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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Well, this is apocalyptic

44 replies

LangCleg · 12/07/2018 12:31

Long read, but worth it. Ends: The risk is that we only belatedly realise that transhumanism is oppression disguised as liberation. This cannot be good for all but the richest, most privileged women. Again, I am thinking about the prostitutes in Altered Carbon, who agree to be strangled to death for the payment of a shiny new body.

quillette.com/2018/07/11/the-transhumanism-revolution-oppression-disguised-as-liberation/

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AngryAttackKittens · 16/07/2018 09:20

This is one of the reasons personality disorders are so hard to treat - talk therapy doesn't get very far with someone who believes that the shitty way they're treating other people is perfectly logical and reasonable.

LangCleg · 16/07/2018 09:16

the perpetrators rarely seek therapy as they think everyone else is the problem

This is such an important point.

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womanformallyknownaswoman · 16/07/2018 05:49

You're welcome Hipsterfun

The MH profession, despite what most think, provides inconsistent and often ill informed approaches and are poorly regulated.

There's a power imbalance when they label the victims as the problem, rather than their injuries, plus continue to treat them as such.

A better approach is to normalise their experience by contexting it and naming the perpetrators plus associate the present conditions with the historical male violence that invariably caused them.

however many refuse to do that because they won't label anyone who they haven't consulted them. Of course amazingly the perpetrators rarely seek therapy as they think everyone else is the problem. Like you see in politicians who always have a scapegoat but somehow the real perps get protected by inadequate laws, biased processes etc

Anyone would think that psychopaths had designed the very codes of conduct that protect the menz in whatever guise /s

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 15/07/2018 22:56

Just came across this - some very interesting thoughts on the relationship between transhumanism and white male supremacy

babeinbotland.com/2018/07/13/we-can-build-you/

hipsterfun · 13/07/2018 19:20

That's where the mental health professional often get it very wrong imo - they treat the symptom and victim blame rather than name the root cause - male violence. Then the person who has been criminally victimised is made to feel like they are the problem and are continually blamed and re-abused by administrative abuse (welfare etc)

This is so true, woman Sad Thank you for explaining it, I hadn’t had that perspective before.

LangCleg · 13/07/2018 16:50

OMG, I forgot all about her! Cyborg Manifesto, right?

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YetAnotherSpartacus · 13/07/2018 16:37

I haven't got the headspace to read it but, yeah, all these woke dudes are just neo-liberal individualists

Sing it, sister.

Has anyone read any Donna Harraway?

Pratchet · 13/07/2018 16:27

right from the off it was going to be nonsense

Claiming that sex isn't based on reproductive role is nonsense, claiming to have an opposite sex brain is nonsense, claiming that woman is a feeling in a man's head is nonsense. So that's not really a reason for you to dismiss it.

LangCleg · 13/07/2018 16:23

www.amazon.co.uk/Masculinities-Violence-Routledge-Studies-Society/dp/1138040274?tag=mumsnetforum-21

This is a good study on male violence. Also, worth reading as very challenging from a radfem perspective - never be afraid of a challenge, sisters! - and interesting on social class.

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seafret · 13/07/2018 16:14

womanformallyknownaswoman

I have no stats either.

Anecdotally and from MH research etc, I would suggest that there is overlap but that men who are violent to women are not always violent to other men.

Men who are particularly, or additionally, violent or hateful towards women may have been neglected/ betrayed, or perceive that they were, by women in their own familiy eg their mother (as well as a male perpertrator). This may be being neglectful, complicit in abuse, turning a blind eye, failing to protect, being 'weak', domineering etc.

Sometimes this is misplaced eg the woman was physically abused and so could not protect herself or the child but the child still blames the woman; the person internalises and reproduces the male abusers words like nagging, she desevered it etc; sometimes that the mother is blamed because it would be dangerous to vent anger on the real abuser, or that the mother actually was neglectful/abusive, BPD, narcissitic etc.

All reinforced by the prevailing misogyny.

