What can we do?

Because most of us are so 'gender conforming'. Is that it? What does a gender non-conforming woman look like jj?

If you don't face social consequences for your gender non-conformity then that suggests you conform perfectly adequately to maintain the system of gender.

You can't have it both ways and claim that gender is the tool that patriarchy uses to oppress women but also that everyone's gender non-conforming really. Apart from it being an outright falsehood which you only have to walk down a busy High Street to establish (and gender is about so much more than just how you look) then if no-one does gender how can it be the defining tool of the patriarchy?

The point is that yes, male born people may experience the issues of gender stereotyping and patriarchy: it's not an exclusive experience to female people.

However the experience is not the same. The experience of female people is exclusive to female people, and trying to generalise and force team the experience of some male people with all female people is solely to the benefit of those male people's agenda in claiming women's single sex rights and spaces. Against the consent of many females. And with absolute disrespect for those females to say they have their own experience which is specific to them.

It's appropriation. It's again the sex with political power using their entitlement and power to try and do this quiet snatch and grab raid on female people's identities and lives. Because they feel entitled to it. It is patriarchy in action.

And it's ruddy offensive, and an experience female people are very familiar with in many ways, and makes female people have to draw the lines more and more distinctly because it's plain how little they, their lives and their boundaries are respected by male people.

Not helpful really.

What part of No does jj not understand?

That question never goes away does it? Generation after sodding generation the word "no" is simply ignored by these entitled, misogynistic dinosaurs.

There should be more campaigning for third spaces if the primary concern is safety for (mainly) transwomen. It would take a little time to implement but it would ensure safety for everyone. It is telling that this rarely comes up as a desirable solution from the other side.

This is normal life for loads of women who don't conform and only a man wouldn't know that. Only a man wouldn't know that women take it for granted that people stare at us, however we're dressed or presented, and pass judgment verbally and non-verbally every day. The other women, the women who cut the mustard in the feminine style stakes, get a different kind of look and assessment — they get rated on how well they've styled themselves, how good they look and how much the male observer would like to fuck them.

As Old Crone says, this is just a fact of life for women and you learn to ignore it and be yourself. The good news is that once you get into your 50s and 60s and go a bit grey and wrinkly, you become invisible and no one feels the need to look or rate or comment any more. You can even go to a wedding in trousers and not have half the other women tut at you.

I'm just making the point that people who think differently are not necessarily stupid or brainwashed.

I agree with you there, jj. It seems to me that TRAs are a group that know exactly what they are doing and are ruthlessly defending their own interests, using a range of tactics including obfuscation and emotional manipulation. It just happens that these interests run counter to the interests of female people. You say there is complementarity. There is not.

To come back to the OP, what can we do? Normalise a politics in which women are entitled to defending their interests. Keep talking. Keep asking questions, especially that very old question “cui bono?” Resist manipulation.

I've been on the end of it, although it's more commonly tutting and eye rolling as opposed to the death stares from men.

So what you're upset about is people giving you 'looks' in the street. Is that it? I really don't know what to say to someone who is so fragile that people giving them odd looks in the street is such a cause for concern. I'm sure we've all experienced odd looks from strangers occasionally - and most women have experienced much worse when we're just walking around minding our own business - from obscenities shouted at us to being physically assaulted.

You do seem very hung up on what people think of you. You should try just being yourself and ignoring people who don't like it. Works for me.

You really don't understand us when we say that gender (aka the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with the female sex) is a tool of our oppression, jj1968.

Or you wouldn't be presenting it as something we are privileged to be able to conform to. So I'll spell it out again: most if not all of the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with the female sex come in a binary, that is a hierarchical pair, of which the stereotypes coded masculine and associated with the male sex are denoted as superior and those stereotypes coded feminine and associated with the female sex are denoted inferior. What this means for our lives is that we lose either way - we lose when we conform to those feminine stereotypes and we lose when we don't conform to them. We lose different things, it's true, but we lose nonetheless. What we gain if we conform is often of limited benefit and the punishment for not conforming can outweigh the benefits of doing so too.

Most of us here know this because we have tried both, which is why we have such a profoundly negative reaction to any attempts to enshrine the doctrine of gender identity in law. The international treaty devoted solely to women's sex-based rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW, recognises the damage that sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes do to the female sex and therefore calls on all member states to work to eradicate them. That would not be the case if stereotypes were beneficial to us.

And the stereotypes based on our sex are not the only issue we face, of course. Violent males attack gender-conforming women as much as gender-non-conforming ones, because of our sex. (And while the rates of male-on-male violence have reduced in recent years, the rates of male-on-female violence continue to rise.) Add to that the reality of our female biology, and all of the challenges it brings and we are dealing with a whole range of issues - many of which are again made harder to deal with because of the stereotypes associated with them. But all arise from our sex.

So no, females do not oppress males who identify as trans on the basis of easier gender conforming.

