Non binary. I think I get it.

I see parts of NB trend as a response to some of the third wave ideas such as embracing the expression of stereotypical feminity to challenge objectification of women, which further entrenched some of these.

Exactly! The whole thing is so contradictory.

Hopefully the worm will eat its own tail soon and we'll end up in a middle ground where 'jenduh' no longer carries any weight, and people will just be people. Although I think we are still quite far from that utopia.

marvolousmonsters. It's almost like a binary system with male NB and female NB!

Personally I feel both sorry but also irritated with the NB. The girls want to run away from the female stereotypes forced upon them by society and hide under baggy clothes. But also demand attention by insisting on they/them pronouns. They just all seem very immature.
I'm so glad I'm not young now.

That's really interesting, NB women are often dressed for invisibility, but many NB men are almost attention seeking, and actually present as quite "feminine", almost 'camp', or even fetishy, eg: Sam Smith.

A lot of my eldest DD's best friends are nonbinaries.
It's a subculture, much like goth/emo was 20 years ago. Associated with dyed hair, anime, video games, drawing furry people. Basically its a label geeky girls give themselves if theyre not pretty witty curly wurly sorts of girls.

Thankfully DD thinks its a bit rubbish (I've explained to her that it is internalised misogyny) but she still puts up with it because she doesnt want to fall out with her friends.

But that's kind of what I mean - that's all still current. In fact, it's way more mainstream and prevalent than the elective mastectomy stuff. And I think it's not unrelated, tbh. But it's all still body mod stuff and it doesn't get talked about in the same way. So, I can see why someone might look at that and decide that an elective mastectomy is just another body mod that pushes against patriarchal norms. Not saying I agree with that perspective, but it's not the most illogical conclusion ever, particularly if you find breasts an inconvenience or you never want a family etc. And telling them it's mutilation just seems incredibly patronising, particularly when the other stuff happens mostly without comment. I dunno, I just think it's a disconnect that I've definitely heard discussed among non binary ppl I know.

I don't think I've ever heard a young woman who had a boob job told she'd 'mutilated herself', and certainly not seen such a comment portrayed as coming from a place of concern for her

I have. Not so much recently, perhaps, but plenty around the time they first allowed plastic surgery adverts and magazines aimed at young women were full of them; and when glamour models were becoming mainstream celebrities and using increasingly extreme enhancements to gain or maintain a profile; and when the various implant scandals broke (also fillers and botox). Plenty of dicussion about social media pressure, age limits, lack of understanding of long term consequences, poorly regulated practitioners encouraging people to go futher and further ... a lot of parallels with the current debate.

I must be on another planet woman are ridiculed and pitted against each other what ever they do. How many threads on mumnset about enhancements and how they look awful , what message this sends etc,etc. Also rose coloured specs about woman from previous generations about the make gaze. Blimey we had page 3 girls at 16 years old, the school girl stereotype. There were slimming advertisements on TV. I was aware from a young teen. Why attack young woman just trying to figure things out,they are not individually responsible for living life in the way others think they should.

I used to dress manly when I was 20 and on the dyke scene. Unfortunately I got the same amount of male attention but from a different type of man.

I really don't see how anyone can see a young woman cutting off her breasts because of a retrogressive and sexist ideology as anything other than mutilating themselves. The fact that no-one goes down this path without some kind of trauma, mental health problem or autism/ADHD is additional cause for concern. It's hardly taking a stand for women's rights.

Yeah, but I don't think I've ever heard a young woman who had a boob job told she'd 'mutilated herself', and certainly not seen such a comment portrayed as coming from a place of concern for her. I agree with there being a class element there, but I also think there's a whole lot of stuff in the differing responses to elective mastectomy and breast enhancement which feeds into exactly the hypersexualised femininity or restrictive roles that people are suggesting leads into the non binary identity stuff.

I don't really agree. There's a very long history of feminists prodding at what it means to be a woman in a patriarchy, and not every feminist has landed in the same place on it. I think this is in the same vein as exploring womanhood as a social construct, which isn't a new idea at all.

they just have a different viewpoint on how to challenge misogyny

The problem is, they're not challenging it. At best they are attempting a sidestep, and many are buying into it wholesale. Either way, they reinforce misogynist and patriarchal ideas.

Absolutely. It just means being allowed to be.