From what I have gathered, male on male violence can be not-personal. Just an outlet, any man would have got the same treatment in the same time or place. For some people who have been abused sexually/psychologically (I mean, it is all psychologically abusive but sometimes it can be particulary so) there may be an added visceral anger and psychological element and the expression is more vengeful and targeted than random getting into fights.

Perhaps getting into fights is a form of self-harm.

I perhaps haven't expressed that very well!

womanformallyknownaswoman · 13/07/2018 14:25

seafret

YY all that you wrote - I do agree the boys and girls/men & women are mostly conditoned to express anger and rage differently. There are very few female role models for healthily expressing anger and many who take it out on their body and themselves - it is expressed more interpersonally and vindictively I think.

Whereas guys on the whole take it out on other people - mostly women it seems!! Though there is a lot of male on male violence as well, I still can't get stats on how much of that male on male violence causes actual harm to the men. And more importantly is it the same lot who take it out on women or a different group?

seafret · 13/07/2018 13:16

Yes, yes, is totally dissociation.

The mental process occurs similarly in girls and boys who are abused I think, but I do wonder if the toxic male culture encourages boys/men to go on to express this outwardly in different ways - as a very general rule women tend to act in (hurt themselves) or if acting out they may grow up to be self-sabotaging or to exhibit 'petty' or personal acts of power on a personal scale of vindictiveness eg narcissitic mothers, where as a larger proportion of abused men tend to act out their anger sooner and on a larger scale or replicate some of the abusive attitudes, ie violence or obvious violence/ or obvious hatred/ vengefulness towards women.

That is not to say that some abused boys/men do not hurt themsleves and hate themsleves and/ or their body because that happens too. But where toxic masculine culture prevails, it does encourage boys/ men to express their rage outwardly, albeit with mis-attribution and mis-targetting, ie mis-placed rage and 'kicking the cat'.

Getting to the root of rage and harming behaviours is essential.

LangCleg · 13/07/2018 12:13

My view is that dualist perspectives have everything arse over tit. It's assumed that the body is some kind of primitive workhorse which has the function of serving the mind. I think the mind / consciousness is in reality a flimsy little evolutionarily recent add-on which developed to better serve the body.

Yes! What a great way of putting it.

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TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 13/07/2018 12:12

My view is that dualist perspectives have everything arse over tit. It's assumed that the body is some kind of primitive workhorse which has the function of serving the mind. I think the mind / consciousness is in reality a flimsy little evolutionarily recent add-on which developed to better serve the body.

It's possible to enforce a viewpoint by enacting violence on the bodies of others. But anyone going up against their own embodied nature has bitten off a lot more than they are going to be able to chew.

LangCleg · 13/07/2018 12:11

That's great and reassuring!!

My parish has a population of about 1,500. Church congregation numbers in the 20s. I like the vicar though. There's so little religion hereabouts - and what there is is the fairly benign Anglican type - that he's more of a social worker than a preacher.

It's very different here than it was in the city. Much less ideology. And there's this curious mix of tolerance and parochialism. If you belong here, you can be who you want to be and nobody will mind. Dave from the Post Office could suddenly become Davina, for instance, and the reaction would be "takes all sorts, bless them". But if Shon or Monroe or Owen came for a visit and started lecturing people as they do, the reaction would be "fuck off back to weirdo London, mate, and stop telling us what to do".

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LangCleg · 13/07/2018 12:04

I'm hope I haven't womansplained!

Of course you haven't! I like it that we have quite different starting perspectives but very often come to similar conclusions. All helps to illuminate the bigger picture.

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LangCleg · 13/07/2018 12:03

It's all of a piece isn't it. Dissociation from bodies, emotion, empathy, the natural world and any willingness to believe in material reality as the basis of experience.

Yes, it is. Which is why attempting to think about how everything fits together and whether the resulting picture is ominous or promising, is not evidence of "trans panic". Reductio ad absurdam.

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TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 13/07/2018 11:59

I don't believe in dualism, but I do believe in disassociation

Yes this.

