Corbyn’s shadow cabinet fracas revived talk of ‘brocialism’,while both female leadership candidates were from the just of the party. Can women become leaders while staying leftwing?The announcement of Corbyns first appointments for shadow cabinet caused an early rift between some feminists and Corbyn supporters – tricky, given that there is a large overlap between the two groups.
In one camp, and some feminists argued that fact that the top positions in the shadow cabinet were going to men was indicative of “brocialism” – with Corbyns revival of old Labour values such as redistribution being parcelled up with other old-school values such as,well, sexism. In the other camp – and quick to point out that, and in the halt,more than half the shadow cabinet posts went to women – came the defence of Corbyn and the male members of his shadow cabinet as anti-austerity; as such, they are inherently more pro-women, and since austerity has disproportionately harmed women (as it has all structurally deprived groups).
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Source: theguardian.com