And it would make this discussion so much clearer if we could have a commonly agreed definition of what members of that group of males have in common beyond identifying as trans. The blokey bloke delivering a verbal declaration of identity is different from a crossdresser is different from a socially transitioned man claiming womanhood on the basis of adopting the stereotypes associated with the female sex is different from a post-op transsexual. All of these males identify as trans. Most of them are very obviously male to even a casual observer and none will be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity because that is their innermost feeling invisible to the outside.

So is it transsexuals you are thinking of when you claim that women participate in their oppression? But if - as you are wont to claim - we cannot tell them from women, how can we do that? Is it crossdressers you're thinking of? Which of these males fall within the group you are claiming is oppressed by women and which do not? I would in all honesty be grateful for a clarification.

And this is not at all like claiming that white women cannot have an advantage over people of colour because they are female btw. We do know how intersectionality works. We do understand axes of inequality and that we can be on them or not, depending on what power system we're analysing. An individual is positioned alongside an axis of inequality depending on their possession (or not) of the dominant characteristic within a given power system. And sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes (aka gender) are not a power system in and of themselves, but an expression of the power system of sex.

Finally, I've yet to meet an actual "cis-gender" woman. And I've met thousands of women and girls. I've met a few who call themselves "cis" but none of them are. In order for a power system to exist, its proposed dominant class really ought to be more than a theoretical concept dreamt up by sexologists in the 90s who described gender-conformity as healthy and beneficial. (None of them considered the role that stereotypes play in oppressing women. Obviously.)

It still doesn't make the world feel very welcoming for gender nonconforming people though.

Because most of us are so 'gender conforming'. Is that it? What does a gender non-conforming woman look like jj?

if a woman refuses to employ a trans women because she disapproves of them on religious grounds, or pays her less because she knows she's desperate for a job, or abuses her in the street then she is part of the system of oppression trans people face.

Have you witnessed a lot of women abusing males in the street jj?

As I said, I'm perfectly happy for you to use the word differently from me. I would point out though that when males who identify as trans claim to be oppressed by females because of our "cis privilege", I don't just consider this a ridiculous claim, and I don't just stop taking seriously anyone who makes that claim, I think it's offensive, contemptuous and wholly ignorant of what it means to be female. Proof positive as it were that no male can ever be female because they cannot understand what it means to be female. Which they demonstrate with that ludicrous claim.

I think that's a lot like saying that white women can't possess privilege because they are oppressed as women. It's not that non trans women oppress trans women directly, but that society oppresses trans people and women can play a role in that. You agree that trans women face what you may not call oppression, but discrimination, hardship, marginalisation whatever based on appearing as you would say are feminine males (and I'd argue the same applies to trans men in the other direction). To that extent cis or non trans, or even gender conforming privilege exists in that those who are broadly, and visibly gender conforming do not face that hardship or discrimination. And I don't think you can say that's all just down to men - it's not, if a woman refuses to employ a trans women because she disapproves of them on religious grounds, or pays her less because she knows she's desperate for a job, or abuses her in the street then she is part of the system of oppression trans people face. It's not an indictment on all women, just a recognition that oppression or discrimination based on gender identity/reassignment exists and both men and women can play a role in that.

I note you only consider oppression applies to the characteristics that apply to you but I'm sorry, if you don't think oppression can exist based on sexuality, gender identity, disability, or religion, then I don't really know what to say except you're simply wrong. It was illegal to be gay for many years, and by de facto virtually illegal to be trans - it still is in some parts of the world, to the point of being punishable by death, if thats not oppression then I dont really know what is.

Let's agree to disagree on our respective definitions of oppression. I'm going by one of the more common definitions, which posits that in addition to systematic abuse and injustice, a group must also be subject to exploitation for the discrimination they face to amount to oppression.

And there is no resource extraction other than on the basis of sex, race and class (and I probably should add religion to those three even though it's often class or race that dominates even when the oppressed group practices a different religion).

Let me add that if you read my comment again, I did not claim to have been oppressed on the basis of anything at all. I stated that I have been disadvantaged and discriminated against. And while I would have to carefully consider if what I have experienced because I am female amounts to oppression, I know that what I experienced on the basis of my nationality and immigration status (not race) and my parents socio-economic status (class, in a way, but it's complicated) was definitely not oppression.

That word is used far too freely in my view, which has devalued an important concept we need to be able to analyse, address and eventually remedy the worst human rights abuses in our time.

As I said, I'm perfectly happy for you to use the word differently from me. I would point out though that when males who identify as trans claim to be oppressed by females because of our "cis privilege", I don't just consider this a ridiculous claim, and I don't just stop taking seriously anyone who makes that claim, I think it's offensive, contemptuous and wholly ignorant of what it means to be female. Proof positive as it were that no male can ever be female because they cannot understand what it means to be female. Which they demonstrate with that ludicrous claim.

That's highly debatable. Most female people's isn't. I'm not sure that's correct at all in terms of the average person on the street who have no idea this kind of stuff is even discussed.

To clarify I'm talking about the split between mostly second wave and third wave feminists on this issue, not the average person on the street (who may equally have a range of views).

