can we reject gender and still be pro female?

Anyone else have an irrational dislike of all this 'gender is a false construct' talk?

No. However, some time ago, someone tried to convince me that sex is a social construct.

Gender is constructed. Sex, however, is real, and is ambigious only in very few cases.

It is important to not confuse the to.

I do not think it is possible to be a feminist and NOT reject gender. Except maybe if you define gender completely different from how everyone else does, though I have no idea how that could look.

Your flow of argument seems to loop around, that's all. Sorry it's a fairly complex topic.

Where have I stated that biological sex is not an immutable fact? Yes, women are oppressed as a result of their reproductive class. That's precisely what I said, please don't patronise me. But gender is a tool that has been used for centuries to persuade women to accept their oppression, to see their role in society as inevitable. It allows physical differences between the sexes to become a defining characteristic, infecting all areas of life, even the ones that have nothing to do with reproduction. And refusing to be defined by my potential reproductive role is not "infighting", it is a refusal of gender as an ideological practice.

uglyswan
I wonder if you have misunderstood almond's explanation re "reproductive class" and motherhood etc.
You can't change biology. Women, not men, women will be the ones to carry a foetus for 9 months and breastfeed. This is immovable. Unchangeable.

So whether we like it or not this also makes women physically vulnerable. More than any man.

What needs to change is the patriarchal notion that being a woman is weak, inferior to being a man.

Infighting between women such as "Well I don't ever want a baby" (or whatever) gets no one anywhere.

And these are all gendered issues which is why accepting gendered assumptions about male/female bodied people is damaging, mainly to female bodied people.

You can't change that men and women are different. You can change the supposed gender-role assumptions created by society which is what feminism is addressing.

There are other shared experiences of being a woman that don't relate to childbearing or the clothes we choose.

Being paid less than men for the same work - still.
Being overlooked for promotion.
Being expected to take the career break if it's decided that one of two parents needs to stay at home.

One of the few advantages of being female - cheaper car insurance - was taken away under equality legislation.

These are the issues I thank feminists for addressing.

oh shit, x-post, you've apologised. Ignore my last sentence!

"I understood that being anti gender is about being opposed to this whole identity nonsense where everyone constantly has to be situating themselves as to what their internal sense of self is and how it matches up to society's notions of gender,"

But that is what this entire thread is about, right? Hence the discussions about shoes and the question of what makes us women. So you come on a thread about the construction of identity; say that identity is nonsense and proffer a "shared experience" of motherhood in its place (which for many women is neither shared nor an experience) - how is that an improvement? And I really don't see why trans issues have to get dragged up on every single fucking thread on this board.

Discussions of gender are not self-indulgent identity politics. Women are oppressed as a biological class. Gender is a tool of that oppression, it is hegemonic, it serves to justify the political and economic underrepresentation of women, their lack of reproductive rights, access to education, unpaid labour etc etc. It prevents change by establishing the false consensus that this oppression is natural and good. If we want to make any progress, we have to dismantle the concept of gender. And that is my point -it canbe dismantled, not only because it is mainly detrimental to women, but also because gender is a lie. It is pure ideology; it doesn't exist - for all the reasons I have already gone into. And unmasking ideology is not a project to "validate any woman's sense of identity" either - what an incredibly rude attempt to close down the discussion that was.

Swan, my post to you was rude. I am sorry.

" I wouldn't wear very high heels or stilettos because I don't understand how to walk in them, and my mum and sister don't wear them so nobody has ever really explained to me how to do it. "

Me too!

I picked shoes as many women enjoy owning many pairs of shoes, a lot of shoes specifically made for women are to "look pretty", putting on make up is to help women look pretty. Looking pretty is a gendered behaviour because it has helped women be successful in a patriarchal society. Although I am not bothered by it, in part because I never challenged it too much, it seems obvious to me that if you wear make up and invest any time in looking attractive you are perpetuating gender roles. Practically all the women I know and almost every women I see wears or at least sometimes wears makeup, wears their hair longer than men, and grooms it at great expense etc, which is why I wonder if the stridently ardent anti gender brigade do not see a contradiction in continuing to do ANY of this stuff ?

My other point was about the fact that the experience of being a biological women (from birth) varies so greatly that it's of little use as a cohesive force. Society is partly the product of evolution, gendered behaviour is encouraged because it's successful behaviour. For women that typically meant being pretty, appearing attractive to men, being "feminine". But whereas that's mostly sounds shallow and bad, the other interpretation is that a division of labour gave men the most back breaking or physically demanding simply because they were stronger, women were not as effective at moving very large objects as men. Although I am all for equal rights, and believe that traditional gender roles are breaking down, there's a long long way to go before we hear men saying "she seems like she'll be able to provide a good income to support me"

I think almond is saying that women are judged to be mothers and carers even when they are not.

So an employer is wary of employing a woman under 40 as she might have kids. If she has kids she will be the one who doesn't turn up for work to look after them.
If elderly relatives get sick it will probably be her who spends time looking after them.

So even if you aren't a mother or a natural carer society expects it of you.

(If I've got the wrong end of the stick almond, sorry)

It's that our shared biological sex has led to women being part of a reproductive class and that has formed our experiences of being women -

I really don't understand this.

I'm not trying to get women on board on that basis. I never said that I was. I think women do have many shared experiences, but I don't think that how they feel about that is the basis of feminism.

As Devora has said, I see women as occupying the reproductive class as a social and political position. It isn't about their sense of self at all.

