Punching Terfs

I hate writing stuff like that because I'm white so it's probably not my place....but black people especially earn less, have more MH problems, arrested more, convicted more, higher death rates etc. All the hallmarks of oppression and in a similar way to feminism, you have to ask why. Because I'm 100% sure they don't want or deserve that inequality

datun there was a great thread a couple of years ago where black women were sharing their experiences. One was saying in meetings where a white woman would be mistaken for a PA, she was mistaken for a cleaner.
Grenfell tower and the way the government and right wing press talk about immigrants is an illustration of how POC are oppressed. They are offered the worst of conditions in this country and we get told they are exploiting us and they like it. It makes me sick.

Vulva, I am rather reluctant to repeat any such word, but I did read the words "white trash" rather often, and as non-native speaker, have made my conclusions about why there's a "white" added ...

Assigned, well, at the moment it seems most likely that capitalism will burn itself out by destroying the earth. And sexism will burn itself out by women getting their reproductive organs removed en masse. There will be more and more women who identify as male, because no one wants to be oppressed, and once every woman has access to surgery ... well, when the last uterus has been surgically removed, they will realize that transwomen can't give birth.

It will be the end of humanity rather than the end of society, but an end there will be.

Also, in my opinion, you cannot be a member of an oppressed class (as used in class analysis as I define it) if you have the option to just opt out of it.

A working class person cannot identify as millionaire. I mean, they can, but they'll still be as poor as before.

A woman can identify as man, but she'll still be discriminated against in every possible way as long as other people are able to tell her actual sex. (And if she doesn't have her female reproductive organs removed - which leads to lifelong dependence on artificial hormones, so at the very least one medical professional will know her true sex -, she will still be subject to taxes on pads and tampons, as well as oppressed by bans of contraception and abortions)

And if a black person tells a bunch of racists planning to beat them up that they identify as white, three guesses as to how well that is going to work.

To belong to an oppressed class as I define it for the purpose of analysis, you have to be either clearly identifiable (like women and black people) to be targeted with oppression, or it must be possible to discriminate against you on a general level, without knowing what you, as individual, are. ( women and working class).

vestal

Ok. Thanks for that explanation. It's bothered me. Oppression versus discrimination. I'm getting it now.

Yes, but Marxism doesn't work like that. You cannot identify as worker; either you work in a blue collar job, or you don't.

This is the dichotomy of the trans-ideology. They identify as women and, as such, are considering themselves oppressed on the basis of being both women (cat calling, sexual harassment) and also men identifying as women (different, subject to either trans mysogyny or homophobia).

Thanks Datun, that's a good explanation.

The only bit of this I don't understand is that are POC still considered oppressed? If the theory is that there is something to gain by oppression, what is the gain? Or is discrimination a residue of oppression?

Considering that the US privatized prisons and they make money from having many black people imprisoned, one could argue that there still is something to be gained from the discrimination.

And of course, many black people are working class. Capitalism needs a steady supply of desperate, jobless people to keep wages low. Considering that there's a specific word for poor white people to differentiate them from poor black people, who are considered the norm, I am pretty sure there's an overlap of racism and capitalism going on.

White people profit from black people being poor so white people don't have to be poor, in short. And there need to be poor people because capitalism.

Sorry, I just want to add, you cannot make someone respect you.

What I meant by respect is you have to respect my position, my opinion, my stance. Just because it's mine.

I agree people sometimes will treat you like crap until you've 'earned' something different, but that doesn't really reflect the concept of respect, to me.

I think it is a word that has evolved to mean something it never used to.

What I meant was people identify as the most oppressed class, even when they are clearly not.

Yes, but Marxism doesn't work like that. You cannot identify as worker; either you work in a blue collar job, or you don't.

It seems you got your knowledge on class analysis from people who abuse the word "class" to mean something it isn't. Or perhaps more accurately, something it isn't understood to mean by actual feminists.

Vestal

From what I have understood, oppression is a class based issue. It also requires some material gain for the oppressor.

So women are oppressed because men gain male bloodline reproduction, emotional and sexual labour. Black people were oppressed for white people to gain free labour.