It's all of a piece isn't it. Dissociation from bodies, emotion, empathy, the natural world and any willingness to believe in material reality as the basis of experience

womanformallyknownaswoman · 13/07/2018 11:43

I only have one experience of a UK rural community but it's not like that here. No religion either - the poor local vicar has to run three parishes because the congregations are so tiny.

That's great and reassuring!!

womanformallyknownaswoman · 13/07/2018 11:42

I do believe in disassociation. Which, basically, is what dysphoria is, no?

Yes that's my understanding - when one is abused as a girl then along with the package is the psychological abuse where the child is made to believe they are bad. As a way of surviving traumatic events like CSA or family violence etc, the child disassociates as their mind naturally can't hold the 2 extremes of their body telling them something is very wrong and being hurt in some way, whilst they are being told there is nothing wrong and the person is being "kind" and "loving" to them-for their own good /s

Also afterwards being threatened to make them the keeper of the secret.

So when the mind can't compute that duality of extremes - which it's not designed to - disassociation occurs - as a coping mechanism. The traumatic memory is stored as fragments - a pleasant sensation here, body pain there, terror somewhere else and so on.

The brain literally shuts it/them off as a survival mechanism. Then later in life often not until after 40 in serious abuse, the fragments reappear bit by bit - there's no coherence or narrative and can make someone feel crazy because they can't explain what's happening to them.

During adolescence what seems to happen is the young woman will start hurting themselves as a way to deal with unconscious emotional distress whose roots lie in the abuse - they turn the natural unconscious anger onto themselves, as they have been conditioned to do, so substance abuse, piercing, cutting, anorexia, dysphoria etc.

That's where the mental health professional often get it very wrong imo - they treat the symptom and victim blame rather than name the root cause - male violence. Then the person who has been criminally victimised is made to feel like they are the problem and are continually blamed and re-abused by administrative abuse (welfare etc)

I'm hope I haven't womansplained!

Haven't watched Westworld

LangCleg · 13/07/2018 09:44

their attachment to nuclear family life as the only model they subscribe to

I only have one experience of a UK rural community but it's not like that here. No religion either - the poor local vicar has to run three parishes because the congregations are so tiny.

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LangCleg · 13/07/2018 09:42

Human cognition is inextricably embodied.

I think so.

the reality of being present in their body is traumatic

Exactly.

Now I'm thinking of the repeated failures to download the consciousness of the Peter Mullan character in Westworld. I don't believe in dualism, but I do believe in disassociation. Which, basically, is what dysphoria is, no?

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nauticant · 13/07/2018 09:37

A fair proportion of articles I read on Second Life seemed to be about the design/choice of penis presentation by denizens.

womanformallyknownaswoman · 13/07/2018 09:19

so there the exploration of seperating min, body and reality is clearly not so far from trans issues.

What strikes me about many who believe that surgery and hormones will cure their ills is their lack of being present in their bodies. I've seen that in a lot of abuse victims as well as abusers ie Cluster Bs.

For abuse victims, the reality of being present in their body is traumatic, because of what was done to them. It can undo them.

To Cluster Bs it's a convenient cover to find new hunting territories as their previous ones are closed to them thru increased awareness of abusive behaviour.

Re Second Life - pleased to find someone else who found it disturbing.

I live in a country area - pretty conservative- but what gets me is whilst I value the traditional way of life, is their attachment to nuclear family life as the only model they subscribe to - that's ok for those who have healthy families but isolating for those who don't. Plus the intellectual stimulation is hard to find as well as other feminists- I joined another woman in an argument with a guy who insisted men were the victors over women hence why they should be in power - male violence and dominant behaviours are pretty close to the surface under the skin of civilised veneer. I made a new feminist friend tho!!

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 12/07/2018 21:51

Not buying it. Human cognition is inextricably embodied. When we're babies our brains develop through the use of our bodies. As adults perception depends on sense organs distributed through our bodies. Mainstream neuroscientific thinking suggests that our ability to perceive, think, make decisions and work towards goals depends on an embodied process of active inference.

Dualism is a fastidious fantasy engaged in by people who can't cope with mess, imperfection, personal limits or the idea of death, that's my twopenneth