ago.

“I think I reached my capacity after two days,” Fathalipour said, adding that she’s connecting those she cannot help with lawyers who can.

Those who have approached her for assistance, Fathalipour noted, are drawn from “all across every industry you can imagine.”

“I was surprised to find that in industries that don’t have anything to do with politics, or are even very public facing, people have been losing their jobs — things like the food industry, hairdressing and cultural institutions,” she said.

The legal profession hasn’t been immune from this wave of repression, with particularly disturbing implications, given the key role lawyers play in defending citizens from governmental and corporate overreach.

Fathalipour was one of nearly 700 lawyers who signed an open letter addressing a “growing chorus of statements from lawyers, law firms and law schools that are conflating expressions of solidarity with Palestinians and criticism of the State of Israel as antisemitic and conduct unworthy of learning or practicing law.”

These statements have included vows to blacklist anyone who expresses support for Palestine, attempts to get pro-Palestine lawyers fired from their firms, and advocacy for the expulsion of law students who express positions they disagree with.

“No Canadian should ever be discriminated against in the workplace because of his or her political beliefs or political activities,” employment lawyers Howard Levitt and Kathryn Marshall wrote in the Financial Post in January.

That was in response to the Ontario College of Psychologists ordering crackpot psychologist and right-wing influencer Jordan Peterson to take a mandatory social media training course or face suspension of his (long-unused) psychologist license.

But, when it comes to Israel, suddenly employers don’t just have a right, but a moral obligation, to discriminate against employees based on their political views.

“No-one has the right to ‘free speech’ in workplace political discourse and, if it is going to alienate any worker, it should not be permitted by the employer,” Levitt wrote in an Oct. 20 Financial Post article.

A week later, Levitt advocated workers who criticize Israel on social media or attend a pro-Palestine rally, both which he disingenuously frames as supporting Hamas, “be terminated for cause.”

If the worker sues for wrongful dismissal, Levitt promised, “I will personally represent the employer pro bono.”

Fathalipour said she would agree with Levitt that the two cases are different.

Peterson’s social media ravings, which include insinuating a critic of overpopulation should commit suicide, deliberately misgendering trans people and insisting overweight people are “not beautiful,” are, Fathalipour said, at the very least arguable instances of professional misconduct.

“The cases that I’ve been seeing haven’t been about threats or unprofessional speech, or anything like that,” she said.

“It really has been people just talking about what’s going on in Palestine. And expressing their emotions, about how distraught they are seeing what’s happening.”

This piece first appeared in The Orchard.

Jeremy Appel is an independent Edmonton-based journalist and author of the forthcoming book, Kenneyism: Jason Kenney’s Pursuit of Power (Dundurn Press, 2024). Follow him on Twitter @JeremyAppel1025, or email him at appel.jeremy@gmail.com

UK

Why We Blockaded a Factory Shipping Weapons to Israel

On Friday, November 10, over 400 trade unionists and Palestine solidarity activists blockaded a British factory that provides components for military aircraft used in the bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza. They write in Jacobin about what motivated them.

By Workers for a Free Palestine

November 12, 2023

Source: Jacobin

Credit: @Workers4Pal/Twitter

In the wake of the genocidal bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli occupying forces and violence across historic Palestine, Palestinian trade unions issued a call to workers across the globe. They asked for a shutdown of sections of the arms industry involved in sending weapons to Israel. Inspired by previous worker struggles that prevented the shipment of arms to Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s coup and South Africa during apartheid, we have heeded the call from our comrades in Palestine.

Early yesterday morning, Workers for a Free Palestine, a network of trade unionists active in major British trade unions that formed in response to the call from Palestinian trade unionists, blockaded an arms factory run by BAE Systems in Rochester, England. A steady stream of components for military aircraft used by the Israeli occupation force in Gaza leaves the Rochester site, where BAE Systems produces interceptor systems for F35 fighter jets and components for F16 fighter jets.

We blocked all traffic to and from the site.

Workers for a Free Palestine comprises workers active in major British trade unions including Unite, Unison; GMB; the National Education Union; the British Medical Association; the University and College Union; the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union; The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union; and the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, alongside housing organizers and student activists.

We are workers who have come together to stop the flow of arms that fuel the Israeli war machine. Weapons produced in Britain’s factories and supported by British institutions enable the Israel Defense Forces to kill Palestinians every day — we believe that we in Britain have a special duty, as residents of the metropole, to actively resist the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

We also seek to reveal the extent of historical and present British complicity in settler-colonial violence.

