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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

British 'man' becomes pregnant

511 replies

slithytove · 08/01/2017 10:50

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/first-british-man-reveal-hes-9582789

Sorry, it's a mirror link

I don't usually post about this stuff, but it's really annoyed me this time.

Now 'men' can get pregnant? So 'men' will need maternity leave, 'men' will need maternity services, probably somehow different to women's.

Is it just me or does the fact they are calling this person a man instead of a transman, allow men (people born as men) to take even more from women under the trans rights umbrella?

Who would it hurt to call this pregnant person a transman?

I guess we should be grateful this person was born as a woman and is therefore socialised to not put themselves first.

OP posts:
qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 09:28

Beachcomber, I don't believe anyone has automatic access to anyone else's thoughts. And I do not presume to do so as a man. It would therefore help if you could clarify what you are saying, because I am genuinely not sure I understand.

Are saying that it is entirely possible for men to value children and human life to the same general degree as women do?

If you're answer is yes, then you are not an essentialist; if your answer is no, then you are. Or at least that is how it seems to me.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 11/01/2017 09:25

Sorry, I'm not going to agree with people just because they're women and I'm a man

Biscuit
qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 09:23

Sorry, I'm not going to agree with people just because they're women and I'm a man.

Beachcomber · 11/01/2017 09:22

you believe that in spite of gender identity being embodied, a world is nevertheless possible where men and women are valued differently but awarded equal status.

No I don't believe that. I also haven't said that or even implied that. What you claim I believe above doesn't even make sense. I wouldn't use the term "gender identity" the way you are mansplaining to me that I do because I know what it means.

Do you think men are socialized into thinking they know better than women about everything including women's own thoughts? I do. And very successful socialization it is too. It is quite extraordinary how much they do it - sometimes it is quite funny, especially when they don't show much understanding of a subject whilst exhibiting a high opinion of their opinions on what they have decided women think. It is however very misogynistic behaviour, even when it is funny.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 09:21

This isn't debating society. This is our lives.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 11/01/2017 09:19

Like everyone else in the world I have an opinion on what is right and wrong, and am gratified when people are persuaded to my view of things

Then make it clear that this is what you are saying (i.e. that it is your opinion only), because right now, and for the last xx pages of what was actually an interesting thread before you turned up, you have been behaving exactly, and without a shred of self-recognition or sense of irony, like the kind of patriarchal man that you also seem to be decrying. Practice what you preach. I very much doubt that with your convoluted reasoning and complete inability to treat with integrity what any woman has said here (by this, I mean actually take her words at face value, rather than impart your own meaning and interpretation) as well as with your attitude that you and only you as a man are right, (when talking about issues that impact women deeply and often painfully), that you will persuade anyone. All you are doing is making yourself the centre of attention and demanding women's time and energy in replying to you - as well as taking up women's space and telling us how to understand the very fabric of our lives and experiences. Sound patriarchal? Because it is.

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 09:02

Ok, it wasn't very well put Helen. I should have been more specific. Sorry.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 09:01

Nope. Not obviously. Because that's not what you said

HTH.

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 09:00

Helen I meant they're just like men in terms of how they have wielded power. Obviously.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 09:00

"please identify which ones and explain exactly why."

Nope. Not your teacher, dude.

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:59

So Beachcomber you are saying that it is entirely possible for men, overall, to value children and human life generally to the same degree as women?

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 08:59

No, qwerty, not the typo.

What the hell do you mean by "the few women who have gained power are just like men"?

Margaret thatcher, Hillary Clinton, condoleeza rice, Theresa May, Angela merkel, nicola sturgeon, Arlene foster... are all women. With XX chromosomes. Breasts, wombs and vaginas. How are they just like men?

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:57

A few problems as you see them. You are not a judge of what is right or wrong

Like everyone else in the world I have an opinion on what is right and wrong, and am gratified when people are persuaded to my view of things.

I could say 'Who appointed you the judge of who is right to say they are right?'

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:54

helen, I'm coming back at Beachcomber with the implications of her views. All my extrapolations are reasonable I think. If you think any are not, please identify which ones and explain exactly why.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 11/01/2017 08:53

Thank you for your response Beachcomber. However, there are problems.

A few problems as you see them. You are not a judge of what is right or wrong although I've noticed that so many men think they have this right

Beachcomber · 11/01/2017 08:53

Qwerty is labouring under the misapprehension that my point is that men "value the lives of their children less than women just because they cannot experience pregnancy."

When really my suggestion is that in misogynistic patriarchal society men as a class undervalue women and what women do. Pregnancy and childbirth are things women do. As things that women do they are undervalued. This value judgment informs how men as a class also value human life as it is a product of something women do. This may be one of many factors which contribute to men's willingness to inflict violence other human beings. Or it may not.

(I also wonder if it is a factor (or not) in the phenomenon of men abandoning their children and or failing to provide for them.)

