Q&A thread for New Posters

Yes, it was explained to me that way too, Helen.

I went along with it for years but eventually the cognitive dissonance built up too much.

Let's take the bored board through some of my ramblings.

First, so does this apply to horses and deer? We have stallions, and mares, stags and does. A doe is famously defined as a deer, a female deer.

I always refer to animals as he or she. How do I do that? Do I do it on gender presentation? No.

So why are people telling me English pronouns are traditionally determined by gender when I talk about humans?

In fact, pronouns have only started being determined by "gender" in the last 25 years. Why? Trans rights! Society has started slowly changing to accommodate the idea that if you see someone like Lily Madigan, you should ignore their physiology, clock that they were wearing clothes from the women's section, and remember it for later, in case you need to use pronouns.

So the only way to get to a place where people are truly free from gendered norms and expectations (or at least, free to adopt them or reject them as they wish) is to detach the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from biological sex and allow people to inhabit them as they wish.

You are missing the other side of the oppression coin - structural discrimination.

Women face unfair discrimination because it is assumed that they will get pregnant. However most women do get pregnant and they get pregnant between the ages of about 25 and 35.

To enable equality - equal participation in public life, access to work etc. - you also need to create structures that support women, like maternity rights.

You can’t just chop this up into maternity rights/period rights/menopause rights/breastfeeding rights etc. etc. Because everyone knows these things only affect women (Such a shame we don’t employ any of these people who need these minority rights...) and the impact of not providing these rights only affects women.

To deny that ‘woman’ means more than biologically female is to deny inescapable reality.

That is just accepting sexism. No more reason to accept sexism than there is to accept any other form of prejudice.

@Datun

“Yes, it can be viewed as masculinity and femininity, but if you limit it to things like hair, dress, mannerisms, etc, you're not seeing the full picture and might be missing the implications.

The way gender was explained to me was a bit of an eye-opener.

It was quite simply that women are oppressed on the basis of their sex, and gender is the means by which it's done.....”

I agree with almost everything you say here. I think we mostly disagree on how we get from where we are to where we should be (a society where people are not limited in terms of how they can appear, live, work etc just because they were born with male or female biology).

My view is that the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are too thoroughly infected with gender (as evidenced by the fact people are almost invariably referred to using gendered pronouns which make it very difficult to enter into social interactions without adopting a gender) to be re-claimed as denoting only biological sex. To deny that ‘woman’ means more than biologically female is to deny inescapable reality.

So the only way to get to a place where people are truly free from gendered norms and expectations (or at least, free to adopt them or reject them as they wish) is to detach the concepts of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from biological sex and allow people to inhabit them as they wish.

I see sex work referenced by transwomen on Twitter quite often.

It seems to be split between two sentiments.

1. I can't get a normal job because of discrimination, I need money for transition, I have to do sex work.
2. I am so happy I get to do sex work, it's great.

In both cases they want it decriminalised.

Much reference to horrid T**f's also being horrid swerfs (not to be confused with smurfs).

I have some questions about the SWIW mantra.
Sex work is work, what does that mean exactly?
Why is it often tied to the TWAW brigade?

Men’s rights

I have some questions about the SWIW mantra.
Sex work is work, what does that mean exactly?
Why is it often tied to the TWAW brigade?
Are they in favour of women who lose their jobs (in whatever sector) to have to legitimately consider sex work as employment or risk forfeiting benefits, for example?

And maternity leave and taking time off for childcare.

Also the lower pay affects pension conts.

Another area where people tend to say that's a personal choice.

Many women are not able to access the same levels of pension contributions due to breaks or interruptions in employment for childbearing. Some choices do not affect the sexes equally.

I'm not sure why we're talking about pensions but anyway. There is plenty of feminist analysis to do around them!

Not most is still a lot of people, disproportionately women.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/uk-retirees-state-pension-financial-future

About 15 million people have no pension savings and face a bleak future in retirement, according to a major survey of Britain’s personal finances published this week by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The Financial Lives survey of 13,000 consumers by the FCA, the biggest of its kind, found that 31% of UK adults have no private pension provision and will have to rely entirely on the state in their retirement.

The figures reveal a big gap between men and women: 33% of men expect to retire with just the state pension, but that rises to 53% among women.

Retirement age is not equal- equality means make it the same (push women's up and there's been a million threads and articles etc about the warning and so on).

