WITS Ireland doubling down on "problematic" "Invisible Woman" book

I bought it recently and I knew if I googled someone would say it was transphobic purely because its about biological reality and not about how anyone identifies. I'm enjoying reading it. If we can't talk about biological differences how can we work on erasing the female disadvantage?

I want to shout that it's a book about sex not gender!!!

Are women even allowed to just say ‘no I/we don’t want to’ without having to justify why? No is a complete sentence, as the mumsnet saying goes.

Also interesting that they say in the message above that they don't police feminism but yet on the book page they say: 'Trans exclusionary feminism is not feminism. You cannot be transphobic and feminist.'

Did anyone on here attend the book discussion by Zoom? I would love to have joined to hear the actual points discussed.

I'm surprised it took this long for Invisible Women to be deemed transphobic tbh.
It's a hugely successful, beautifully written and meticulously researched book that uses actual data, peer reviewed studies and research to demonstrate just how far women are discriminated against, mostly on the basis on how female biology differs from male.
They were never going to allow it to stand.

Sitting down for a read and a cuppa

@SetYourselfOnFire; indeed , that book was really an eye opener. I will never forget Serrano saying that if women were so upset by oppression they could easily transition to male. Serrano took women’s reluctance at doing this as evidence they have an innate female gender identity. There is never once any consideration of the possibility that maybe women deserve to be treated just as well as men and don’t have to transition in order to be seen as human.

That’s not transphobic, any more than it’s classist for someone to say they don’t care to read a book about children growing up in poverty (say). It’s a book! I’m not spitting in anyone’s face!

Is it offensive to study Geography at uni when it doesn’t include elements of every other single subject? Or are we allowed to focus on our areas of interest without everyone else getting insulted? I say the latter.

Whipping Girl is an AWFUL book but I encourage everyone to read it and see the narcissism, lies, and misogyny for themselves. It's so detached from reality it's rather astonishing.

Fucking pathetic cowards, being dictated to by men and jumped up little shits who haven't even been in Ireland a wet week.

Girl Decoded is about bringing “emotion” to data? Hmmm.

This is so ridiculous. You can be trans inclusive while not requiring all your reading literature that discusses women to include a discussion of trans women. A book looking at data from a trans perspective would be very interesting I'm sure, but that doesn't mean one looking at women is wrong.

Totally short sighted and ironic.

I've just bought the kindle edition.

Buy it for every teen who's thinking of/doing science A levels.

From those screenshots:

"The ethos if WITS since its foundation in 1990 has been one of inclusionary feminism. In that time we have seen huge changes in what that means ..."

I don't know about anyone else, but I had a vision of a frog in an increasingly hot pan of water. They're accepting that they are now far from the feminism that led them to found WITS, and that it has not occurred to them to give these "huge changes" any thought.

I don’t want to read books about transwomen actually. I think that’s fair enough 🤷‍♀️

Lunacy.
It's a great book. I've given a copy to a friend and am thinking of buying another for myself as I lent mine to my mother in law and she's now passing it on. I best tell her to warn people it's not trans inclusive before they borrow it.
One of the claims in the book did get debunked on radio 4, on one of those fact check programmes. The author was on and took it all in very good grace. Frustratingly I can't remember which claim it was.

Because 2 plus 2 equals five.

'.....choosy choice feminism.....'

Love this description! I haven't read 'Bad Feminist' but I know exactly what you mean by those words that sort of shit gets on my nerves too!

What a po- faced, humourless, miserable bunch they sound.

Although I'd need to be paid a large amount of money to read any of their chosen books.

You couldnt get a more perfect example of irony

I really hope that these decisions are being made by ignorant 20somethings (it was a 23-year-old student and activist who drew attention to the book's 'transphobic' nature in the first place) and not the accomplished women scientists that WITS profile as members.

Why bother having an organisation for women if you no longer believe women need it?