Britain is the birthplace of the catastrophic Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, both of which paved the way for the dispossession of Palestinians. In the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, Palestine was carved up by the Western empires.

In the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Britain laid the foundations for the mass killings, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba perpetrated by British-supported Zionist militias. This colonial legacy reverberates today as Britain aids and abets a second Nakba.

In the present, Britain hosts Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems’ factories, which produce Hermes killer drones. Britain ordered these from Elbit to kill Iraqis and Afghans. These weapons, which have killed scores of Lebanese and Palestinians for almost two decades, are marketed as “combat-proven” by Elbit.

In turn, Britain’s massive weapons industry supplies Israel with the full array of killing machines: aircraft, helicopters, and drones, grenades, bombs, and missiles, as well as technology such as target acquisition, weapon control, and countermeasures. Since 2008, Britain has licensed the export of arms worth at least £560 million to Israel.

The British government has “no plans” to stop arms sales to Israel, and has even sent military support to aid Israel’s current campaign of destruction in Palestine.

The British state continues to offer support and guarantees to the arms industry, making its taxpayers complicit in Israel’s crimes. Its aid comes in in the form of state investment in research, which serves to de-risk investment and shore up profits for weapons makers. In 2022, BAE Systems paid for less than 15 percent of its own research and development programs.

British universities are complicit, too, in this military-industrial complex. A report from 2020 found that over one hundred British universities have invested a total of £454 million in companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Israel drops British bombs on Gaza. We shut down the factories making those bombs, and we organize our workplaces to divest from the Israeli war machine.


Despite the fact that 76 percent of the British public supports a ceasefire, politicians are refusing to act. Rather than listen, our politicians assert their unconditional support for Israel’s deadly war machine.

Workers for a Free Palestine is inspired by our Palestinian brothers and sisters who remain steadfast in their refusal to let Israel complete the colonization of historic Palestine. We honor the over ten thousand Palestinian martyrs who have been killed in the past month, and the over ten thousand Palestinians thrown into Israeli prisons for the simple crime of existing as Palestinians.

The actions of trade unionists and activists across the globe have given us inspiration. Transport workers in Belgium, dockworkers in Barcelona, trade unionists in Melbourne, and protesters in Washington, Missouri, and California have triggered a historic movement to shut down the global infrastructure of the Israeli military complex. Our aim is to grow this movement.

We call on the British government not just to support an immediate ceasefire but to cut all military ties with Israel.

Of course, Britain is not unique in its support for the dispossession of Palestine — far from it. The United States, the European Union, and US allies in the Middle East and beyond all enable these ongoing horrors. Yet we find ourselves in Britain and therefore target British complicity. The British government led by Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly, and Suella Braverman has shown unwavering and enthusiastic support for Israel.

Sadly, this extends beyond the Conservative government into the cowardly “leadership” of Keir Starmer and David Lammy’s Labour Party, which is fully aligned with the policy objectives of the far-right Israeli state.

In London, as elsewhere, marches of hundreds of thousands have become a weekly occurrence. So too have waves of train station sit-ins and blockades of arms factories. Organizations like Palestine Action, which for years have targeted companies like Elbit and Leonardo — another arms manufacturer that ships weapons to Israel — have paved the way for the upsurge in arms factory blockades and protests.

Now, as Workers For a Free Palestine, we broaden the scope of the British wing of the Palestine solidarity movement against the Israeli war machine, bringing mass pickets and blockades to complicit sites across the whole country. It’s time for an end to impunity. As important as the mass demonstrations that have seen half a million on the streets of London are, we need to organize to disrupt weapons factories too.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of targets for us to shut down. This is a testament to the deep historic and current British complicity in the subjugation of the Palestinians.

Our task must be to organize a mass movement against war, occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism. This task will require an inordinate amount of legwork, but as residents of the European metropole of empire, we have a duty to resist.

APEC

San Francisco CEO summit offers welcome boost — and some risk — for Biden, Newsom, Breed

2023/11/12

President Joe Biden replies to questions form reporters after welcoming bipartisan mayors attending the Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting to the White House on Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, in Washington, D.C..

 - Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS

The massive convergence of world and corporate leaders on San Francisco for this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering offers a welcome boost — but also some risk — for Democratic Party leaders from President Joe Biden to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breed.