YY to what others have said, but also: it's completely irrational. The fundamental underpinning premise of gender ideology is that everyone has an inner gender identity that either matches, or doesn't match, their biological sex. Non-binary people are saying they don't have a gender identity - so how does that work? It doesn't.

Given that most of us on this board would also say we lack a gender identity, then I suppose that makes all of us non-binary too.

I'm not sure what's happened to young girls. I can remember being a teenager (mumble mumble years ago) and it seemed we were much more unisex in style while still knowing what the sexes were. I can't remember any girls who regularly wore full makeup, and not that many who had really long hair. Nobody wore dresses except for things like weddings or formal dances. Once out of school uniform, girls and boys alike were in jumpers and jeans. Girls with big breasts who wanted to hide their figures just wore baggy jumpers.

I have three teens - two girls and dressing like this no makeup, jeans, hoodies every day is still a thing - and dressed for formal occasions.

Hair was odd in eldest teens years - all girls has to have really long hair - that has lessened - more styles now.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/589880/breast-augmentation-cosmetic-surgery-united-kingdom-uk/

Interestingly, the numbers of breast 'augmentation' seems to be falling. I would never sneer at someone who had an elective mastectomy because they thought they were born in the wrong body. I save my vitriol for the surgeons who are doing this to young and confused women and the doctors who are encouraging them to believe they will be happier after extreme body modification without exploring the psychology behind their choices and without any evidence that mental health improves after mastectomy.

I don't know, I used to hear a fair bit of sneering about women who had breast enhancement surgery. In some quarters it was seen as a low-class thing to do. There's probably a lot to unpick there.

I haven't noticed it in recent years, and I'd guess that's because elective body modification has become fashionable in the right places.

Datun's post Thursday at 18:56

Agree wholeheartedly. I too absolutely understand the need to make yourself invisible. The landscape of misogyny now may be different to when we were young women but it's not a better different.

But sadly the reason for us to be invisible has not gone away and will not let our young women hide

It's the first step though.

I guess my question is, if someone who is a feminist thinks that a younger person being non binary is essentially a personally political thing reacting against hypersexualisation of women, why the condescension or outright mockery?

I know a number of non binary people, and they're very switched on, and they just have a different viewpoint on how to challenge misogyny. I don't agree with every point of view they have, but when they say they're not women, they're using the word as a cultural marker. Some of them, with the imprecision that comes with youthful enthusiasm, sometimes substitute female, but they are all very aware of the material limitations they face.

I just think back to when I was navigating the world as a youngster, and how the women who made a constructive impact on me weren't the ones sneering at me and telling me how much of an idiot I was for thinking that the reality for women (and I'm using the word there in the sense mostly accepted on MN) could ever improve.

And as for the comments about elective mastectomy, I sometimes wonder why there isn't the same enthusiasm to patronise and/or denounce young women who get breast enhancement surgery, given that there are many overlapping risks, in terms of lack of sensation, and even problems with the implants etc. and it's presented in the same life-enhancing way by those who profit from it, arguably more so in the cosmetic surgery industry.

I'm 20 now and I still do that. And I've a friend who wears men's jeans when she travels. She says not only does it avoid the curves that men's eyes seem drawn to but it also means she has deep pockets...

Yeah there's often that feeling that a non-binary person thinks they're the only one who has managed to identify the problem and by saying it doesn't apply to me, they fixed it.

And if no one else says it, then they must be happy with the situation.

It doesn't address the problem for those who don't identify as non-binary, and it doesn't fix the problem for the woman who does.

It's why people get a little irritated by it. The motivation is understandable, but the result does fuck all to help anyone.

A perfect illustration of my view.

Of course I understand the feelings. What woman hasn't, at least once, looled at the position we're in and thought 'Fuck this shit, I don't want to play any more'?

But opting out on an individual basis is cowardly, it's selfish, and it doesn't work. It doesn't protect those who do it and it contributes to making things even worse for those who don't - partly, as described by PP, by narrowing the category of 'womanhood' even further, and partly by reinforcing the argument for men 'opting in' from the other direction and increasing all the problems that come with that.

I definitely get it from a woman/girl's point of view. I have a co-worker who is NB and they dress as if they want to completely disappear - Shapeless, plain, dark matte clothes.

I do wonder if anyone has done any studies on female NB experiences with males. Are there higher than average proportions of female NB folk who have experienced sexual abuse, sexual assault etc.