Feminism and Astrology

OP, this might seem kinda harsh; and I don't know you so I don't intend to attack you personally; but I feel the need to go off a bit and tell you how this and some of your comments below all comes across. Because

...
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In short:
JUST like a Capricorn

Real flashbacks to various pronoun struggle sessions in early Hexbear where an unusually high percentage of people with "serious concerns" shared a certain pronoun tag. 🤔
- Tbh, in the back of my mind I was wondering how much of such a strong reaction against something like astrology in the OP comes from an unstated/unexamined/unconscious bias against some activities women engage in because they're "too emotional." It brings up the old patriarchal dichotomy of irrational women, rational men. I think that should be carefully examined in unpacking the topic of the original post.
go off
thanks for this post. honestly my misogyny alarms start to go off anytime i see a man talk down on or "critique" astrology in any capacity...
The messianic belief in an AI that will save us all that many (male) techbros have absolute faith in is a million times cringier than astrology. And not only is it just a very cringey reinvention of the Abrahamic god by so-called atheists who disbelieve and disparage said god, but it also has a direct material impact by accelerating climate change. How much is chasing the AI dragon just them trying to find God with cyberpunk characteristics? When past spiritual and religious people try to find God, they usually have the decency to live in a cave and leave the rest of us alone, not burn down entire forests so they can divine that 1+1=3.
Best post in the thread, honestly.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a feminism thing. I think it's a millenial/zoomer thing more than anything. It's sad seeing BS like that get normalized, like, how are we accepting people saying "yes, I actually believe that the positions of given stars and planets affect people's personality and my future"? That's 100% against materialism and against the scientific method.

By "how are we accepting" I don't mean "let's oppress these people", just I think we should collectively adopt the same reaction to it, as if an adult told us about the tooth fairy coming.

Do you do the same thing to all religious people too? Aggressively condescend to them? What about Indigenous spiritual mysticisms?
If not, why are you targeting one vs the others, when there's no materialist or scientific method reason to believe any of them are more or less true than the others in reality? This is worth analyzing.
If so (or you concluded to do so), don't. Comrade, we don't need a rehash of the insufferable petulant reddit atheists in the world, let alone in the socialist movement. And most of those reddit atheists all became gamergate CHUDS, which is a logical conclusion of this kind of chauvinist attitude. and because astrology is in general a heavily femme-leaning and trans-leaning mysticism/spirituality, there are certainly these implications that we absolutely do not need to reinforce. We do not need to have men condescending to people's spiritual beliefs out of a misplaced superiority, when I am certain you tell yourself just as many lies to get through the day as any religious person does. So do I. And I've worked with 'witchy' marxists who have put more into the struggle than you or I combined.
Your attitude is not as mature and grounded as you think it is, but more importantly, it's not just counterproductive but actively reactionary to decide to be alienating and spiteful toward others and advocate that "we should collectively adopt" these petulant and petty attitudes towards peoples' personal beliefs. I'm more of an absurdist, but if someone reacted to me sharing deeply held beliefs of mine with them in the way you are advocating, I might punch them in the mouth. And they would deserve it.
- Do you do the same thing to all religious people too? Aggressively condescend to them? What about Indigenous spiritual mysticisms?
  I don't actually do that because it's a fringe position that would most likely get me shunned, but yes, I think we should be consistent in our treatment towards anti-materialist beliefs, and by this, I mean claims towards the effect of "metaphysical" things such as deities or mysticism in the material reality. And it's an important distinction to me.
  The posture shouldn't be condescending towards religion in general, but towards actual material claims derived from religion. You wanna observe Ramadan, or you don't wanna eat pork, or you don't wanna have sex before marriage, or you want to believe that grandma is watching you from above? Go off. These are at best tangential to material reality, and they're more of a cultural system of moral beliefs and traditions, which is absolutely fine and we should fight to preserve.
  When it comes to claims on the material reality from anti-materislist beliefs, it's different, and it promotes illogical and unhealthy thinking patterns towards our world. Don't go telling me that there's gonna be a deluge if we don't do X because a deity claims so, or that the stars claim I'm gonna have a shitty Tuesday, or that my palm reads that I'm gonna cheat on my wife. Those are strong, anti materialist claims, that in my humble opinion, a rational society should discourage. By discourage I don't mean "let's forbid these practices entirely", but rather let's not show them on media and newspapers, and most importantly, let's ban people from profiting through these activities. Do you think it should be legal that a fake practitioner tells your grandma that for just $2000 they're gonna give them a massage and a concoction of herbs that will cure her cancer?
  Your two last paragraphs boil down to "don't be a condescending petulant Reddit atheist gamer chud". My point isn't "abandon every mystical and religious aspect", it's "let's avoid anti-materislist thought that actively makes claims on reality". I'd understand you'd want to punch me in the face if I told you to burn your religious book and abandon your cultural practices, I wouldn't understand you wanting to punch me in the face if I told you "believing that my personality is X because the stars say Y is idiotic"