All three have seen their popularity sag in recent polls amid mixed economic signals, troubles abroad and domestic woes from crime to homelessness, while the host city itself has seen its spectacular vistas, cable cars and sourdough eclipsed by news reports of rampant retail thefts, car break-ins and homelessness.

The APEC CEO Summit — said to be the biggest gathering of world leaders in the city since the founding of the United Nations there in 1945 — offers a chance to reset that narrative.

“There’s a lot at stake,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University. “It’s a bit of a forward-looking, turning of the page.”

The event will bring together Biden with the leaders of China, Canada, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Peru, Chile, Indonesia and the Philippines along with dozens of marquee CEOs including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi.

The idea is to foster high-level dialogues around sustainability, inclusion, resilience and innovation across the pan-Pacific economies. Biden’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, their first in a year, is particularly noteworthy, where they’ll discuss fraught relations over trade, Taiwan, North Korea and Iran.

But anytime the president comes to the Bay Area, big bucks fundraising is involved. The event coincides with a San Francisco dinner Tuesday for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hosted by real estate magnate and political consultant Clint Reilly. Tickets range from $250,000 to $1,000. Newsom is featured as a special guest.

For Biden, who at 80 has been criticized for everything from his advanced age to inflation, illegal immigration, the economy and his handling of the Israel-Hamas war and China, it’s an opportunity to show he’s engaged with world leaders and driving his agenda on a top issue heading into his reelection bid next year.

“This is less responding to crises and more of a U.S. foreign policy that’s active rather than reactive,” said Jason McDaniel, associate professor of politics at San Francisco State University. “That’s something President Biden will want to show.”

McCuan added that there is important symbolism in the setting.

“This is the place where the U.N. was established to decide what a post-World War II world would look like,” McCuan said. “It’s a place where these individuals can point to new era cooperation amid competition.”

A Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll Nov. 8 found that among voters in California, the Democrats’ great blue whale on the electoral map, 52% disapprove of Biden’s performance and 44% approve. Majorities disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, inflation, crime and the Israel-Hamas war, and more disapprove than approve of his handling of China.

Poll director Mark DiCamillo said that while it doesn’t mean Biden would lose the Golden State to a Republican, it mirrors similar findings in other national polls that could signal trouble for his reelection bid.

“His job ratings are underwater,” DiCamillo said. “That’s the first time we’ve seen more people disapproving than approving of him.”

Harris, a former San Francisco District Attorney and California’s former attorney general and U.S. senator, has also suffered dismal polling. It’s unclear what role she might play this week back in the Bay Area besides fundraising because she isn’t listed among APEC’s official attendees.

For Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor who cruised to reelection after handily defeating a recall attempt and has since been raising his national profile for a presumed future presidential bid, the summit is also a chance to reverse a recent slide in the polls.

A Nov. 7 Berkeley IGS poll found more Californians now disapprove than approve of his job performance, 49% to 44%, with discontent particularly among political moderates and independent voters, the state’s two major swing voter blocs. Those voters indicated they disapprove of Newsom’s recent more active role in national Democratic politics, such as sparring with red-state governors, instead of tackling the state’s issues. And while half of voters approved of his recent trip to China to promote climate initiatives, 39% disapproved.

“Voters want their governor to do the job they’ve elected him to do,” DiCamillo said.

The APEC summit allows Newsom to show doubters he has gravitas as a leader, and not just “this pretty face and not a lot of substance,” McDaniel said.

“I think for Newsom’s future political ambitions, this looks like a positive event for him,” McDaniel said. “It’s something he will point to as something positive showing some substance on the world stage.”

Breed, who many Democrats have seen as a rising star in their party, also has been buffeted in polls as residents vent frustration over quality-of-life-issues and images of smash-and-grab thefts, store closures and encampments of homeless drug addicts lining city streets.

A September poll by a group called GrowSF that has criticized the city’s handling of the homeless found 68% of residents say the city is on the wrong track, and 60% have an unfavorable view of Breed, far more than for reelection rivals Daniel Lurie (11%), a Levi Strauss heir, and county Supervisor Ahsha Safai (23%).

Breed’s office has been stepping up homeless encampment clearings in advance of the APEC gathering, hoping to avoid a repeat of Super Bowl 50 TV coverage in 2016 that showed homeless encampments and gave the city a black eye.

McDaniel said the conference has enabled Breed to muster support for tackling those problems.

