Victoria Smith on breast-binding

Thanks Glinner. The double as standard in how breast binding is viewed is sickening. It is mind boggling that this is legal.

Facebook forced you to take it down???? On what grounds?

Because is didn’t say what a fabulous idea it was?

Utter bastards. Never used Facebook so I can't boycott them. What reason were you given? Hate speech? Jeez.

Excellent article. This jumped out at me:

After all, you’d have to be a massive racist to think mainly African communities are following sexist, regressive rules while mainly European/North American ones are engaged in some complex, sophisticated act of gender discovery.

thanks for sharing - I shared it on Facebook.

Glosswitch's newsletter is one of my regular reading highlights. She nails it again here.

I don't understand this part:

A transgender identity is understood to transcend the usual compromises female people make with the body they have and the ways in which others see it. It has no relational context; it demands nothing from others.

A major problem with 'transgender identity' is that it is almost entirely dependent upon external validation - it is demands everything, total capitulation, from others.

I agree Jellyslice, I am a bit confused too.

I think I get the first part. I mean few women are actually comfortable with their body let alone happy with it, so we have to “make compromises” also we are constantly subject to the male gaze and male judgement from a young age until the point at which males choose not to see us at all because we lose all value to them.

Is it that she is referring to the female body having no relational context and demanding nothing from others as opposed to identities which are entirely reliant on validation from others?

This makes me think of “pretty privilege”, in my opinion a liberal feminist nonsense concept. When proponents of this concept talk about the privilege conferred by beauty and youthfulness, they are really talking about the group of women and girls in that phase of life who currently enjoy positive regard and favours from men in positions of genuine power. It really is no privilege at all by comparison to those men in the positions of power, wealth and influence from which they are able to confer “pretty privilege” on the chosen beauties. A bit like a Miss World contest. The grand prize is positive male attention.

Apologies, I hope that is not diverting too far from the topic.

And exactly what did Facebook do? That really has my curiosity piqued!