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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Do you think it is necessary to have good analytical and critical thinking skills be a feminist?

161 replies

QuentinSummers · 07/04/2017 16:38

Lots of current "feminist" thinking seems not feminist at all and I wondered if it's because people are not abe to apply critical thinking skills to arguments like "Any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice".
Wondered what you all thought?

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PencilsInSpace · 10/04/2017 19:43

Fucking hell, didn't take long for user's agenda to start showing Hmm

I agree, apart from that it's an excellent thread.

Fauchelevent · 10/04/2017 19:36

Great thread and great posts from all the big FWR names ;) bit of a derail going on right nw i must say. I don't have a lot to add at the moment but it is (or was) a great thread.

DonkeySkin · 10/04/2017 19:10

user1490125033, you seem to be operating on the assumption that women owe our reproductive labour to other people and society by default, and if we don't want to perform this we need a damn good excuse. It is actually the other way around: every person owes their existence to the woman who gestated and birthed them; it is society that owes women for the labour of reproducing others, and we need no excuses for choosing not to do this.

quencher · 10/04/2017 18:45

@Nellooo I enjoyed reading that article very much. It's absolute up my street. GrinNot, because of the writer but the people he argued against. It holds the very belief that I have, and it's those that can actually cause change. It has basic understanding of society and people. It understands both the individual, science and social constructs and how they operate not as concrete block of views that are unbreakable.

I would love to comment on every each point made, but that would bore the thread off. Grin
Let's just say that the writer did contradict themselves when it came to understanding relativity and absolutism about the issues they were arguing for. For any one who wants to change a society, they have to believe that every each one of them is relative. By doing that, it makes you believe that it's possible to deconstruct social constructs, theories and ideologies that we hold.
We all know, the world is not stagnant. People are evolving, society's social constructs are changing. We know this, because if it wasn't the case, we would not be discoursing how to dismantle patriarchy. Or even how to tackle capitalism or racism. We also, know that the only absolute, theme that runs through it all is power, held by men. The power men hold is deconstructable Which makes it relative in its essence. If we don't believe in change, why do things?

They also, lost me when the complaint against minority groups holding the power for which meaning of a word that oppressed them should derive. I completely agree with counter argument. This same argument would be helpful for women trying to explain feminism and its effects. For a man to say they understand, and should be able preach to women about what feminism is and how they know best would be called mansplaining. Telling us women what it means. If you notice the writer didn't mentioned this but focused more on racism and how one group should not have power over a word , it's meaning and the interpretation of it.

Above all, postmodernists attacked science and its goal of attaining objective knowledge about a reality which exists independently of human perceptions which they saw as merely another form of constructed ideology dominated by bourgeois, western assumptions. I do agree with argument that science has been used to justify means of oppression by the oppressors. To deny this and then think of it, as not a plausible argument was wrong by the writer. The very justification of racism came from science. To say that the same can't happen now or isn't happening would be wrong and naive. Some are being done knowing and other unknowingly. We don't have the full grasp of science.
My issue is, evolution. how can we know that what we are saying now is absolute or concrete? We can't. To believe that is to stop any change we will try to make. I don't think it's ok for feminism to be ok with absolutism. It would destroy the very nature of the arguments that will ever be put forward to try and help us.

One of the things the writer pointed out, was the power the oppressed now have. The dominance they have over discourse and the stifling of freedom of speech. Usually, this sort of speech comes from those of the dominant group who still want to justify why it's ok to oppress.
At no point did the writer point out equal discourse. Based on history, again, i would say, usually those with power tend to dominate debates. What they also, do is use their freedom as a means to oppress further. In this case it would be done knowingly because they do recognise that what they are saying goes against the new reason or a way other way of thinking. It does become a conundrum to whether allow the oppressed be told what it is they are and not given the same platform to voice what they are and should be?

QuentinSummers · 10/04/2017 18:37

What about men not wanting to donate sperm? There is a massive shortage of sperm donors in this country, lots of women desperate for a baby via donatio , think of all those potential children lost, men should have to donate. Frankly, suggesting men should decide what to do with their sperm just because it concerns their testicle is inadequate.

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7Days · 10/04/2017 18:36

We do come up with the criteria on our own. Thats why we call it pro choice. Each individual woman makes her choice, according to her morals and her situation, and decides how much she is willing to sacrifice for this potential life. It really isn't up to anyone else to decide on the morality of it.
You may as well enforce compulsory coastguard service for everyone, no exceptions. Coastguards do an amazing and neccessary job but no way am I, with my particular frailties, responsibilities, and fears, going to take it on. And it's no one's business why

VestalVirgin · 10/04/2017 18:34

Pregnancy is a huge and dangerous undertaking, and not wanting to go through that is reason enough to have an abortion - we don't need a further justification.

Exactly.

No one would make nearly as much of a hassle about a man not wanting to donate a kidney.

No one proposes that people should be forced to donate blood and/or organs because some racist men might decide they don't want to donate blood or organs to black people. Or to people with Down syndrome.

QuentinSummers · 10/04/2017 18:33

then make a case for a female dictated moral discussion surrounding abortion

Trusting women to choose whether or not continuing a pregnancy is right for them is a moral decision. Suggesting women can't be trusted and legislation is required to prevent them having abortions willy nilly is immoral

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IAmAmy · 10/04/2017 18:30

Abortion should be a weighty decisions based on ethical principles - not just I don't want my baby coz x.

It should be every woman's right to have the control over her body to be able to have an abortion if she wishes. No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes.