“She’s a vulnerable incumbent, and it’s a chance to reset some of those narratives going into the campaign,” McDaniel said. “She wants to be able to tell that story of progress being made.”

But the event also poses political risks for all three as well, political experts say. A variety of groups are planning protests. They include climate activists calling out a gathering that also will include CEOs of ExxonMobil and major banks and credit companies, and critics of the Biden administration’s policies in the Middle East, Cuba and the Philippines.

It’s hard to say how large and rowdy those protests might be — heavy rain is forecast. But any ugly clashes between protesters and police carry political risk for the mayor, governor and president. Chaos would reflect on Breed, and on Newsom as he introduces himself to the nation’s voters, while protests would underscore Democratic divisions over China, Israel and economic policy.

Foreign dignitaries and visitors having their cars broken into or encountering homeless encampments or public drug markets also pose a risk.

“That can feed back into the narratives we’ve seen as predominant about San Francisco,” McDaniel said.

For Newsom, there is an additional challenge: He also must walk a delicate tightrope, presenting himself as a credible national leader without upstaging the president and vice president.

“You have to demonstrate you have some substance,” McCuan said, “and still you don’t want to step on the toes of the president of the United States.”

© The Mercury News

Hundreds protest APEC on eve of San Francisco meeting

San Francisco (AFP) – Hundreds of demonstrators, from anti-capitalists to pro-Palestinian advocates, gathered in San Francisco on Sunday on the eve of an APEC summit to protest against the world bloc.

"The cause of the liberation of peoples is international, all these causes are interconnected" 

Issued on: 13/11/2023 -

Demonstrators hold flags and placards during a 'No on APEC' protest on November 12, 2023 ahead of the summit in San Francisco

 © ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

The protestors marched through the US city demanding participants in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum put people and planet above business.

"APEC is a form of neoliberal colonial government," Nik Evasco told AFP.

"We're here to make sure they put people and planet front and center of the issues they are negotiating."

President Joe Biden this week plays host to 20 other members of APEC, a trade-focused body whose summit will be dominated by the US leader's meeting with Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping, as well as Israel's war with Hamas.

"They are framing negotiations around trying to build a green economy, but what actually happens is exploiting... precious resources essential to develop clean solutions in order to make profits for corporate CEOs here in the US," said Evasco.

The gathering also attracted a number of pro-Palestinian protesters, who called for an end to "genocide" in the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrators wave Palestinian flags during the 'No on APEC' protest in San Francisco on November 12, 2023 

© ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

"I'm here to protest in solidarity with Palestinians who have been undergoing 75 years of occupation and genocide and ethnic cleansing," said Eleonore Collet, 28.

"It's truly a genocide, and we are funding it in the US and that feels deeply wrong."

Hamas militants launched a bloody assault in Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to Israeli figures.

Israel's response has since killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, over 4,600 of them children, according to the Hamas government's media office.

Collet said even though Israel was not part of APEC, she felt it made sense to demonstrate here.

"The cause of the liberation of peoples is international, all these causes are interconnected," she said.

© 2023 AFP

New psychology research shows people are more willing to harm men than women for the greater good

2023/11/11


Recent research reveals a striking gender bias in how people perceive and accept instrumental harm, which occurs when harm is inflicted on some individuals to achieve a greater good. The study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that people tend to be more willing to accept harm to men than to women in various contexts, even when women are traditionally expected to sacrifice more.

Utilitarianism, a moral philosophy that justifies causing harm to some individuals if it leads to a greater overall good, has been the subject of much philosophical debate. It encompasses two key elements: instrumental harm and impartial beneficence. Instrumental harm allows for the harm of innocent individuals for the greater good, while impartial beneficence requires prioritizing the greater good above personal attachments and biases.

Yet, in practice, people often struggle to adhere to these stringent utilitarian principles, frequently deviating from impartiality due to various subjective factors. Judgments about benefit and harm are inherently subjective and can be influenced by personal beliefs and societal norms. This subjectivity, coupled with the challenge of defining the greater good, makes it difficult to reach a consensus on what actions are truly morally justified.

The new study set out to investigate a specific factor that may influence individuals’ impartial evaluation of social interventions – the gender of those experiencing instrumental harm. Building on previous research on gender and moral decision-making, the researchers hypothesized that people might show a bias in supporting interventions that inflict collateral harm on one gender over the other, thus violating the principle of impartial beneficence.

