Feminist Fightback

My last post was addressed to ALunarExplorer

And there you've demonstrated that you also believe that there is SOMETHING definitive about girls other than their body type. In your example, it is still your assumption that other girls equal X. In your example, it's about how they respond to socialisation which is apparently what makes them similar to each other.
And that X is deemed, by you, to be something critical to being female.

other girls = respond to socialisation thus
Girls who respond to socialisation differently = NotGirls.

It makes as little sense as it would to suggest 99% of girls can learn to waggle their ears so the 1% who can't are boys.
The characteristics you refer to as 'evidence' that girls have something other than bodies in common are not relevant to sex.

Your implication is that other women are innately adaptable to their socialisation (and men aren't? ) and the exceptional people who can't adapt are different from 'other women'.

It's still loaded with false assumption about other women and what their innate abilities are.

And yes, it is negative.

I really would like to know more about these radical feminists that go about harrasssing people.

Battle, do you really get it in the neck from radical feminists -- street harassment, put-downs about your role in society, threats of rape, assumptions that you'll make the tea/answer the phone/care for the kids and elderly relatives, lower pay, called strident and shrill and bossy for being assertive?

I mean, I don't seem to come across any radical feminists in day to day life, but I've certainly had no trouble coming across all of the above, despite being boringly middle class in a safe sort of area.

I do get what you mean about 'not feeling you're a girl'. God, I was crap at pretending to be a girl like the other girls. Innately nurturing and/or decorative are so not my forte.

*A uterus does not define how a person responds as a child to gender socialisation does it? Children feel different for lots of reasons, that battle didn't respond in the same way to all the pink-dolly-tea-party-learn-to-be-a-good-wifey socialisation that goes with being a considered a girl, that doesn't mean it was because she was seeing being a pink-dolly-tea-party-learn-to-be-a-good-wifey stuff and thinking badly about her peers and mothers and sisters.

It just meant that they responded to it differently - it is your supposition that puts that in a negative light*

Differently to whom exactly? Is there only one way of seeing this and then a different way?

Your pst was rather confusing.

I don't believe in innate gender identity. So I don't agree with Battle that she isn't either a woman or a man. I think it's a regressive way of looking at it. And yes, she did go out of her way to blame feminist women.

Aluner I cant work out whether you are genuinely struggling to understand the distinct concepts of sex and gender or if you're being deliberately obtuse.

No, sorry, that wasn't what battle was describing at all - although I grant you that in order to try and understand what battle was saying, you needed to actually listen.

A uterus does not define how a person responds as a child to gender socialisation does it? Children feel different for lots of reasons, that battle didn't respond in the same way to all the pink-dolly-tea-party-learn-to-be-a-good-wifey socialisation that goes with being a considered a girl, that doesn't mean it was because she was seeing being a pink-dolly-tea-party-learn-to-be-a-good-wifey stuff and thinking badly about her peers and mothers and sisters.

It just meant that they responded to it differently - it is your supposition that puts that in a negative light.

And don't forget, that socialisation also tries to tell those of who have (or assumed to have, as it turned out for a friend of mine, who didn't because of MRKH) uterus', how we are also supposed to feel about our bodies.

Battle's response may not have been very different to some, but it would have been different to others, and of course they would have felt that. None of that, however, is the same as declaring a hatred.

And children don't like to feel different from their peers, it frightens them. Being frightened as a child about how you are experiencing your own body and conscious self - because it does not fit with what it is told it should be - must be difficult enough. For it then to be misunderstood/misinterpreted/misrepresented as 'unpleasant ideas about females'...

If someone's experience of life does not match your idea of how it is or should be - that is not necessarily make that other person guilty of something.

You might just as well say "I share a body type in common with you lot, but you're all also - and importantly - innately and similarly shit in ways I'm too lofty to explain. I however, am not the same."

Indeed. Her internalised misogyny is quite something. But of course everything is our fault.

It’s always so much easier to blame those dreadful radical feminists though.

YY. This is it.

