Discussion thread - GC? Radfem? Terminology we use, and does it matter?

Where you would lose a lot of them is in saying that any kind of culturally mediated/expressed differences between men and women are only caused by socialisation, are a manifestation of patriarchy, and would be better off abolished, and an important goal of feminism is to accomplish that.

I would say that latter group is more what characterises GC positions or RadFems, and it's not identical to feminism itself. In some ways I think it's been unable to give people a really knock-it-out of the park answer to gender ideology because most don't see masculinity and femininity as whole negative or even false ideas. So the GC approach just doesn't resonate.

I don't think all feminists are GC, and some GC people are not necessarily feminists. If someone describes themselves that way I tend to assume they are emphasising that particular idea because they think it's relevant to the discussion.

I remember a couple of years ago lurking in the Pregnancy forum here, reading up on private gender scans, and noticing that on every thread someone would pop in to say "it's not gender, it's sex!", and then someone else would say "ah, be quiet, who cares", etc. At the time, it meant very little to me. I was vaguely aware that sex was the more "biological" term, but I didn't really know why it had become a controversy that spilled over into baby scan threads.

(I get it now, of course).

You've reminded me of the one and only time DD has used the word gender in my presence.

She'd somehow managed to divine the original French meaning; gender meaning sort or type. I was weirdly impressed.

Shows up the silliness quite nicely too, as there can be a great many answers to the question "what sort of person are you?" but woman and man aren't generally on the list.

I was talking to ds2 regarding feminism...at one point in the conversation he was looking a bit hunted

Ds1 came in and asked him what was the matter

Ds2 looked forlornly at him and said ‘I inadvertently used the wrong word’

Ds1 said ‘ you didnt say gender did you ‘ 😱 and shot back out of the room

I try to say ‘sex stereotypes’ instead of gender.

‘Against sex stereotypes’ rather than ‘Gender Critical’? Not as snappy though!

The females who champion these special males are gender-conforming; and the male who feels entitled to that centreing is gender-conforming too.

Yes!

I don't think it's a conscious assumption. But it fits: we're talking about a movement whose adherents tend to view being "cishet" - in other words, gender-conforming - as being inherently of the oppressor class.

Which suggests to me that their understanding of gender is a damned sight less developed than ours.

To be a feminist is to be gnc: conforming to the feminine gender means keeping your pretty little head down and always putting yourself last as you nurture everyone else with your body.

But to this lot, it's all just about aesthetics. There's no acknowledgement of gendered behavioural expectations, and an outright denial of the reality of gendered socialisation. They don't understand what the gender part of gender-critical actually means.

If they did, they'd know that elevating the needs and wants of the male over the female is entirely consistent with the long-standing rules of gender. The females who champion these special males are gender-conforming; and the male who feels entitled to that centreing is gender-conforming too.

The word "gender" causes so many problems because it means one thing to us radfem/GC feminists and something totally different to libfems/rest of population. So saying we are critical of (or want to abolish) gender is guaranteed to upset some, and confuse others. Doesn't mean we are wrong, and it's useful if we are taking to other GC/radfems, but you kind of need a translation service when taking to anyone else . (Think the libfems could do with being aware that they aren't using words with one universal meaning either though)

Mainstream feminism was all about the intersectionality when I started googling it twenty years ago. Which left the goal wide open, as it were.

Yes I think it did. It's been exploited to include men.

The popularity of the term GC may also stem from the fact it's only 2 characters, so easier to fit into a tweet.

That's likely a factor, but I think there's something subconscious going on with it too.

GNC was a well-understood acronym within feminism long before the genderist stuff kicked off. Take the N out and what are you left with? People have commented many a time that our position is always misrepresented; the Other Side think we're gender-conforming.

Pillocks.

I think TRAs have scored some success by persuading Lib Fems that feminism isn't feminism if it isn't intersectional (by which they're not really concerned with racial inequalities or class/poverty, they mean if it doesn't centre transwomen).

I don't think the current crop of TRAs drove this. Mainstream feminism was all about the intersectionality when I started googling it twenty years ago. Which left the goal wide open, as it were.

The infighting's a bit tedious. I take the view that so long as we're all pulling in broadly the same direction (women's lib, improving material conditions for females, etc) then we're all good.

I would first and foremost always call myself a feminist if it came up, I have not wavered from that for the last couple of decades. In a discussion about gender I might mention that I am gender critical, but it's not something I would lead with. As others have mentioned, there seem to be many people who call themselves GC because they oppose to the trans issue, but are not really feminist or interested in feminism in other issues. I sometimes describe myself as radfem, as I think it better describes my views on things like porn, prostitution, surrogacy and the patriarchy. Most radical feminists seem to have a more of a true intersectional outlook, being aware of how class and race affect the material lives of women all over the world. (Much more so than liberal "intersectional" feminists.