Meaningful dialogue being what? Where you tell females what you think and what they have to think and they say yes?

I've added the caveat to almost all my posts on this thread that I am specifically not telling anyone how to think. I'm just making the point that people who think differently are not necessarily stupid or brainwashed.

jj if you're going to go to the trouble if singling out one of my posts you could at least have the courtesy to reference it in full.

Sometimes people think they sound clever and learned when they say nothing of substance.

All humans are different. Humans have a variety of ideas about reality. It’s all terribly complex and nuanced.

I don't think many lesbians feel their life is dominated by trying to avoid pregnancy.

So you don't believe TWAW. Something we can agree on at last.

I don't think stripping down what are often quite complex and diverse understandings of sex and gender under patriarchy to whether people believe in 'basic biology' or not is very helpful

Well it isn't to you, I can see that. It is to many female people who are screaming to try and make themselves heard about it's bloody well helpful to them, stop messing about with it.

most people's position is far more nuanced

That's highly debatable. Most female people's isn't. I'm not sure that's correct at all in terms of the average person on the street who have no idea this kind of stuff is even discussed.

and I think sometimes the political temptation to deny that so they can be ridiculed as absurd or anti-science overrides any desire for a meaningful dialogue and understanding of what people actually really think.

Meaningful dialogue being what? Where you tell females what you think and what they have to think and they say yes?

Female people keep repeatedly telling you what they think here and trying hard to have a conversation with you about it, because your approach does not work for them. Which makes it a hostile takeover that harms them. And they're hardly going to be enthused and welcoming about it on those terms.

jj, you are embarrassingly predictable.

I sat there and thought, "bet you it'll be using lesbians as a gotcha next". And oh, look. Still, I'm won the bet againat myself and so I'm going to have an extra Oreo. I play for high stakes here.

I don't think many lesbians feel their life is dominated by trying to avoid pregnancy.

Lesbian here.

Life is dominated by reproductive biology in the same way. All the gynae issues, the blood stained clothes and pains and issues, and as a lesbian I've done the same conception/miscarriage/fertility issues in having my children. I came to MN as a female seeking other females for help with miscarriage as it's the kind of thing you can only talk to another female about and where other females are the only people who really get it, that experience and understanding and support from other women sharing their own experience was much of why I stayed.

I'm disabled as well incidentally, and while that presents a lot of practical issues and restrictions and relationship with body issues, that TOO is all tied with having a female body, and actually happened as a direct result of pregnancy. So please don't, as someone born male, lecture me on my physical reality and lived experience.

Your complex and diverse understanding of gender and sex under patriarchy is divorced from the reality of basic biology. I don't have that luxury. Nor do I belong to a dominant sex class that expects to be indulged in that nuanced navel gazing and politics while handwaving away the reality of the sex class they perceive as something to redefine and rearrange to their own benefit. While totally ignoring anything that sex class has to say.

And what people feel may dominate their lives may be very different. A young woman enduring sexual harassment from an arsehole boss may think that dominates her life. A single mum on benefits may feel the DWP's endless harassment dominates herself. Someone with a disability may feel the lack of accessibility dominates their life. And within that people form their own alliance and categorisations - a post menopausal childless disabled women on benefits may feel more affinity with a similar aged disabled trans woman on benefits than a surburban young mum with a couple of kids. A survival sex worker may feel she has more in common with a trans woman working alongside her in terms of the oppressions she faces and immediate needs than she has with a married professional. A trans man, who is attracted to women - and who most on here would say is a woman - may feel hugely alienated about some of the posts on this thread and feel she has more in common with a (non trans) man.

And that's really what I mean about people with a different view than the gender critical view not being stupid or brainwashed. Perhaps they just have different experiences. Perhaps due to those experiences they feel more kinship with trans women and recognise a shared struggle and so welcome them as women. I think the idea that trans inclusive people don't believe biological sex exists is a massive over-simplification of what most people feel - which is that there is more to our sexed roles in society than basic biology, that gender exists like it or not and can be life defining, that there are shared political struggles and experiences that form our identities, that some people have a sense of themselves that is different to their physical sex and that deserves recognition etc.

I don't think stripping down what are often quite complex and diverse understandings of sex and gender under patriarchy to whether people believe in 'basic biology' or not is very helpful - most people's position is far more nuanced and I think sometimes the political temptation to deny that so they can be ridiculed as absurd or anti-science overrides any desire for a meaningful dialogue and understanding of what people actually really think.

I'm wondering if having opposite sex siblings plays into people's opinions on this.

Certainly affected my understanding - my brother was excused from fellating-the-neighbour duties, my sister and I were not.

Probably so many factors involved that you'd be hard pushed to say anything concise about the impact of siblings, birth order etc though.

*Also worth noticing that often the historical and cultural expressions of gender for females going beyond patriarchal norms were to escape the the limits or dangers of being stuck in a biologically female body.

Not in the name of self expression.*

Like the female viking warriors that had to be transgender because otherwise why would they be warriors....