BACP Gender,Sexual, and Relationship Diversity by Dr Meg-John Barker

[R0wantrees]

Good Practice Guide, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
(extract)
2.6 Gender identity: woman
Definitions
"Whether trans or cisgender, intersex or not, many people identify as
women. However, what this means varies a great deal depending on their other intersecting attributes. It is important not to assume, for example, that being a woman necessarily involves being able to bear children, or having XX sex chromosomes, or breasts. Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance.
However, of course, not all women adhere to all these things. For example some neurodiverse women (on the autistic/aspergic/ADHD spectrums) may struggle to express emotions, or with social situations. In some northern working-class contexts femininity is associated with strength and aggression. As always an intersectional understanding is vital and we need to be mindful that what is culturally regarded as the epitome of femininity is white, middle class, youthful, non-disabled, heterosexual, cisgender, and thin. This strongly shapes all women’s experiences of womanhood.
Common concerns
While gender may not always be relevant to a woman’s presenting issues, mental health struggles are often gendered. Women have such high rates of body image issues that this has been labelled ‘normative discontent’.
It has been related to both narrow ideals of feminine beauty, and the
contradictory pressures on women today to conform to stereotypical
femininity and to be independent and successful. Food and body
can represent one potential area of control in an uncontrollable and
contradictory world. Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and many other emotional disorders. This has been linked to the way women’s identities are often bound up with other people, for example, rates of depression often peak for mothers when children leave home. Therapy with women may well involve exploring their relationships with others, and with being desirable, pleasing and/or approved of" (continues)

My understanding is that the majority of counsellors in the UK are BACP accredited. There is a great deal in this document to consider.

The author is the partner of Edward Lord who identifies as non-binary see recent threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3323475-Surprise-The-Masons-now-welcome-Transwomen-but-not-women
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3317922-City-of-London-Corporation-consultation-is-out-this-covers-Hampstead-Ponds
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3316098-Childrens-Convenor-Elected-Councillor-calls-women-cunts-on-Twitter-rants

What a load of tosh.

I'm a woman because I have female biology. This means I get treated by society as lesser (had to sue an employer to get equal pay for example). I'm not a woman because I perform femininity like some sort of fucking trained seal balancing a sparkly ball on my nose while wearing a pink tutu.

Yep, tosh is very polite

I think BACP posted something vaguely GC once and then had to issue a grovelling apology?

"Whether trans or cisgender, intersex or not, many people identify as women.

Adult human females are women, they don't "identify" as women, ffs

Bloody hell. Firstly - this is word salad. But secondly, If 'woman' doesn't mean biology and doesn't mean performing "social norms of femininity" then what does it mean? Seems to boil down to a 'woman' is anyone who says they are one, in which case we need a new word for the sex class that produces ova and has the capacity to gestate young. Surely it is not a good thing for counsellors to encourage people to engage with the world based on delusions? I mean, I could totally identify as the queen and expect non existant servants to do all the housework / cooking / provision of meals for the kids but any counsellor who went along with this wouldn't be helping me, would they?

Mind boggling. Puts me right off using a BACP counsellor ever to be honest....

But secondly, If 'woman' doesn't mean biology and doesn't mean performing "social norms of femininity" then what does it mean?

That's what I thought! Meg gets round this category problem with blah blah bla intersectional. Lame and inane!

Its worth looking at other sections!

Seems to boil down to a 'woman' is anyone who says they are one, in which case we need a new word for the sex class that produces ova and has the capacity to gestate young.

YY. They will want that too though!

YY. They will want that too though!
Yes but if we start calling ourselves giraffes* then eventually they'll get enraged by us going around talking to other giraffes about babies and pregnancy and menstruation (or whatever these things will be called) and having opinons and wanting giraffe only spaces and will want to be called giraffes too. And then somebody will come along and write similar bollocks about how "giraffe" now has no real meaning in actual physical reality and can mean whatever someone thinks it does....and here we go again....

*sorry to actual animals with long necks for some reason the first word that came to mind.....I probably need to go to bed.

So, basically, woman could mean sex or chromosomes except when it doesn't and it means performing feminine stereotypes. Oh but hang on! Some northern working class types might be upset (and they've got accents and everything, so we'll let them off for not being southern and woke) so, um, yes, they don't have to like fluffy things and can be tough (because accents! How cool). But otherwise, women are all paranoid and suffer eating disorders because if you're not thin (unless approved northern) then, doh!

