To think that Emma Watson is no feminist

[HermioneWeasley]

So after JKR published her incredibly powerful essay and disclosed being a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual violence, Emma decides to tweet that trans women are women. Emma doesn’t condemn the misogynist abuse and threats of sexual violence that JKR has received, nor is she concerned about the facts JKR has shared of an over 4000% increase in girls being referred to gender clinics, or how autistic girls are disproportionately represented.

What is Emma’s “feminism” for exactly?

I'm going through the menopause. Feels fucking real to me

Are you saying that any woman who doesn't experience the same menopausal symptoms as you isn't a real woman? Presumably you also subscribe to the theory that women who donegive birth aren't real women too?

I have had my share of health issues, including 2 c sections and endo. I am perimenopausal. None of this makes me feel like I am more of a woman than trans woman.

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place.

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place

Very true
Also feels on here sometimes all the "competitive womanning" a bit

@mintyfreshh

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place.

I agree.

@mintyfreshh

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place.

For one thing, you'd probably have to call it ParentsNet.

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place

I bloody hope so

"Are you saying that any woman who doesn't experience the same menopausal symptoms as you isn't a real woman? Presumably you also subscribe to the theory that women who donegive birth aren't real women too?"

Don't be fucking ridiculous . And no I don't fucking subscribe to that bullshit.

Even if all you get is a few hot flushes interrupting your sleep pattern, it's biology doing it to you. Menopause happens to all biological women. If you don't know the menopause, get yourself educated. By talking to adult human females.

What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place.

Young people agree because by and large, we've been lucky enough not to have to deal with real discrimination yet, and we're largely stuck in social media bubbles where the overriding mantra is 'be nice to everyone'. It's part and partial of the shifting of when real 'adulthood' starts.

It's starting to change though. Five years ago, in my early 20s, I couldn't speak out at all around peers my age because they were horrified at GC views. Now their eyes are slowly opening because they're seeing the pay gap open up as they move away from fixed graduate salaries where all things are equal and into positions where they need to negotiate. They're seeing their friends be penalised in their careers for taking maternity leave. They're being asked about family plans in interviews. They're seeing themselves become more invisible as they hit their 30s. They're coming out of long term relationships with men that have abused them, and when they've reported it to the police they've been ignored. They've seen their friends murdered, assaulted, and stalked by their exes despite reporting his behaviour to the police previously. They're becoming mothers and realising how much wifework their seemingly liberal partners expect them to do simply because they're women. They're struggling to lose weight, to make fashion work for them, to look good when compared with the younger women barely out of their teens that men our age prefer to look at. They're being ignored by doctors and told they're overreacting to female health concerns. They're suddenly being told to treat their 55year old male boss at work as a woman and being scared to report how uncomfortable and inappropriate it feels when he now wants to play best friends and 'one of the girls' and follows them to the toilets.

They're realising that their oppression has fuck all to do with how they identity and everything to do with what they are.

In 25 years time we'll be the generation in our 50s that has lost out on the basis of our sex, that no longer cares about the socialisation we've had to just be nice and accepting because we'll have realised that it benefits everyone but us, and we'll be the generation wondering why the hell the young don't see what we do.

I disagree more young people believe TWAW.

In my DC school and the one I work in there seems to be a view that gender is "old fashioned" created by the oldies and that people should be allowed to wear what they want, not stick strictly to gender stereotypes.

Im very proud, obviously

"What's most important is that young people increasingly agree with progressive views that trans women are women, so Mumsnet in 25 years time will probably be a very different place."

TRANSLATION:
In 25 years time, you will get your invisibility cloak up and running. Your opinions and visibility, worth little right now, will fade into insignificance as you become an older woman.

It's starting to change though. Five years ago, in my early 20s, I couldn't speak out at all around peers my age because they were horrified at GC views. Now their eyes are slowly opening because they're seeing the pay gap open up as they move away from fixed graduate salaries where all things are equal and into positions where they need to negotiate.

My daughters have always been well aware of that. It doesn't make them feel any different about trans women though. Why should it? They're hardly trying to join some great club.

Mrpumblechook it changes as people realise the differences between sexes are highly significant, and the differences between genders are irrelevant.

