Judging by your pronoun tag, you’re a man telling everyone about how, in the abstract, women “feminists,” are “distracted” by things they ‘shouldn’t be’ because it’s “irrational” and “pseudoscience,” and they “are a problem to the movement” and you apparently know better than such frivolity~ and are here to revoke their ‘diamat credentials’ because they ‘probably don’t even understand it.’ It reads as some pretty blatant chauvinism and patriarchal denigration that’s not based in anything but a misplaced sense of superiority.

Like, can you give me one example where a marxist feminist action has been undermined by someone being interested in this particular personal mysticism? How marxist feminist progress or work has been materially undermined at all by how marxist feminist organizers or others might play with or relate to these things in their free-time? Has any prominent marxist feminist engaged in direct action ever said “I won’t work with you bc ur a scorpio” to another comrade engaged in the struggle and split a party over it, and you saw this and were so shaken by it that you feel the need to bring up the concern? Have any of these things happened for this criticism to be rooted in a real reality as a concern for you, and you are not just concern-trolling about ‘the sanctity and strength of the marxist feminist movement,’ which you may or may not even be a part of, to distance yourself from the visibly likely problematic aspects of your mentality behind it?

Or are you working yourself up in a way that frankly, to me, reads as adjacent to anti-feminist gamergate CHUDS attacking things women like because women like it, and you think it’s “silly” and ‘beneath you’ in some way?

I think you should analyze where this is coming from and maybe do some self-criticism, because this doesn’t sound real. I’ve organized many people, including with many marxists (women and otherwise, cis and otherwise) some of whom were in varying degrees interested in this kind of stuff (with women and non-cis being the most common) and plenty who weren’t or practiced other beliefs. And with those of whom were, I’ve had many quality conversations where it came up and we learned more about each other in how we may or may not relate to or experience supposed signifiers-of-aspects of our personalities represented in these ~jungian-style ‘universal archetypes’ that astrology is constructed around. Just as I have in different ways with people who had other spiritual/religious beliefs. And at no point at all were these mysticisms or religious beliefs made central or even came up at all in the actual analysis and planning and material action of protests, union organizing, or discussion in theory-study groups or anything. Least of all did it ever cause any harm to our work. Many of those individuals have been more committed, do better and more focused work, and have accomplished more to help working people and further socialism than me even at my most involved; and, again I don’t know you, but going off of other people I’ve encountered who’ve expressed similar attitudes, I’d find it VERY hard to believe that these people, who I’ve also never heard speak like this about others’ personal religious/spiritual beliefs, are less capable marxists than you.

And any concern about “abysmal contradictions between pseudoscience and materialism” would equally apply to any marxists of any gender being religious or believing in a higher power at all — but you fixating on astrology and women marxist-feminists sets off alarms for me. So I’m not trying to attack you personally, because I don’t know you, but I want to communicate to you that it sounds like you either harbor some misogynistic attitudes and chauvinism, or that maybe, you like, heard a classmate you like say something bad about your star sign and you’re upset about it and deflecting.

I’m more absurdist when it comes to personal-emotional beliefs. But astrology is just a fun mysticism for some people. For some people it gives them a sense of greater-than-them wonder and/or purpose not so different to what other religion and spirituality does, and without the inbuilt patriarchal structure of most major religions. I’ve found it can also be an effective tool for self-reflection by externalizing aspects of one’s self in an arranged way that expresses the interconnected dialectical strengths-in-weaknesses and vice-versa of aspects of one’s personality, to examine separated from your ego. When I was taught about some of this stuff by a coworker years ago, it did genuinely help me embrace and confront parts of myself that I hadn’t previously thought about, or struggled with due to over-internalization of toxic patriarchal norms. As well it can just be a fun way of getting to know other people according to how they do or don’t relate to certain aspects or signifiers supposedly attached to them, in a way that’s not much different from, and in some cases deeper-reaching or more specific than sharing art that we connect with back and forth, as an extension of ourselves to be felt and understood in ways that we might struggle to be otherwise in the course of normal conversation.

Like what is the actual problem here where this needs you to take such a stand? There is laughably zero threat of some Kautsky-level “Astrolo-marxist” movement misleading the working class into a world war because ‘oops I’m such an aries’. There’s no “Astrological Papacy” that owns 1/3 of the land in Europe and is embedded in the governmental structures of nations. It’s not that serious. And your saying they’re “distracted” and “a problem to the movement” and “not radically useful” like they’re only good “pure” marxist feminists if they dedicate every second of every moment (including self-reflection or leisure time) to pure doctrinal historical and dialectical materialism is… it’s just weird my dude. Who made you the arbiter of feminism? And do you ever watch TV? Play video games? Shitpost online? Imagine fanciful scenarios in your head? These are all distractions. Why is theirs “worse” than yours? I guarantee you that you tell yourself lies every day that are just as inaccurate and anti-materialist as a given mysticism/religion that someone might resonate with. I don’t care how “dialectical-materialist-mensch” you think you are. I do too. We all do to an extent. I think this is all worth you reflecting on.