Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

What about Castrato. Although I seem to recall the boys had a choice (although how much of a choice might be debatable) and they had a fairly high status within society.

Bubbles, I couldn't write an essay. But yes I agree with you regarding slavery.

I would be interested to understand what others believe is the cause of racism and how does this fit in.

I like Parenti's position on the cause of racism which is based on a materialist concept of history.

Parenti argues that western racism is systemic and historical in nature and should be regarded as more than just an attitudinal problem.
He identifies the origins of western racism in imperialism and slavery: To justify the colonial plunder of another nation or entire continent (as in the case of Africa) as well as the enslavement of conquered populations, imperialists and/or slave traffickers dehumanize their victims and define them as moral inferiors and subhuman.

Parenti maintains that racism serves several functions for ruling interests in the United States:

It divides the working class against each other

It creates a "super-exploited" group of people who are forced to work at below scale wages thereby depressing wage levels for the entire workforce

It distracts the (United States) white population from its own legitimate grievances by providing an irrelevant scapegoat in the form of minority populations

It seems to me that by dividing the working class into single issue political activism the ruling elite can largely obscure the realities and prevent people from forming alliances that threaten class society.

Wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Parenti

Well quite Kim I often think that these laws are all well and good but they seem to be used mainly by people in ways they were not intended. Sad fact is that people who are discriminated against are often not in a position to pursue anything. Due to money or just the fact that often people in oppressed groups find it difficult to suddenly behave like someone not in an oppressed group when something happens. Of course the people making the laws don't understand that as they come from a position of privilege and so of course would pull out all the stops if that privilege didn't work out in some way they expected it to.

Don't know if I have made that point very well.

Yes it is shocking Kim. I am in no doubt that transwomen are discriminated against in your profession but as you say it is difficult to prove.
Is there a trans rights organisation that, for example, collects statistics?

There is absolutely no sense in which Sparta was a progressive society wrt women. Only in relation to Athens, which is how it's usually written about by the primary sources.

Joyce Tyldesley does not work at Cornell.

Protect or guard?

Weren't eunuchs chattels? Weren't they specifically selected on the basis of their sex to protect women?

OK so the poster upthread who said:
"Ok, lets talk Equality Act 2010 here: There are 7 protected characteristics, gender is one of them. There is another bit of legislation that permits people living as their gender of choice for 2 years (no need for medical or surgical intervention) they can apply to be legally recognised as being of that gender. This includes a change of birth certificate."

was simply talking bollocks then.
Sex isprotected. Well good.

The protected characteristics the Equality Act 2010 (which applies to England, Wales and Scotland) are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

Full details of the Act can be read at www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

That's reassuring, mooncup.

Thing is if all women say their gender is female, and gender changes to encompass the characteristics of all those women, the gender has to vanish.

So eg if a women enjoys working with motorcycle engines and plays rugby in her spare time, does that mean those activities will now be considered feminine?

Because otherwise, if feminine remains as it is, and all women say they are feminine, then doesn't that mean that all other parts of themselves that do not fit with that are irrelevant? Doesn't that reduce everybody?

I really have a problem with gender, BTW.

It's a nasty little catch-22, isn't it?

If we end up having to say 'my gender is woman' we buy into the whole stupid 'women are like this and men are like that' system again.

if the world is going to see us as women and then shit on us accordingly, maybe we should say our gender is woman, even when we don't know what being a woman feels like

i don't know.

I'm not sure what my gender is. I have traits which are masculine and traits that are feminine.

My sex is female and because others can identify me as a person of the female sex, stuff has happened.

But according to the law - gender is the protected thing, not sex?

So if someone at work treated me badly because they understand that I am of the female sex, that is not something that is protected? It's only protected if they are mistreating you because of your gender - but as I don't feel that I have a gender one way or the other that is not protected?

If a baby is born and the sex is announced as female and then something bad is done to that baby because the sex is female - then that is not recognised as anti-quality under our laws? Because it would only be if the thing were done because of gender and newborn babies don't yet know what their gender is...

This makes no sense to me.

Men were the King.... The King was Ra (the top God).

Yep, no sexism here or in any of the other multi-theistic cultures where the top god was male. Or the mono-theistic ones. Move along, please, ladies.

seems to me that the equality act conflates sex with gender- a person can have xy chromosomes and a penis and be a woman- there is no biological sex then

which is great i guess, because if trans women can be protected because they are women in terms of gender, then so can i, even though i am not trans because gender is protected and i have a gender too.

A poster upthread said that gender was a protected characteristic under equality legislation but that sex is not.

Does anyone know if that is true?

I can't remember who said that common sense is neither common, nor is it sense....
That's the thing - it is socially constructed, and to a sexist society, sexist things seem like common sense.

I think that's exactly it, chibi.

It feels as if much of this thread is about looking at everything retrospectively and saying 'oh, yeah, it must have been the most practical solution to oppress women, so that's ok'.

please can someone page me when we get to the argument that sexism and misogyny are natural because coloured berries and fucking bonobos or some shit

thanks

maybe the practicalities of life (or the lens through which we view them) are sexist

you know, kind of like how to the dude with a hammer, everything looks like a nail

LazarussLozenge wrote - "Why do you think women stayed at home, whilst men worked? Sexism in action or just a common sense response to the practicalities of life at the time?"

I think it had a lot to do with men wanting jobs after wars, there not being enough paid jobs to go around, and men being given priority for the jobs that were available.

gosh those men must have unfeasibly large bollocks to need to spread their legs quite so far apart

or they are entitled arseholes who don.t realise other people are real, too

what could it beeeeeeeeeee???

I think Lazarus is busy googling more 'history', mooncup.