From the age of ten, I knew I wasn't like other girls

Yes, you were like them. Of course you were.

They had uteruses too. That's how you were similar. Whatever ELSE you imagined they shared, whatever characteristics you imagine THEY innately have in common with each other but not with you? You were, and are, WRONG about that.

That's you projecting pure sexism onto other women.

It's YOU claiming other people are something they are not, not us doing it to you.

You might just as well say "I share a body type in common with you lot, but you're all also - and importantly - innately and similarly shit in ways I'm too lofty to explain. I however, am not the same."

You're a female with some unpleasant ideas about all other females, and who doesn't care to correct them. You're the one falsely defining other people. What on earth do you imagine other women are? We're just humans with the same biological sex as you.

Yeah. After all, we've been responsible for any problems men have for years.........

It’s always so much easier to blame those dreadful radical feminists though.

Rather the opposite. Radical feminists fight against stereotyping. They also fight for the rights of women in the sex industry, while condemning the men who exploit them.

Battle-none of the awful things that happened to you are anything to do with radical feminism. Honestly.

Battle - sending huge hugs your way.

If you ever need to have a chat, I'm here.

I read this section a lot, and it's taught me loads, for which I am grateful. I rarely post here because not my place, but I felt I had to to rebut @Datun's comment quoted above. I know I haven't done enough to help, but I will step up in the future.

I'm a bit confused by that comment DoctorTwo. Because you want to rebut what I say, but then seem to agree with me?

Are you male? Is that what you meant? There's always a disagreement as to whether men can be feminists, or feminist allies. But it's sort of moot. And comes back to labelling.

Anyone can work on feminism, whether they call them self a feminist or an ally.

My point was that whenever I have seen transwomen demanding access to feminism, it's about the label, not the work. And it always includes rights for transwomen.

Transwomen, of course, must have rights and the means to promote them. They are just not the rights of women.

I knew I wasn’t like other girls’ - congratulations, so like every other girl then? You know, because every single human being has a different personality?

Exactly this.

I mean people here, not saying other people have not attacked you unfairly.

Battle, I'm sorry for how you feel, but that doesn't mean you're not female. Gender critical means exactly that. I'm not sure you've grasped what people are trying to say.

ICJump.

That’s why feminists put up with the derision and mockery that comes their way when they challenge gender stereotyping in children’s clothes, toys and activities.

Yes Bertrand but at 17 I didn’t really get that. The shaved headed, steel capped wearing, pink car driving girl didn’t quite understand the difference between sex and gender. I do now, or think I do. I’m as comfortable in myself digging a whole or choosing sparkle nail polish because they are the things I like.

Feminist Fightback are allied to one of the socailist organisations. I can't remember which one.
Back in the day they used to be quite good. Decent conferences, demos on bread and butter womens issues, solidarity work with women in homeless acoomodation, women asylum seekers etc. Decent understanding of how race and class interact with womens oppression.
I'm not surprised they are coming out with "trans women are women". They will be under a lot of pressure to take this line. If they were to examine it critically their organisation would be attacked by others on the left. They might be chucked off demos, have their stall attacked at conferences. They wouldn't be able to promote their activities on facebook without a massive pile on.
Generally it would become very difficult for them to carry on any of their normal activities of activism, without getting hopelessly mired in the trans issue to the exclusion of anything else.
Trans activism in its current form runs completely counter to materialism, of course, which as socialists they presumably believe in. They either don't recognise the contradiction or (most likley) they don't feel able to examine it.

"Battle I too have felt at odds with my sex. I feel most powerful when I do things that are not typically female, driving a truck, using power tool, lighting a fire."

Surely that is not feeling at odds with your sex. It's feeling at odds with ludicrous societal expectations of your sex. Fighting those expectations is a fundamental tenet of feminism.

I am a radical feminist. There is nothing in radical feminism that says it's OK to harass sex workers or "loathe" people who are gender non conforming. Rather the opposite.

I would be very interested to know where and how this harassment takes place.