And men definitely perform it better. They can be strong, feisty, (even when not northern) and have eating disorders but not crack up. Which boring ordinary women definitely will. So ladies, let us teach you how to be desirable, pleasing and beg men for approval. Pats on bums all round...

Oh and did we mention thin?

Section 2.1 What is Sex/Gender? discusses chromosomes, hormones etc

Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance.

URGH

There is almost NOTHING I agree with in this.

I also feel like they are insinuating that women who don't adhere to their ridiculous feminine theories must have some kind of explanation for their "defect" (neurodiversity, geographical area)

NO.

(R0wan, thanks for sharing. I will read the other segments, once I can stomach the additional gobbledygook.)

Is there a link to the guide? Google isn't being helpful!
I'm interested to see how they define 'man'

I'm also entirely fed up with nonsensical word salads that read like a bad undergrad lit essay. Communication skills people! 'Communication' isn't some shifting constellation of cliched metaphors and esoteric feelings. We can't begin to discuss if we can't communicate with agreed terms... I know, that's the point.

apologies, I thought I had linked

www.bacp.co.uk/media/2334/bacp-gender-sexual-relationship-diversity-gpacp001.pdf

Thank you R0wantrees

Okay, fuck these people, seriously.

"Bodies
The sex of a baby is medically assigned on the basis of the length of the clitoris/penis."

What. The. Fuck.

Also, I was looking for their definition of 'gender' - they waffle on about common understandings and historically for pages. Then we get to their definition, I think...

gender... whether they identify as a man or a woman

Le sigh.

I think you need to keep going... this is the position they go on to correct.

And then this... hmmmm

For simplicity I will use the word ‘gender’ rather than ‘sex/gender’ for the remainder of this resource, but do continue to hold in mind that it is biopsychosocial, and therefore sex/gender cannot be teased apart.
Given the complexities and nuances that we have covered, it is useful to think of gender using the following dimensions:
• Gender assignation: the gender a person was assumed to be at birth, and whether there was any question about this or any interventions made.
• Gender status: whether a person has remained in the gender they were assumed to be at birth or not.
• Gender identity: how a person identifies their gender – if at all. Here it is useful to explore how this manifests in terms of gender expression, gender roles, and gender experience

I think I'm done with reading through this document.

Hmm, I thought that was the correction. It read to me that they were correcting the previous 'societal assumptions' that Gender to refer to whether a person is a man or a woman from page 8.
On page 18 they've added the words identify as

It is important not to assume, for example, that being a woman necessarily involves being able to bear children, or having XX sex chromosomes.

Yes. Yes it is important to assume these things. Because they are material reality and denying material reality is a dark path to madness.

Being a woman in a British cultural context often means adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable, and concerned with appearance.
However, of course, not all women adhere to all these things.

FFS. No women adhere to all these things. Like other humans, women are some of these things, some of the time. Read any AIBU thread on mothers-in-law if your reality is wavering.

Being a woman in any social context means being born biologically female in a sexual dimorphic species.

The expression of that femaleness in a social context may include conditioning toward a list of adjectives which are traditionally understood to express the idea of female, in whatever specific temporal, cultural, geographical and social context that female was born. This understanding is called gender and is a construct, neither innate nor essential.

Because if you want to believe a fondness for pink and handbags is essential to being a woman, you also have to believe that sexual aggression and pervy behaviour are essential to being a male.

At which point women should just throw up their hands and start building a nice big fence to keep the men out.

1. This article is non-stop offensive nonsense.
2. Many (most?) counsellors who have a professional counselling qualification in the U.K. are members of the BACP. It’s the leading professional body, and the majority of employers looking to take on counsellors expect that staff will be registered members. Potential clients are reassured to see you belong to a well known regulatory body. As a counsellor, you’re shooting your self in the foot work-wise if you distance yourself from the BACP.
3. fml

For some reason I find the thing about the northerners the most offensive. Do the men up there have a different system of imposing femininity as part of their patriarchy? Do the men there posit the tough woman as the ideal, optimum form of femininity? Or is it something women constructed autonomously with their ladybrains?

Or is it possible that working class women have always had to be tough, bearing the labour burdens of both working class men AND ruling class women and men.
But you wouldn't want to offend the Cockneys around Goldsmiths that you like to boss around eh, so invent it as some ethnic Northern thing...

Often for years. MN is flakey on my phone.

Subsistence households needed everyone's labour in order to eat and be clothed.

It is only in homes where there are sufficient resources to enable some members to be idle, that ideals of femininity can flourish.

So much of what we believe is filtered through the Victorians, who were, after all, only a moment in the long history of humanity.