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:50

Sorry Helen typo.

Should have been: 'Look at politics and you will see that the few women who have gained power are just like men"

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 08:49

Qwerty

You've done it again: extrapolated from a point beachcomber made to tell her what she believes on a number of topics.

It's deeply annoying and you aren't even doing it to me.

Please cease and desist.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 08:47

"Look at politics and you will see in that in power the few women that gain power are just like men"

What the hell does this mean?

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:46

A key (and feminist) point to what I am saying is that the context within which women produce children is patriarchy.

Yes, I would completely agree with that. And that context can change.

qwerty232 · 11/01/2017 08:45

Thank you for your response Beachcomber. However, there are problems.

According to my above suggestion, in a society in which women, our sexed bodies and our time and energy were awarded equal status to that awarded to men (or ideally a society in which the entire concept of status of humans was foreign and or rejected) the value of all childbearing and consequently all children would be perceived equally by women and men.

If gender is embodied then gendered differences will always exist. Men and women will always be different - not just on a basic biological level but as gendered identities. In that case, different values will always be inferred from those identities. As you say yourself, women who go through pregnancy have a higher valuation of the life they produce. That is close to saying, in my view, that women have a superior innate capacity for caring and nurturing than men. In that sense, according to your logic, they are valued differently.

However, you believe that in spite of gender identity being embodied, a world is nevertheless possible where men and women are valued differently but awarded equal status. That at some point the honour killings, family annihilation, gendercide, sex selective abortion, prostitution, domestic violence, FGM, child marriage, rape culture etc would just disappear.

The problem is, valuing things different is very close to according them different status.

What I would say is that there will always be systems of status in the world. And there will always be the abuse of power. It's just that organisations of power are never fixed. They change and reconfigure. When communism collapsed new structures of power calcified in its place, for example.

Patriarchy is a system of power that has become stuck for a very long time When it dies out (and it will at some point) then new systems of status will replace it.

To imply that a post-patriarchal future would not feature new status systems and expressions of violence is to imply that women are innately different to men - kinder, more nurturing, more given to cooperation than competition. This is not so. Women are just like men - hugely variable from individual to individual, kind, caring, heroic, magnanimous, selfless, perverted, hateful, power-hungry, sadistic, cruel, merciless, tyrannical, barbarous. In other words human. They are socialised differently, and have different advantages in society so overall patterns of gendered behaviour are apparent, but these patterns are not fixed by nature.

Women are not born more caring or nurturing than men. They are just born into a society dominated by men - in which most of the the great statesman, artists, scientists etc have been men, and most of the most evil people have been men. And they are socialised to believe that this is the case because men are innately more given to painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and serial killing while women. But they're not. We know very well that in history thousands of female Rembrandt's have died without every putting paint to paper because a women's place was considered to be in the kitchen or the bed and they never got the opportunity or even considered the possibility; and I'm sure there were also lots of potential female Jeffrey Dahlmer's and Harold Shipman's to whom it never occurred to put their darkest impulses into practice because they were raised to believe murder and torture is a job for the boys.

`Look at politics and you will see in that in power the few women that gain power are just like men. Some are great and some are not. For every Caroline Lucas there's a Marine Le Pen.

Women do not value life more as a result of being pregnant. They value life more, overall, because they have been socialised over millennia to believe that they are the ones who do all the nurturing and the caring.

Unfortunately 'a society in which the entire concept of status of humans was foreign and or rejected' is never, ever going to be a reality. That's just not how human beings are.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 08:18

Very true, Beachcomber.

In discussions about how many men have died in war through history "for the general good", it is forgotten how many women have died in childbirth through history. It's simply not valued.

Beachcomber · 11/01/2017 07:59

A key (and feminist) point to what I am saying is that the context within which women produce children is patriarchy.

That is a context within which females, femaleness, female bodies, female time, female energy, female dominated domains, female lived experience, etc are considered and treated as inferior. A context within which women are persecuted for their reproductive capacity to carry and birth babies.

HelenDenver · 11/01/2017 07:33

Also, qwerty, beachcomber theorised clearly that the process of pregnancy and birth might be part of the reason or one reason, and cited an example in support.

I suspect there are myriad reasons and hers is an interesting theory that may be a factor. Perhaps the less likely a woman is to die or be injured by pregnancy and birth, the less of a factor it is. Don't know. Still a useful point for discussion, though.

ChocChocPorridge · 11/01/2017 06:58

value the lives of their children less than women just because they cannot experience pregnancy

I think what you're missing here, is that men didn't have any skin in the game. When DP and I had children, he made his deposit and then was done. He was at emotional risk of loosing me, but at no risk at all of losing his life. He could have walked away and the child would still exist.

Children don't just spring into being. Women risk their lives and their health to produce them. Is it really either unreasonable, or essentialist to say that if you've put work and personal risk into getting something, it's likely you'll value it more than someone who hasn't?