I was responding to where you say the following:

'And that's why, to answer the OP's question, I am "anti-gender". Not because pink doesn't suit me, or I don't wear high heels. But because there is a constant slippage between the identity bestowed on me by society and how I see myself.'

I understood that being anti gender is about being opposed to this whole identity nonsense where everyone constantly has to be situating themselves as to what their internal sense of self is and how it matches up to society's notions of gender, and what we imagine others to be feeling about us or themselves. So it seems a contradiction to me for you to say you are anti gender and then describing your own relation to gender identity!

Which kind of brings me full circle to my original point. People who are gender non conforming should of course have full rights and not face discrimination, but that is an overlapping cause with feminism. It is not the actual feminist cause, which is the rights of women as a class.

Nooooo, it's not childbearing is an experience that all women are interested in or should be interested in or that dictates all aspects of their personality. It's that our shared biological sex has led to women being part of a reproductive class and that has formed our experiences of being women - whether or not we bear children or find children interesting.

our biological sex gives us a shared cultural background rooted in childbearing - even if we as individuals don't have children

Does it? I have 1 child , most of my friends female and male are childless. I can think of lots of things because of our age, background, aspirations, interests etc which contribute to a shared cultural background but that's not one of them.

I really enjoyed being pregnant, no sickness, glowing skin and hair , wonderful feelings of serenity ending in a smooth and efficient elective caesarean.

But- I wasn't in the least bit interested in other pregnant women. I stopped going to the ante-natal classes . I went back to work full time when baby was 2 months old and was never involved in mother and baby groups.

I don't think I suggested at any point that the purpose of feminism was to validate anyone's sense of identity and I do rather resent the implication that I want feminism to revolve around me. But if you're going to try and convince other women to get on board on the basis of a so-called shared experience of motherhood, you've got your work cut out for you.

The shared experience of most women includes that they are, or are going to be mothers. That's different to a universal experience.

Feminism, hopefully, reaches out to everyone to advocate for improvements in the way women are treated in society, often by using a class analysis of women.

As Glosswitch says, that often means women as a reproductive class.

Feminism is not actually a project to validate any woman's sense of identity in any sense, including her sense of womanhood (or the lack of it).

I'm anti gender because I want feminism to focus on the rights of women, such as better miscarriage care or help for rape victims, or adequate resources for women living in poverty.

I don't care about whether there is slippage between society's notion of identity and your own, anymore than I care about this stuff when trans people go on about it. That isn't the purpose of feminism.

"A woman with an A cup is going to have a very different experience to a woman with a EE cup." That's true and made me laugh, actually. But it's not just that. One woman may see "the time she bought her first bra" as an incredibly exciting, identity-forming experience. Another woman may have hated the entire experience and cultivated a deep-seated loathing against "feminine" underwear. And another may have simply forgotten all about it. It's not just the experience, it's how we interpret it and build it into a sense of who we are.

But that takes us dangerously close into "you're not a woman until you've experienced pregnancy or felt the call of motherhood" territory. And I for one haven't and I can assure you, I am most definitely a woman. Just not all the time. I have a female body, I live in it, it's always there. But I am only rarely aware of it as a female body. And that's why, to answer the OP's question, I am "anti-gender". Not because pink doesn't suit me, or I don't wear high heels. But because there is a constant slippage between the identity bestowed on me by society and how I see myself. This wouldn't matter much if were just me, I'm a feminist on basic principles. But if feminism tries to reach out to other women as "women", on the basis of "shared experiences" and these women simply don't view themselves primarily asrepresentatives of their gender, then I don't see how you can convince them otherwise.

Sorry uglyswan I think I was reading "shared" experience as "universal" experience.
Of course everyone has their own experiences and there will be a lot of overlap in what women experience.

I agree with you when you say these shared experiences arent always as shared as we may think.
Eg buying a bra. A woman with an A cup is going to have a very different experience to a woman with a EE cup.

I don't believe in all this identity business, uglyswan.

I think that shared experiences among women are far more common that feminists think. It is feminists who often don't seem to share the experiences other women do.

I'm always a woman, for the reasons Devora has given in her link to Glosswitch's excellent article. Glosswitch is always amazing.

I am a woman because I have a female body and I've grown other people inside it. That never stops being true, and I never see myself as being a person or woman or mother independent of my own mother, children etc. And as Glosswitch talks about, I felt that cultural cohesion of motherhood even when I wasn't one.

I don't know, almond, perhaps it is just me. I just don't think that these "shared experiences" are as shared as we like to think. And I don't think that they are enough to build a fixed identity on. But that is what being "gendered" assumes - that the very few experiences common to all women are enough to create a consistent and unchanging identity, one that is present all the time.

While you're at work, you're a worker - until you go home. While you're doing things for or with your children, you're a parent - until they're at school or otherwise out of your hair. While you're discussing women's issues, you're feminist - until you start talking about something else. But when are you a woman? All the time? Biologically yes, presumably. But what things do you do with the conscious knowledge that you are a woman? Being gendered as a woman (your given name, the way you look, dress, etc.) presents the illusion that everything you do, you do as a woman. But is that true for how you see yourself?

Sorry if this is too convoluted, I'm tired and may not be expressing myself well.

I like this article www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/01/why-disregarding-motherhood-and-women-s-bodies-won-t-help-feminism

I think it's saying that although gender is a social construct, women are a reproductive class and our biological sex gives us a shared cultural background rooted in childbearing - even if we as individuals don't have children. (Much as you can have a Jewish culture and identity without practising Judaism.)

But isn't that about you, rather than the experiences of most women?

I may not be following here.