The discussion between different viewpoints, even when it doesn't convince the other side, has a really important role in strengthening reasoning and testing evidential claims.

Great post Chestnut and I completely agree with this point. I appreciate that infighting has always been a part of the movement and that dogmatism alienates. I can't help but feel that self imposed monikers while helpful to differentiate between schools of thought (and to galvanise groups within a movement) can also be a bit of an own goal. T**f has become an effective stick to beat feminists with and also allows other women to distance themselves from the ideas without giving them consideration.

Oh and I'm happy that the term GC exists as I think it's helpful for male allies as well.

I'm on Twitter and have "gender critical" on my bio. Someone tried to "educate" me before they had spotted that and then said "oh I won't bother, it says 'gender critical'".
But to answer the original question, I think any indication that you ACTUALLY centre women or have worked out what gender is (i.e. it's a property of society not an individual) is helpful and you can use what suits you.

I would say GC, because it's an issue that I think cuts across streams of feminism. I don't even think you have to "identify as" (ho ho) as a feminist to be GC. It doesn't require any prior belief in any ideology or school of thought. I don't agree with every single thing that has been put under the umbrella of "feminism" by someone (plus the term is a bit sullied for me by the posturing showbiz version that means basically nothing), and perhaps that's why I think presenting something first and foremost as the (radical) feminist position can put unnecessary barriers to people listening and understanding.

Or perhaps I am wrong there, and this is a great issue to bring popular feminism back to tangible real life issues.

I'm not sure if any of the current terms are great, to be honest. GC is probably not a self-explanatory term to people who are unfamiliar with all this.

That sounded awful! They have read and thought... just not about feminism!

I recently described myself as someone who leans toward gender critical in my feminism. I was talking with a bunch of women who haven't done any reading or thinking and they asked me a question about whether we can correct a boy putting on a skirt and calling himself a girl. If I had of used the term radical feminist they all would have been horrified.

I used to say GC feminist to differentiate my views from the libfems, but now I'd just say feminist or maybe radfem. Partly because how on earth can feminism not be critical of gender, but also because I've realised a few people use the GC label but who aren't approaching it from a feminist perspective or aren't feminist within other areas.

So yeah, I'm a feminist first and foremost, and quite like women's lib as a way to differentiate too.

A feminist but not a libfem, as my feminism doesnt centre males, regardless of what they identify as, nor can i support the notion that sex exploitation 'work' is a real choice for probably 99% of children and women that are forced, coerced, compelled to do it survive.

Great post ChestnutStuffing !

If someone asked if I was a Feminist, I’d say, “Yes”. Recently someone described me in a “bio” as someone who “campaigns for women’s rights” and I was very pleased about that

Unless it was relevant and I was in conversation with someone who I expected to understand the term or I was keen to explain the issues, I would not mention “gender critical”.

“RadFem” is not a term I can imagine it being necessary or helpful for me to use. I associate it both with “academic feminism”, which doesn’t interest me, as well as nit-picking, purity-testing discussions that I’ve observed and find both tedious and toxic.

I avoid mentioning “Women’s Liberation” since seeing dogmatic assertions about what this really means, so it feels like an invitation to get sidetracked into debating the thesaurus.

I’m more of a simple, old-fashioned “not a doormat” feminist at a personal level and a gut-instinct, Women’s Rights Feminist at a collective level:

”I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

Rebecca West

Solidarity is great but I think there is no use in trying to pretend real disagreement doesn't exist, either about theory or about activism. What you end up with is what has in fact tended to happen, and what has alienated so many - where women who think the "wrong" feminist ideas are told they can't call themselves feminists or contribute to the feminist discourse. That includes people like Camille Paglia who was reviled by many feminists but is a solid academic thinker, and was saying years ago that women's studies departments were neglecting the scientific aspects of the study of women, and it also includes large numbers of women who were simply dismissed as betrayers of women because they had different views on things like motherhood and to what degree mothering roles were biologically based.

Even the idea that feminism is only about women and girls has often been used as a way to dismiss women who had concerns about things like the effect of what were being promoted as feminist principles on children generally. As if any set of principles or ideas can be completely hived off from other important issues.

What would be better is to acknowledge that women thinking about women, for the good of women, can differ significantly in what they see as problems, their causes and solutions, and how they see those being related to the wider society, without reflexively accusing those other people of not being real feminists, being betrayers, handmaidens, and basically showing some respect for other women's minds and experiences.

This would mean that not all issues would have large numbers of women who agreed on a way forward. But the other option isn't really that all would agree. It's that some would get to call the shots while others would have to keep their mouths shut and go along. That is, a hierarchy.

The other element of this is that by pretending that those outside of a particular silo are not worth engaging with, it's allowed some pretty squidgy ideas to pass without much note. The discussion between different viewpoints, even when it doesn't convince the other side, has a really important role in strengthening reasoning and testing evidential claims.