Asstrology

This isn't necessarily related to the feminism part of your question, but I've read some about modern day Daoist divination practices in China that are essentially like tarot cards. One book (The Souls of China by Ian Johnson) had an interesting perspective because some of the priests said there wasn't any magic involved and they weren't literally predicting the future. At least in that context, people have specific questions they want answered, and they have answers that they want. The divination only provides yes/no answers.

Someone asking if they're going to be successful some day isn't helped in any way by saying "nah sorry you'll be poor forever" nor are they helped by saying "yea you'll be a hollywood star" and having their ego inflated, but what they're looking for is some sort of comfort that their life won't always be miserable or meaningless.

So the priest guides them through their questions like a conversation and tries to give them the comfort they're looking for in the least harmful way possible. The yarrow root (or tarot cards, or whatever) are just the vehicle to have that conversation. You can say maybe that person should just go to a therapist, and maybe they should, but essentially the priest is trying to help people work through whatever issue it is they're having so they can come to some sort of resolution. And that's a role that existed before the contemporary therapist.

The idea is then that the 'prediction' part is just that person resolving to act in a way that would make it true. So if they ask if they'll be successful, the priest guides them to some sort of action they can do to work toward that goal.

I can see people wanting to use stuff like new age astrology and tarot and all that kind of stuff in a similar way, but the difference is that unfortunately, the person conducting those ceremonies may not have those good intentions in mind or any sort of philosophical, cultural, or ethical training to guide people to beneficial actions. They're not a community figure invested in the lives of the people talking to them, but a fortune teller with a building in the middle of town just advertising their services to random people for profit.

EDIT: As to how I feel about it, I obviously don't believe in it but I try not to bash it too much unless that person uses it as an excuse to be discriminatory or justify their bad decisions. Especially in more ingrained cultural contexts like the above, but even for the 'fairies and tarot' folks.

This is a good understanding of divination.
I used to do tarot readings when I was a traveling bum. They really are just a way of talking through shit with someone while putting up a barrier so that you aren't discussing your personal business with a total stranger. They don't tell the future they let you hash out your own hopes and/or fears. Most of the time I wouldn't even know what the person was asking about.
The cards give the reader something to say and the questioner responds to the prompts that the cards give. The reader keeps track of the responses and then parrots them all back to the questioner essentially telling the questioner what they told the reader to say.

I just see it as a way some people of all genders try to fill the space left by religion. It doesn't necessarily have to be coded as an activity exclusive to one gender. I know plenty of guys into stuff like that. I've heard others describe this phenomenon as a way to question the accuracy of outcomes predicted by the secularization thesis.

Regardless, I still am diplomatic with people who like that stuff, despite me not believing in it. I don't want to come off the same way the New Atheists did when discussing religion. That sort of militant attitude can be off-putting when trying to make the case for socialism.