33% men Vs 53% women with no pension- that's fine because it's about personal choice.

As far as I am aware, the state pension does not require any earlier qualification whatever, either of education or of employment.

But most people do not rely solely on the state pension.

As far as I am aware, the state pension does not require any earlier qualification whatever, either of education or of employment. Apart from having paid your stamps for a set number of years.

That's an inequality which was sorted out, isn't it.

Not if women’s ability to qualify for a pension is disadvantaged because of earlier lack of access to education and employment.

Women's state pension provision has been altered to match that of males. Women used to get a better deal through their pensionable age being five years sooner in their lives, now they don't. That's an inequality which was sorted out, isn't it.

Since we can''t change it having happened, should we not get on with stopping it from continuing or happening again? Much more fruitful as an ambition.

Feminism analyses the causes of inequality. The practical impact of past inequality is felt now e.g. on pension provision.

Since we can''t change it having happened, should we not get on with stopping it from continuing or happening again? Much more fruitful as an ambition.

(I don't have a time machine; if I did there are quite a large number of people in history whose lives would not be safe.)

I was I think saying "the past is a different country"

Except 40-50 years ago isn’t.

Plenty of men who graduated in the 60s and 70s still hold power in society and they certainly held power in the 2000s and 2010s.

I was I think saying "the past is a different country" and that judging today (when more women than men are accepted for university places in the UK) by what was happening fifty years and more ago might not be entirely useful. A lot has changed, and until recently the change for women has mostly been for the better. Far too slowly, but for the better.

Until this most recent outbreak of male dominance roleplay, that is.

I think it may be important to remember that the vast majority of males were equally unaccepted by universities before WWII. Fewer than 5% of the population went to university in the 1930s, which obviously meant most men didn't.

I don’t think that is relevant to the point. The fact that men were also disadvantaged for other reasons doesn’t change the fact that they still dominate powerful institutions.

It matters that women aren’t represented in government, as we have seen over the past few months when the impact on women - emergency contraception, employment - have only been considered as an afterthought.

This is an American template totally irrelevant to the UK.

Sex segregated toilets would never be used as the thin end of the wedge to introduce race-segregated toilets here. Americans have racial segregation well within living memory and have millions of people who would like to bring it back. Totally different to the UK.

The UK is much less violent than the US. The UK is much more accepting of flamboyant eccentric people. Trans and GNC people don't get murdered in toilets here for looking different.

In addition, the police are more responsive to that kind of hate crime in the UK than in the US. If men started beating up transwomen just trying to pee in UK public toilets there'd be action and outrage.

In the UK the problem with keeping toilets sex segregated is that it makes some males feel uncomfortable because in the dysphoric it forces them to acknowledge the difference between their gender identity and their sex while in fetishists it removes a source of thrill. Neither are good enough reasons to stop sex segregation.

Thanks for putting into words why the toilets and changing rooms arguments make me so uncomfortable.

It feels like a bloke staring you down with a smirk saying "No? So how you gonna stop me luv?"

Prison and sports have male-dominated rule makers and enforcers. The smirker knows he will be forced to obey them. Toilets, gyms, changing rooms have no powerful males on enforcement duty.

The argument that it was OK in the past made me think "Yes it was OK, what has changed for me to make me so uncomfortable now?"

Fifteen years ago I would frequently shared spaces with people who would probably be called trans or non-binary now (like obvious males dressed as a sexy lady, very butch women, people maximising the androgynous look). It never bothered me much. I think because people cared about making each other feel comfortable and who was encroaching on whom.

For example, I was mates with a drag queen, if I had told him (he called himself him mostly) the women were uncomfortable with him using the ladies (we did go clubbing with observant religious women - modest dress, no drink, lots of dancing) then he would have asked what he could do to make it OK and would have gone to the gents or waited until the loos were empty in a heartbeat no bother. Absolutely no entitlement, no smirking, no "Screw you, I'm coming in anyway".

Some vocal recent incomers seem to feel entitled to take, to push women aside. If we say we wouldn't feel comfortable with you in there they don't say "I'm so sorry, I'll use the gents or wait until nobody else is in here, what would work for you?" they say "no point making that rule sweetheart, I'll do whatever I want and how you gonna stop me?"

Then we end up talking about how we can only have a rule if we have a fierce enforcement method (genital checks!!!).

It's all about ignoring women's "no" unless there is a big man to enforce it.