“People’s assumptions of who’s a victim and who’s a perpetrator differs by gender. People tend to stereotype men as perpetrators and women as victims. This project built upon those findings by examining how people evaluate harm, when that harm is unintended and results from interventions aimed at helping people,” explained study author Tania Reynolds, an assistant professor at the the University of New Mexico, in a press release.

“Most policies have trade-offs whereby some individuals are benefitted, and some are either not affected or actively harmed,” Reynolds said. “How do people evaluate these costs? If it’s the case that one gender benefits while the other is harmed, might that influence whether people evaluate the intervention or policy as worthwhile?”

To investigate the gender bias in acceptance of instrumental harm, the researchers conducted a series of three studies.

In the first study, participants were asked to evaluate a workplace intervention designed to reduce mistreatment, which involved instrumental harm to some employees. The researchers recruited 200 American individuals through Amazon’s CloudResearch platform. To ensure a minimum of 75 responses in each condition, 160 participants (67.1% men, average age 34.5) were included in the final analysis.

Participants were presented with an employee intervention program aimed at improving toxic work environments. They were randomly assigned to one of two gender conditions in which either male or female employees experienced instrumental harm due to the program. Participants were asked to evaluate the acceptability of the program.

In particular, they were told that the workplace intervention “reduced reports of mistreatments and it improved work experience for most employees,” but that “[men or women] found the program to be insensitive, demeaning, and offensive,” and “experienced worse psychological outcomes.”

Study 1 found that participants were significantly more willing to accept instrumental harm when men suffered the harm compared to when women did. This gender bias was influenced by the gender of the participant, with female participants showing a greater bias in accepting harm inflicted on men than male participants.

“In this context, people were more supportive of the intervention if men found it offensive than if women found it offensive,” Reynolds said.

Study 2 aimed to replicate the findings of Study 1 using a broader array of contexts. It involved 233 participants (51% men, average age 36.5) recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants evaluated five scenarios describing the efficacy of various interventions in areas such as chronic pain management, education, nutrition, psychological well-being, and sexually transmitted infections. Within each scenario, the gender of the group benefiting and experiencing harm was experimentally manipulated.

For example, in the nutrition scenario, the participants were told that men (or women) who drank a weight loss meal replacement shake “once a day for 2 months lost 20% more weight and had 6% lower blood pressure” but that women (or men) who drank the shake once a day “actually gained 10% more weight and their blood pressure slightly increased by 3%.”

Study 2 constructively replicated the findings of Study 1. Participants consistently showed a greater willingness to support interventions benefiting women at the cost of men compared to the reverse scenario. Female participants exhibited a stronger bias in this direction, while male participants did not show a similar bias. Additionally, the study explored the influence of ideological beliefs and found that participants who endorsed feminism or egalitarianism were more supportive of interventions favoring women.

“What we found is that beyond just participants’ sex, people who more strongly endorsed egalitarianism or feminism showed these gender biases to larger degrees,” Reynolds said. “Both of those ideologies have to do with rectifying historical injustices, so maybe it’s part of the reason why people endorse harm to men. Throughout history, women have typically had to sacrifice in contexts like caring for the elderly or infants.”

“Likewise women have not had the same career or educational opportunities. Perhaps people who identify as feminists or egalitarians perceive men to have benefited throughout history, and therefore they now evaluate it as fair if men suffer and women gain an advantage.”

In Study 3, the researchers sought to examine whether the gender bias in accepting instrumental harm could be neutralized in contexts where women have traditionally been expected to sacrifice more than men. The study involved 225 participants (61.7% men, average age 35.1) who evaluated interventions in stereotypically female contexts, such as parenthood, nursing, early childhood education, and elderly care.

Contrary to expectations, Study 3 found that the gender bias in accepting instrumental harm persisted even in contexts where women are traditionally expected to make sacrifices. Both male and female participants were more likely to endorse interventions inflicting harm onto men than women. Exploratory analyses suggested that feminist identification did not predict this bias in this context. However, participants with liberal political ideologies were more likely to accept harm to men.

Together, the findings indicate that people tend to show a gender bias, favoring instrumental harm for men over women in various contexts. This bias appears to be influenced by participant gender, political ideology, and the endorsement of feminist or egalitarian beliefs.

“Throughout history, countless male lives have been sacrificed on the battlefield, ostensibly to promote the greater good,” the researchers concluded. “Our findings suggest that these sentiments persist beyond the field of combat. For many people, accepting instrumental harm to men is perceived as worth the cost to advance other social aims.”