I'd say the best way to discourage taking such practices too seriously, I'd suggest deconstructing such practices by reading about it's history. Understanding the history of a topic helps one realize the fallible and changing nature of a supposedly unchanging process for discerning truth. I use the same approach with religion

This "space left by religion" shit never made sense to me. Is that a thing other people/normal people/neurotypicals actually experience?
- i'm definitely not neurotypical and have had some wild experiences that lead me to ontological inquiry, the insinuation that 'lmao only normies do that not me i'm so much better and above it all' is pretty toxic imo
- Have you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future? I showed it to somebody who left religion decades earlier and could see what a gut punch it still was. I think he had basically substituted indefinite space exploration for heaven and finding out that even that's not an option was like losing faith a second time.
- I sure as hell don't lol. Can't relate at all.
- I'd say not necessarily everyone, but I guess it exists for some people.
- Everyone believes something

I think Philosophy Tube has a video about witchcraft and Marxism which explains the connection.

Should be similar to tarot.

One reason women, in particular, flock to it is because it's already a woman centered space. Witchcraft is anti-patriarchy and anti-hegemony, so Marxists would find that aspect appealing.

Also, as an aside, there's an old book on Wicca from the 70s called A Witch's Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar, which at one point encourages readers to study Marxism and Dialectical Materialism, because the underlying spiritual philosophy of witchcraft is very dialectical. And I think that's pretty cool

Anti-patriarchal aspects of witchcraft, as others have eloquently stated here already. Also on some level it's a chicken/egg thing as some point, as girl power culture (I'm sure there's a term for that) embraces certain hobbies and interests. For every girl that seems to embrace dangerous woo-woo shit, there's thirty more that just wanna have fun.

I may have my biases as a former Wiccan, though.

There's a lot of good history on this in the book, Caliban and the Witch. Witchcraft, mysticism, and astrology were interests, tools, and spaces for women to oppose the church-patriarchy.
- Ahh, there's another book for my growing tbr list. 😅

i think shunting off non rational belief into a category of "bullshit not worth exploring or interrogating" is kind of, i dunno, itself ignorant? you can at least take the approach of people who study these matters academically, and separate your ego and emotional responses from the equation and seek to actually, not just approximating marx fourth hand, actually try to understand the phenomenon before jumping to this kind of shit.

astrology fits this category for me - it's not remotely productive for anyone to silo yourselves off from understanding for a lack of "getting it" - you're not omniscient, there's shit you don't know. Human tendencies towards these phenomena, whether imaginal or real, and you already know what you think about that, are not something to just go "lol i dont get it fuck all that noise" because you wanna actually reach people and find common cause with them, you refusing and even being hostile to this shit is gonna lose people who might, despite your assumptions, be radically useful.

I know it is difficult to know everything in depth, but it is easy to know when something is so irrational that it is even harmful to the movement itself (in this case, feminism).
In fact, it is anti-materialist to say "lol i dont get it f*ck all that noise" when you don't know about a subject, since you are ignoring its history, the material conditions that produced that thought, idea, subject, etc.
I think such people distracted by astrology, sperituality and manifestation, are a problem within the movement. They are not radically useful. Capitalism wants you to be distracted by it, to believe that you, individually, can change the outside with your mentality, and not the outside (your material conditions) to your way of thinking.
- I think you have to accept that people will get distracted by useless bullshit and deal with things as they are. I know astrology people that contribute to the community in various ways (mutual aid and such) despite believing in all kinds of woo.
- You can make all of the same points about tv, video games, movies, fiction books, playing sports, religion, and on and on. Why is the distraction more associated with women the one you think needs called out?
- It's simply not your call or place to say something is "harmful to the movement" when you're not a part of it, you can't speak or know about it from experience. Saying stuff like that is a very easy way of getting dismissed entirely by basically every member of "the movement", as I am doing now, i truly do not care about the topic of astrology.
  Maybe go talk to feminists that like astrology and calmly ask questions, and maybe ask yourself why you care so much about something of such little consequence for a movement that is, materially speaking, probably in contradiction with your own position and benefits in the current system and will naturally tend to be seen as uncomfortable to you.

we need to stop men from being allowed to post on here until we figure out what's going on

i call myself a marxist and a communist because i agree with marx's analysis and critique of capitalism, and other marxist and adjacent theorists critiques of imperialism and advocacy for democratic centralism. i largely agree with historical materialism as a means of analysis, but i'm just not sold on strict ontological or epistemological materialism, in the sense of eliminativist physicalist realism. i have yet to be convinced out of epistemological nihilism and metaphysical/ontological agnosticism. obviously any specific beliefs like astrology or solipsistic idealism without any empirical evidence or epistemological basis are probably BS, but it would be foolish to assume we know basically everything about reality imo.