"Emma Watson is a young woman trying to be all things to all people"

She's not really: she's 30 years old now.

bellinsurge I am extremely educated about menopause after going through it at 33 thank you. I didn't say that not all women experience menopause, just that they have different symptoms and actually apart from their periods stopping some have no other symptoms. I'm sorry yours has been difficult. Like an earlier poster I'm not of the opinion that having a menopause makes me any more a woman than the next human being whether female, male or transgender.

I find it terrifying that transactivist beliefs that entrench regressive, damaging, sexist stereotypes and limit the opportunity for women to participate fairly, safely and with dignity in public life are being described on here as 'progressive'. They're not progressive for women! Why do we never matter?

witchcraftandhokum you dont feel menapause makes you more of a woman than anyone else... male or female.

So Boris Johnson is just as much a woman as you are?

As Im sure you know, woman is not a feeling but a human adult female.

Although please carry on as I love watching people argue with reality, reminds me of the flat earthers

Only women go through periods, menopause and pregnancy. They don't make a person a woman but they are exclusively female bodily experiences that transwomen will never share.

Sex is determined at conception. If a female embryo survives long enough they become a woman.

Mrpumblechook it changes as people realise the differences between sexes are highly significant, and the differences between genders are irrelevant

I don't think it demonstrates that at all. Without doubt women and men are not currently equal socially, economically or politically. However, transwomen do not make the situation worse and they are certainly not at an advantage compared with men. The focus on transwomen and toilets by some so-called feminists makes things worse in my opinion because it distracts from the real issues.

What woukd you describe as the "real issues?"

Id say prisons and refuges were high on the list, followed by sports ect.

But we cant ignore toilets as mixed sex leaves a huge amount of females without facilities to use in public, or at work, or at school. It leaves women chained to the home just so they can pee.

@Witchcraftandhokum , my menopause hasn't been especially difficult and I'm sorry you went through it so young. But that's my point. It is biological. And it takes more than a pill to get through it.
And the way women (biological women) are written off after the menopause as less valuable is a shock. Which is why all the younger women falling for the myth that being a woman is a feeling is such utter shite.

@PheasantPlucker1

What woukd you describe as the "real issues?"

Id say prisons and refuges were high on the list, followed by sports ect.

But we cant ignore toilets as mixed sex leaves a huge amount of females without facilities to use in public, or at work, or at school. It leaves women chained to the home just so they can pee.

I would say that the real issues are fact that women and men are not equal socially, politically or economically. I don't think younger people will feel that they are chained to the house because of a lack of female toilets. Most couldn't care less. They do or will care about the fact that they will not have the same opportunities as men with regard to having a good career and if things don't change they will probably learn a lot less than them.

learn earn

She’s a silly little twonk who owes her career to the mighty and very sensible JKR. I suspect she wouldn’t know feminism if it waved a placard in her face.

However, transwomen do not make the situation worse and they are certainly not at an advantage compared with men.

I'd say adding men, particularly late transitioning men that have benefitted from male privilege for decades, to a group that is permitted to benefit from hard fought for and sex-based rights intended for women, absolutely dilutes those rights and makes the situation worse.

Women that have fought for, eg, all women short lists, to address the imbalance based on sex on certain positions of power. A transwoman being placed on that list is benefitting from something put in place to benefit females and address the sex based discrimination they face. Likewise, single sex refuges fought for on the basis that women wanted to be safe from the male sex due to abuse. Diluted by suddenly allowing penises in.

Conflation of gender and sex in reporting - key issue in establishing trends that can be addressed preemptively.

We saw with Rachel Dolezal that no matter how much a white woman feels or believes themselves to be black, that isn't enough to class herself as black and take advantage of things put in place to address the societal imbalance of racism. But somehow it is when it's sexism that's involved? It's just cultural appropriation.

The discrimination transwomen face as compared to men is based on the fact they're trans, not the fact they're women. It's unacceptable but nothing to do with discrimination based on the sexual capability of their sex. Women isn't a category for 'not-manly-men' so, frankly, in terms of categorising what a woman is, it's irrelevant whether trans people are discriminated against in comparison to men. The discrimination they face is different and needs to be addressed differently.