DonkeySkin · 10/04/2017 18:30

by prioritising our own wellbeing in deciding, for our own usually very sound reasons, not to carry a pregnancy to term

Just wanted to correct something I wrote above: while women often abort for financial, relationship or or other circumstantial considerations, not wanting to be pregnant is in itself a sound reason to have an abortion. Pregnancy is a huge and dangerous undertaking, and not wanting to go through that is reason enough to have an abortion - we don't need a further justification.

IAmAmy · 10/04/2017 18:29

I find it telling when anti-abortion people pose these kinds of hypotheticals - the underlying assumption is always that women are moral idiots who will abort on a whim for the most capricious and shallow of reasons - just like the floozies we are!

Very true. It shows their own misogyny, and is also used to derail and attack abortion rights by using these ridiculous examples they pluck out of nowhere.

user1490125033 · 10/04/2017 18:26

The power to control female reproduction only ever leads to dystopias if it is given to males.

Fine. then make a case for a female dictated moral discussion surrounding abortion. It doesn't have to involve men. Reject men completely and come up with your own moral criteria if you like. But it's no good arguing for some some sort of reproductive consumer culture in which the dictation of who comes into the world is predicated on nothing but choice. Abortion should be a weighty decisions based on ethical principles - not just I don't want my baby coz x.

If you don't want men decide what that criteria should be then come up with your own. But 'I am a women and therefore whatever involves my body takes place beyond categories of right and wrong' is inadequate, frankly.

VestalVirgin · 10/04/2017 18:24

What about Williams Syndrome or Marfans syndrome or anything else that's chromosomal?

What about it?
What if all people who have those syndromes in their family decided to not get pregnant, or impregnate someone, in the first place?

Would that be bad and evil and eugenics, too? Should they be executed for deciding not to have children, or forcibly impregnated, or ... what, exactly?

What are you ready to do to prevent the horrible dystopia in which those syndromes do not exist anymore?

DonkeySkin · 10/04/2017 18:21

Or okay, suppose she doesn't want an ugly baby? Or she doesn't want an unintelligent baby? Or she only wants a blonde baby?

I find it telling when anti-abortion people pose these kinds of hypotheticals - the underlying assumption is always that women are moral idiots who will abort on a whim for the most capricious and shallow of reasons - just like the floozies we are! They also tend to make these kinds of arguments WRT to late-term abortion, implying that if it is available then hordes of women will suddenly decide at six-months pregnant that actually they might like to have that abortion after all, because this third trimester thing is a drag.

In doing this they betray that they don't think that women have the moral capacity to be entrusted with deciding what to do with our own bodies and the potential children they can create, when actually, we do, and we demonstrate this not only by regularly deciding to carry dangerous pregnancies to term, but also by prioritising our own wellbeing in deciding, for our own usually very sound reasons, not to carry a pregnancy to term. The decision that one's own life and happiness needn't be subordinate to a potential life is a moral choice - it's one that recognises human female lives as valuable in themselves.

No human being has the right to live off the body of another without that person's permission. In the case of embryos and foetuses, they are not even persons yet. I assign more moral value to the pregnant woman than to the embryo or foetus that lives entirely off her body, therefore she is the highest moral arbiter of the 'rightness' of abortion.

VestalVirgin · 10/04/2017 18:19

Alright, but suppose someone chooses not to have a Down syndrome baby? And then lots more women do?

So what then?

What horrible dystopic world would result from some women exercising their right to choose to not have a Down syndrome baby, and some women exercising their right to choose to have a Down syndrome baby?

The power to control female reproduction only ever leads to dystopias if it is given to males.

German neonazis have already proposed a ban on abortions for German women in order to "outbreed" immigrants. That is what happens if you remove the reproductive choice from the women whose body is concerned.

user1490125033 · 10/04/2017 18:14

Fair point Quentin. What about Williams Syndrome or Marfans syndrome or anything else that's chromosomal?

QuentinSummers · 10/04/2017 18:00

It is not eugenics to not have a DS baby because DS is not passed on through reproduction so you can't breed it out. It's a random genetic mutation either in one of the parents gametes or during formation of the embryo.

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user1490125033 · 10/04/2017 17:59

Forced sterilization of poor women, women of colour, and disabled women are a thing that patriarchy just loves.

That may well be so. Changes my point not one jot.

VestalVirgin · 10/04/2017 17:58

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

Exactly. "Selective breeding" is a thing that males in patriarchy do with their control over women's reproduction.

Forced sterilization of poor women, women of colour, and disabled women are a thing that patriarchy just loves.

QuentinSummers · 10/04/2017 17:58

Odfod. Such a huge derail.

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user1490125033 · 10/04/2017 17:57

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

Alright, but suppose someone chooses not to have a Down syndrome baby? And then lots more women do?

That's eugenics, no matter how you dress it up.

user1490125033 · 10/04/2017 17:56

Maybe she doesn't think the man she's had sex with is up to scratch genetically. Maybe he has a history of mental illness or cancer - or whatever.

Furthermore, in the future there will be ways of determining these things.

This is a silly little story, but it makes you think.

jezebel.com/5174084/how-do-i-tell-my-fiance-hes-too-ugly-to-father-my-children

Designer babies and selective breeding could be the future.

VestalVirgin · 10/04/2017 17:56

I'm not dignifying that with a response.

Good. I might have to throw up from your response, and I have just eaten.

BertrandRussell · 10/04/2017 17:52

"You could selectively breed learning disabilities out of existence could you not? How's that as an idea? "

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

BertrandRussell · 10/04/2017 17:51

How is it moral to force a woman to have a baby she does not want?