Not to mention that western materialism erases or dismisses indigenous peoples', and for that matter, any non-western forms of knowledge. This is colonialist in nature, and reinforces the patriarcal, objectivist, project that is the social institution "science".
What we call "facts" are politically loaded notions, and what we accept as fact and fiction reflects the power imbalances of an already unequal and oppressive society. So, thinking that our knowledge is complete only through western, objectivist ways of knowing, is to tacitly accept the power structures that led to it being dominant in the first place.
- First of all, how does materialism "dismiss and erase" indigenous knowledge? Most materialists (Marxists) are in favor of recording, recovering, and rejuvenating indigenous culture and knowledge. Those who aren't, are anti-Marxist and should not be taken seriously. That being said, a rejection of materialism and science like this is also completely nonsensical and is an attack on the very fabric of Marxism and Scientific Socialism.
  Yes, I ageee - something being accepted as "fact" can be used to reinforce oppressive power structures, such as patriarchy, slavery, etc. - however, using this as justification to reject science, materialism, and "objectivism" makes no sense. Pseudoscience like eugenics and other forms of "scientific" racism were used (and are still being used) to reinforce horrible oppressive and colonial power structures. But using the horrors commited as a result of pseudoscience - which is a rejection of actual science in favor of theories that lack proper evidence and are not backed by any real science, as cause to reject science, is self-contradictory and oxymoronic.
- yea, seeing online internet leftists on an english speaking forum saying things like 'religion is cancer' while Islam is uniting anti-genocide and anti-imperialist struggles against israel is... A Vibe, i guess.

Realistically speaking, who fucking cares?

A whole lot of people spilling ink about astrology, "pseudoscience" and "mysticism" in here that don't seem to know anything about it or its relation to the patriarchal, racial and class contradictions. And a whole lot of people that don't seem directly concerned with most of those things themselves but feel it's important to share their opinions on something they're not informed about and not concerned about.

For the record i don't care for astrology at all, I don't like the (extremely, extremely rare) people who take it 100% seriously, but it's still one of those things that's kinda fun sometimes. But i don't care, and i have no trust in people who are worried about "feminists hurting their own movement by doing things wrong" when they're not a part of that movement.

thanks for posting this out more coherently than I could. I’m no astrologer but the weird ass struggle sessions we have about it tri annually are really fucking dumb and pointless and I’ll point out that we have more than a little catholic apologia on this site pretty consistently and it shouldn’t be controversial to say astrology has done much less material harm to women and leftists generally than the fucking pedo cabal that did literal crusades and genocides and witch burnings
Could you elaborate on the link between pseudoscience, mysticism, and patriarchal/racial relations and class contradictions?
Could you elaborate on the link between pseudoscience, mysticism, and patriarchal/racial relations and class contradictions?

Humans and mysticism is pretty much a fact of life you can't separate the two. Most people will have their own personal set of rituals that don't have any basis in material reality but are done anyway for comfort and trying to feel some level of control in a chaotic world. I don't really see the importance of focusing on one specific kind of mysticism and correlating it to feminism it doesn't really make any sense to me. The fact that some people like astrology doesn't prevent or interfere with feminism they're not contradictory.

