As a teacher I was worried and horrified about this post on peak trans a few days ago (Reddit gender critical). Are we going to be seeing this more and more?
"Several years ago my family moved temporarily from Iraq to Spain. (We are back in Iraq now.) My sisters and I went to a private English-speaking school mostly with British and American students and some Spanish too. We were the "different" family and I wouldn't say we were bullied but we were definitely condescended. I should note that my father is a PhD in biology and my mother is an MD so we are not poor even by Spanish standards and we are an educated family. We moved so my father could teach and my mother has worked my entire life. I have no brothers and my parents want to give me and my sisters the best lives they can.
Most of the students spent a lot of time on social media, etc and considered themselves progressive. In our world studies class (sixteen years old or so) we had a unit on sexism around the world. Of course since I am from Iraq I have a lot of ideas and a lot to say about issues facing women in the Middle East like forced marriage, honor killings, the dowry, forced coverings, FGM, trafficking, and the refugee situation.
First I was criticized for using the term "women" when describing these and then "female" by the other students. Then I was taken aside by the instructor and told my using terms like female genital mutilation made a "non-binary" person in the class (a male student) uncomfortable. Excuse me? How do you think it feels for the GIRLS who are victims? So I said fine, I will talk using different biological terms like clitoris and labia. No, that's not okay because it could make the trans students feel triggered since they do or don't have those parts. So...... we won't talk about FGM then? Seriously?
When I said I felt silenced I was told that it must be my language/culture and I'm not understanding how we describe sexism. Umm no. I speak English almost as well as a native speaker and I know what male and female is (my parents are biologists!) and I know we use men to describe adult human males and women to describe adult human females. And how dare you tell me I have backwards understand of what womanhood is! How can you police an Iraqi woman's description of sexism in Iraq? Using the word "women" isn't okay but orientalism is??
I felt so frustrated and could not explain properly why this was so dangerous. Then I found Magdalen Berns's YouTube channel and she put it into words (I'm paraphrasing):
When you take away words or redefine language so that "woman" does not really mean woman, you erase the factors of biological oppression and you take away our ability to talk about it and therefore to organize and fight against it.
I have lived through and faced the sex discrimination of the 2003 Iraq War. Would soldiers at checkpoints separate me and my sisters from our parents and sexually abuse us because we are "femme?" According to some trans activists "little girls are also kinky and devious" so we were probably just asking for it right?
I thought in Spain I would find more support but actually I was told I speak about these problems the wrong way because I don't deny the material reality of them. Then I realized how common this is and that it has NOTHING to do with my background or any language barrier. Any woman who speaks about our issues is silenced. If me speaking in a closed classroom about experiencing systemic abuse as an Iraqi woman is "literal violence" then what do you call what actually happens to women globally every single day? "Cis privilege" apparently.
EDIT: The "nonbinary" male in the class is a wealthy white man whose family is actually rich because they manufacture drones to kill people like Iraqi women and children. He is spending his summer according to the social media I can see traveling in Southeast Asia whereas I am in Baghdad afraid to go to my predominately Christian and Shia hangout spots because another ISIS attack is likely any day. But yes. Me talking about FGM definitely oppressed him."
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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
The bullshit about intersectional feminism
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ALittleBitOfButter · 14/06/2017 22:27
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