“We invite researchers to further investigate how individuals appraise the value of suffering and whether those appraisals differ across target characteristics. A deeper understanding of the biases embedded in such calculations may minimize the unforeseen and unintended consequences of those preferences, thereby reducing harm to men and women alike.”

However, it is essential to acknowledge some limitations of these studies. The scenarios presented to participants were hypothetical, and real-world decisions may involve more complex factors. Additionally, the studies focused on American participants, and cultural factors may influence moral judgments differently in other regions.

“We had a hard time getting this paper published. It goes to show you have to be resilient and believe in your work,” Reynolds added. “It’s a nice feeling and makes the research worth it–a good reminder persistence pays off.”

The study, “Worth the Risk? Greater Acceptance of Instrumental Harm Befalling Men than Women“, was authored by Maja Graso, Tania Reynolds, and Karl Aquino.

© PsyPost

Large psychology study debunks stereotype of feminists as man-haters

2023/11/12


Feminists tend to hold positive attitudes towards men, comparable to those of nonfeminists, according to new research published in Psychology of Women Quarterly. The research, spanning multiple Western or non-Western cultures and involving nearly 10,000 participants, indicates that common perceptions of feminists’ attitudes are not grounded in reality.

Feminism, as a social and political movement, has a long history of advocating for women’s rights and challenging gender-based discrimination. Throughout its evolution, feminism has achieved significant advancements for women, including securing voting rights, property ownership, reproductive autonomy, and legal protections against marital rape. Despite these accomplishments, feminism has not been without its critics and skeptics.

However, recent years have seen a resurgence of feminist identity, especially among young women, with a majority of 18- to 24-year-old women in the UK identifying as feminists. In the United States, while the feminist identity has gained ground, it is still perceived as polarizing by a substantial portion of both women and men, with many believing that feminism unfairly blames men for women’s challenges.

“We had started to notice a trend in the popularity of feminism among younger women and were interested in this social change given the negative stereotypes associated with feminists in the media,” said study author Aífe Hopkins-Doyle, an assistant professor at the University of Surrey.

“After some reading of the literature, we discovered there were very few empirical tests of the accuracy of the most widespread stereotype about feminists – that they are ‘man-haters.’ In particular, previous studies had been limited by the measures used, which focused more on ideological beliefs about men rather than warmth of feeling or liking, but also by the relatively few feminists in those samples (e.g., often < 30% in female student samples in the US).”

“We decided that the uptick in feminist identification was an opportunity to conduct an in-depth test of the misandry stereotype. Beyond this, we were also interested in why people think that feminists hate men and set out to examine the faulty perceptions we hold about other people’s beliefs and how these can lead us to incorrect conclusions.”

To address the misandry stereotype, the researchers conducted five separate studies with a total of 9,799 participants from nine different countries, including two nationally representative samples. The research aimed to explore whether this stereotype accurately reflects feminists’ attitudes toward men and to investigate potential reasons behind such attitudes.

In these studies, feminism was operationalized using multiple measures, including identification with feminism, ideological beliefs, and engagement in collective feminist action. Attitudes toward men were assessed through several explicit measures, capturing various dimensions such as warmth, liking, trust, and emotional reactions. In addition, the researchers also examined hostile attitudes towards men (e.g. “Men act like babies when they are sick”), benevolent attitudes towards men (“Men are more willing to take risks than women”) and collective anger (“I am furious with the sexual harassment of women”).

The first study focused on explicit attitudes toward men among women from Italy, Poland, the United States, and the United Kingdom. These countries were chosen to represent different cultural contexts with varying degrees of gender equality.

The results from this study revealed that both feminists and nonfeminists held positive attitudes toward men. Contrary to the misandry stereotype, feminists did not exhibit significantly different attitudes toward men compared to nonfeminists. While there was no significant difference in hostility toward men, feminists were found to be less benevolent toward men than nonfeminists.

Hopkins-Doyle and her colleagues also found that feminist collective action, such as participation in the #MeToo movement, was unrelated to explicit attitudes towards men. However, it was positively associated with collective anger about women’s experiences of sexual misconduct.

“Feminism is associated with anger about men’s mistreatment of women, but not with negative overall evaluations of men,” Hopkins-Doyle told PsyPost.