An aggressive dislike of it is more of a red flag to me tbh. I have my own silly little rituals I do to make me feel better. If I believe an item I have gives me good luck and I take it with me when I go outside am I now not a marxist because i hold contradictory beliefs between political ideology and the concept of luck? I don't think so

Humans and mysticism is pretty much a fact of life you can't separate the two
Speak for yourself. Making claims about "hooman nayture" being linked to mysticism isn't any more historically accurate than saying human nature is linked to violence and war. Sure, it's been a constant in most societies for most of history, but who's to say that's not just something we'll examine in textbooks in the future?
I agree with the particular focus on astrology, and I don't even see the link between astrology and feminism and I think it's weird from OP.
Silly rituals are one thing (culture, tradition), belief that supernatural forces affect the material reality is a very different category

Astrology is for fun, I truly don't think it's any deeper than that

god forbid women get distracted by anything

I don't understand why there are so many people who consider themselves "Marxist gamers", but at the same time are distracted by video games.

The origin of gaming is working class, and as a working class movement, it is materialist. I don't know if they at least know what dialectical materialism is, since they don't see such an abysmal contradiction between gaming (fantasy) and marxism (materialism).

They remind me of the liberal “gamer” Jason Schreier.

And the same with some anarchists.

What do you think about it?

Your comparison makes no sense.
A conjunct of sciences and disciplines together (mathematics, physics, mechanics, computer science, art, drawing, design, animation) versus esperituality and idealism.
Video games don't pretend to be anything but fiction.

Grow up

So what, how dare women have a hobby or interest right?

Imaging a witch with a bloody athame and demon behind her saying this.
- It's me, I'm that witch.
Sorry, but I never assumed it was women who considered themselves Marxist feminists in the first instance, I wrote "people". And I'm not taking astrology as "a hobby I do in my spare time", I'm referring specifically to the anti-materialism implicit in it, taken worryingly seriously by supposedly materialist people.
- This is very silly. Not everything needs to fit into a "materialst/anti-materialist" box.
  What about reading works of fiction? Playing card games? Watching movies? Studying languages? Learning a skill? None of these have anything to do with materialism or production. Are the people engaging in them, "anti-materialist"? Are the activities "anti-materialist"?
  There's absolutely nothing wrong with astrology, its a fun hobby like anything else.
- I will ask again: SO WHAT?
  99.9% of people who "practice" astrology do not take it seriously. I have many friends who are into it, I myself have been into it in the past and the idea that people actually think it's serious is just a massive joke. A small group of people probably take it seriously but then you get fanatics in literally every hobby.

Having been close friends with someone who's way into astrology, I think there's a number of factors here.

Firstly, in a world that is clearly 'going wrong', with ever increasing economic precarity, political polarization, and visible worsening of climate change, the idea of a system than can give you any level of prediction for your personal future is a huge comfort. Marxism, despite being a scientific discipline that makes very accurate long-term predictions of social development, has no (or very little) power on the individual level, so some people may cling to this other system that gives them a sense of preparedness for their personal life. And while I agree that truly understanding and internalizing a dialectical-materialist perspective means both an end to being able to believe in things like astrology, and a kind of inner peace in the face of the inevitable dialectical unfolding of the material world, most people (who are still valuable allies) never actually reach that level of understanding.

Secondly, as people are increasingly alienated and atomized, it provides access to a large social space of overwhelmingly non-straight-white-cis-male people, immediately gives you a tribe with specific traits and icons to identify with, has (at the very least, the aesthetic of) a deep history going back to antiquity and has a lot of specific in-jokes that can quickly bring someone into the fold. My friend is constantly posting memes about the supposed characteristics of various different star signs, sub-categories of those star signs, interactions between different star signs, etc. etc. It's an endless source of, for want of a better word, content, which you can enjoy both as part of the space as a whole and from within your specific niche. You can see something and say "Yes, I am like that! They know me so well!", or "Ah, you got me! I do that too!", or "Oh, those [star sign]! That's exactly how they are!", all of which binds you into a social fabric and identity that rarely exists elsewhere.