Trans people are discriminated against, of course, but not oppressed. There is nothing to gain from them.

The only bit of this I don't understand is that are POC still considered oppressed? If the theory is that there is something to gain by oppression, what is the gain? Or is discrimination a residue of oppression?

I also don't understand this obsession with respect. Respect is something you earn, not deserve.

Depends on how you define respect.
There are people who say "well, you have to earn my respect" and treat everyone who hasn't "earned their respect" like crap. That's clearly wrong. You can't walk around and insult and harm random, innocent people just because they haven't done something to impress you.

If you define respect as a kind of admiration, yes, no one is entitled to that without earning it.

And no one is entitled to have other people say something they know to be untrue just to cater to his delusions.

Especially as the TRAs walk around insulting women all the time.

I can't believe that otherwise intelligent women are so duped by this. I've lost friends over my terfiness and been excluded from things. Because I won't prioritise men over women. Because I believe that it's physically impossible to change sex. Because I believe that a man who has transitioned to 'live as a woman' (whatever the fuck that means) does not have the same lived experience as I do and actually is putting on womanface.

And those women are so apologetic, constantly worried that they're excluding or hurting someone's feelings. And becoming more and more invisible.

It's like boiling frogs. It makes me want to fucking scream.

Today 18:46 PoochSmooch

I do sometimes see this as part of a broader trend, perhaps fuelled by online interaction, that people seem less and less able to tolerate being disagreed with. Not just on this issue, but on many, and seemingly without the need for any objective validation of their viewpoint.

I also don't understand this obsession with respect. Respect is something you earn, not deserve. You can have manners or compassion and respect someone's struggle, sure. But respect for no reason? I don't get it. Especially if everything you say is insulting.

Vestal I haven't read Marx, but I have instantly grasped the concept of class oppression.

What I see online, is a lot of people who have also never read Marx, but also don't understand class oppression. It's all about the individual. I see white middle-class men identifying as women who say they are oppressed by black women. Cis privilege. Having an abortion is a revolting example of cis privilege.

Anyone doesn't see misogyny, a fetish, uterus envy and/or rank narcissism in this ideology is blind.

Glosswitch was posting about this on Twitter and now she seems to have disappeared (or my Twitter has gone glitchy) - I hope she hasn't been banned for speaking out.

The Identity stuff, as far as I can tell, seems to be wholly based on Marxist principles.

That makes no sense, sorry.

Marxism is a theory about the oppression of the working class, and on how to work against it.

If someone says that the workers have to seize the means of production to end capitalist oppression, they don't mean that anyone who identifies as worker should seize the means of production, which would enable any capitalist to identify as worker and just keep the means of production.

Any Marxist would clearly see the idiocy of trying to empower the working classes by just deciding they can choose to identify as middle class (but will still have to work in blue collar jobs because the system of oppression is still in place)

Class analysis only works by looking at reality. It does not work if you can identify as anything you want to identify as.

I do sometimes see this as part of a broader trend, perhaps fuelled by online interaction, that people seem less and less able to tolerate being disagreed with. Not just on this issue, but on many, and seemingly without the need for any objective validation of their viewpoint.

What I mean is that it's not enough any more that someone believes themself to be a pansexual genderqueer demiboy with a female penis that's just as much a female sex organ as a vagina is. They want everyone else to believe it too, and act accordingly. It just seems extraordinarily self defeating. As my old granny used to say "If you're waiting for everyone to agree with you, you might be there a while".

I find it so frustrating that so many girls in my school's Feminist Society buy into all this, and are fully on board with the "if you identify as a woman you are a woman" line (as well as "checking cis privilege). I don't even try to raise objections anymore but I find it infuriating girls in younger years are being bombarded with this nonsense.

People are so emotionally invested in believing that shit, I think for most, there's no way back to sanity.

I mean, with how rabid even female trans allies get over this, they'd have to admit that they yelled at, perhaps even punched people for this ideology.

To then admit that it was wrong and they were wrong and that they insulted and were violent against perfectly innocent people ... I think there's a very big psychological barrier that prevents them from being honest to themselves.