Building on the first study, the researchers extended their investigation to non-Western countries in Asia, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. These countries were chosen to explore how cultural contexts influenced attitudes toward men and feminism. The results of this study were consistent with the previous findings, demonstrating that feminists in non-Western countries also held positive attitudes toward men.

In the third study, the researchers delved into implicit attitudes by using a Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) to assess participants’ automatic associations between male words and positive or negative categories. This study provided further evidence that both feminists and nonfeminists had positive implicit attitudes toward men, and there was no significant difference between the two groups.

The findings indicate “that feminists have largely positive attitudes toward men, which are similar to those of non-feminist people,” Hopkins-Doyle explained.

Study 4 aimed to uncover the underlying mechanisms shaping feminists’ attitudes toward men. It also explored participants’ metaperceptions, or their beliefs about feminists’ attitudes toward men. The study revealed that feminists perceived men as both more similar to women and more threatening than nonfeminists did.

“Compared to nonfeminists, feminists did think that men represent more of a threat to women’s dignity and welfare,” Hopkins-Doyle told PsyPost. “This was associated with less positive attitudes to men. However, counteracting this tendency, feminists also perceived that men and women were more similar, and this led in turn to more positive attitudes.

“Further while our pattern of findings for feminist self-identification consistently showed no negativity toward men, we did find some evidence that women who subscribe to some less mainstream feminist ideologies have less positive attitudes toward men. That being said, these effects were small in size and should be replicated and extended in future research.”

Interestingly, both feminists and nonfeminists inaccurately perceived feminists’ attitudes as more negative than they actually were. They overestimated the perceived threat feminists felt from men while underestimating their perceived gender similarity with men.

In the fifth study, the researchers sought to replicate and extend their findings in a nationally representative sample of UK adults. This study confirmed that feminists in the UK held positive attitudes toward men, and there was no significant difference in attitudes between feminists and nonfeminists. Additionally, feminist collective action and collective anger were unrelated to attitudes toward men.

Finally, to provide a comprehensive overview of the findings across all studies, the researchers conducted meta-analyses. These analyses confirmed that feminists, across different nations and measures, consistently held positive attitudes toward men, and there was no evidence to support the misandry stereotype.

“We were surprised by the size and consistency of the effects we found,” Hopkins-Doyle said. “Across many different samples, methods, and national contexts, and using meta-analysis of all our data we found very little evidence that feminists hold negative attitudes toward men as the misandry stereotype suggests.”

“We call the stereotype that feminists tend to have negative attitudes to men the ‘misandry myth’ because it conforms to the dictionary definition of a ‘myth’ as a false yet widespread belief. In sum, these findings mean we are wrong to dismiss feminism on the grounds that it is about hatred of men.”

While this research offers valuable insights, it is not without limitations. With the exception of Study 3, the studies primarily rely on self-report measures, which may be subject to social desirability bias. Future research could explore attitudes toward men using alternative methods to complement self-report data.

Although the findings provide compelling evidence that feminists generally have positive attitudes toward men, it’s important to acknowledge that some individuals deviate from this pattern. “There is little doubt that some feminists do hold negative attitudes toward men, and some attest that it is a necessary and legitimate response to the inequality and misogyny women experience (see Pauline Harmange’s book).”

The study, “The Misandry Myth: An Inaccurate Stereotype About Feminists’ Attitudes Toward Men“, was authored by Aífe Hopkins-Doyle, Aino L. Petterson, Stefan Leach, Hannah Zibell, Phatthanakit Chobthamkit, Sharmaine Binti Abdul Rahim, Jemima Blake, Cristina Bosco, Kimberley Cherrie-Rees, Ami Beadle3, Victoria Cock, Hazel Greer, Antonina Jankowska, Kaitlin Macdonald, Alexander Scott English, Victoria Wai Lan YEUNG, Ryosuke Asano, Peter Beattie, Allan B. I. Bernardo, Chinun Boonroungrut, Anindita Chaudhuri, Chin-Lung Chien, Hoon-Seok Choi, Lixian Cui, Hongfei Du, Kei Fuji, Hidefumi Hitokoto, Junko Iida, Keiko Ishii, Ding-Yu Jiang, Yashpal Jogdand, Hyejoo J. Lee, Nobuhiro Mifune, Chanki Moon, Aya Murayama, Jinkyung Na, Kim One, Joonha Park, Kosuke Sato, Suryodaya Sharma, Eunkook M. Suh, Arun Tipandjan, and Robbie M. Sutton.

© PsyPost