And thirdly, through the supposed 'compatibility' of different star signs, it gives people a guide to who they should try to form a relationship with. Statistically, by far the number one danger to women is their male romantic partners, both in terms of physical violence but also in terms of the possibility of psychic distress. Will he dump me? Will he cheat on me? Will he leave me to do all the house work? He seems like a good guy now, but is he just tricking me until he thinks I'm stuck with him? Does he secretly listen to Andrew Tate? Will he start doing that a year into our relationship and suddenly completely change? There's no way to know these things, and under patriarchal capitalism men are under constant social pressure to gain these behaviors and traits. So a system that claims to give even the slightest insight into who you can trust to be a good partner offers a huge psychological comfort.

And thirdly, through the supposed 'compatibility' of different star signs, it gives people a guide to who they should try to form a relationship with. Statistically, by far the number one danger to women is their male romantic partners, both in terms of physical violence but also in terms of the possibility of psychic distress. Will he dump me? Will he cheat on me? Will he leave me to do all the house work? He seems like a good guy now, but is he just tricking me until he thinks I'm stuck with him? Does he secretly listen to Andrew Tate? Will he start doing that a year into our relationship and suddenly completely change?
What's the point of a guide with an irrational basis? It seems deeply dangerous to me to try to answer these questions based on the timing of someone's birth. Sure, there's no 100% reliable way to answer these questions, but there have to be better methods than literal mysticism. Like say, investigating what his friends are like.
I understand that people find comfort in beliefs, but the idea that you can trust someone based on the alignments of stars and planets is so wild to me. And that goes for conventional religion too. I don't think most Christians or Muslims feel these sorts of questions can be answered simply by knowing the other person is also a believer. If they did, I think they would be making a mistake. You can be hurt by people who fit the right "type", or who share the same beliefs as you. Find comfort in what you want, I suppose, but basing trust in people off of spiritual belief can have catastrophic results. like abuse in cults
These responses describing astrology as just a psychological comfort or even as entertainment, equating it with using the internet or playing a game, seem to ignore that the repeated practice of a belief can instill that belief, and that true belief impels you to act based on that belief. Lots of people treat astrology as just a fun fantasy to discuss, and I really have no problem with that. But truly believing in it and acting on it seems not only not Marxist, but more importantly a risky and misleading way to live life. If we don't embrace irrational reasons for making political decisions, why should they be embraced for making personal decisions?
- You're absolutely right, it's no real help whatsoever. But there's also no other actual guide beyond just having to learn the hard way to discern people's true intentions, which is difficult and exhausting while astrology appears so simple and easy. This is not in any way a justification, just my explanation of why it's so pervasive and attractive, and why the state of the world cultivates pseudoscientific beliefs in general - of which astrology is merely among the most socially acceptable to display, and therefore has the largest reach.
  I definitely think its use in making life decisions is actively harmful, but it's hard to pull people away from what may be their strongest social connections. In this way it's just like any other real religion, which as Marxists we obviously oppose, but we also have to understand that these beliefs, and the psychological need for these beliefs, arise from social conditions of alienation. So until we're in a position to change social conditions, just attacking the belief system and the people who believe in it won't achieve results and will just push people away. Especially when so often, the people holding these beliefs will come from among the more marginalized intersections - probably not a coincidence, as if you're a member of a group who has much more control over their life why would you need to look for guidance in the stars?
  When the time comes, I'm sure there will have to be some kind of cultural revolution to sweep out every kind of pseudoscience, from astrology to crystal healing to reiki to everything else, but until then all we can do is tolerate these beliefs in our allies, push against them in our actual comrades and make sure they're never used to make the really important organizational decisions.

im way more concerned with people glazing the woke pope and liberation theology as proto communism than I am somebody doing a birth chart, idk.

Eeehhh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ypDDYDl70
- I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
  yewtu.be
  inv.nadeko.net
  yt.artemislena.eu
  piped.video

Astrology is for uneducated morons.

This thread has so many ridiculous takes. Also I keep laughing at just how much of an obvious foreshadowing the title of this post was "Feminism and Astrology".

Like that feels like it comes straight out of reddit lmao.

I agree, and yet it is materialist. Observe and study natural phenomena and astronomical bodies to determine time and develop a calendar to organize as a civilization.