Are you a feminist, if yes, what does it mean to you?

[YouAreNotBatman]

YANBU = I’m am
YABU = I am not

Marx himself was a bit of a cunt for sure.

Socialism is a broad term that means different things to different people so I can't comment on that.

Womens oppression is based on the biological reality of birth and infant care. We can't achieve liberation while monetary profit is the sole aim of society, its literally impossible. So that's one facet of my view.

The other, highly controversial, problem I have with western feminism is that working class (the majority) of men are harmed just as much (or indeed more) than women. Patriarcy implies a society set up to benefit men. And, yes, those with the most power are men. This is not a coincidence but the issue isn't that they are male.

I dunno of this doesn't seem coherent that's because it isn't. It's still something I'm mulling. I've just stopped thinking of myself as a Rad fem after about 5 years of it.

No one should suffer harm and no one should blame an entire group for a few peoples actions. So when Muslim terrorists attack innocent people we don't blame Muslims we blame the terrorists.

Not all men are rapists but they aren't allowed in single sex spaces.

Because the risk to women is (currently and correctly) considered higher than the benefit for men.

Not wanting male bodied people in single sex spaces for females isn't the same as saying all trans women are going to attack women.

Single sex spaces are not blaming all men

It's an agreed way to enable all people to participate with less fear and more dignity - fear that is understandable and rational

Men as well as women tend to like them

@Miffee I totally agree that society is set up for profit and that doesn't benefit the reality of women's biology. I think what you said is very coherent, actually. It is true that many men find themselves the underdogs. I think that is why I keep banging on about hierarchy! Like you I struggle to articulate ideas which very few seem to discuss. The values of ownership and profit are regulated by hierarchy. I see this way of thinking as originating from patriarchal control and religious values that inform our cultures to this day. That isn't to say all men are privileged, but that all of us live under systems created by males at the top of the pyramid. Women can get to the top too, now, but they are participating in a system which we did not imvent, which never put our needs first.

@Cw122

from CW22 "What I've had to do is actually turn trans women away knowing that they will be more at risk due to sleeping rough because there is no safe alternative for them. That is what I've had to do in my job and morally that didn't sit right with me. I've had to sit with them in a state of absolute distress and need and been completely unable to find anyone that was able or willing to help them."

Firstly: What I've had to do is actually turn trans women away. Good on you turning them away if you were in charge of a single sex space for women.

Secondly: they will be more at risk due to sleeping rough because there is no safe alternative for them. there was a safe alternative for them, the men's version of your single sex spaces, and if there wasn't well frankly that was not your issue to solve and not the purpose of your job if you were involved with a single sex space for women.

Thirdly: I've had to sit with them in a state of absolute distress and need and been completely unable to find anyone that was able or willing to help them." oh where to start! All you had to do was say sorry we can't accommodate you here. Here's some phone numbers and addresses of services that can help you. Goodbye. And sent them on their way with some information for male service providers. If they then chose not to avail themselves of said male provision that is not your problem.

If you were working somewhere that was a single sex space provision then you were doing your actual service users a disservice by spending your time trying to solve a problem connected to someone of the other sex.

Actually I think the comments on society are key here

Feminism is not about men vs women - it's not branding men as evil
It's about removing the structural and societal barriers that on average hold women back
There are similar barriers for other classes of people - these should also be removed but feminism focuses on one set of problems because you can't tackle everything all at once and their are subtle differences which mean attempts to do so would fail

So feminism isn't anti trans - but transgender problems are precisely that - transgender problems that need their own solutions

Solutions that try to fix them by in effect removing or reducing womens solutions are wrong

If we consider race - would it be ok to offer a white boy a hand up that had been intended for a none white child because that white boy ia from a very socially deprived area? Clearly not

Yet that is exactly what sone are doing when they give a transwomen something intended to help women

Exactly what midgetastic said

@midgetastic

I agree.

I haven't weighed into this thread yet in large part because I'm slightly exhausted by the fact that each and every discussion about feminism now has to be channelled into talking about the trans debate. Not that I don't think this is relevant or important and not that I disagree with those of you who are concerned about some of the arguments made in favour of giving transwomen parity with biological women. But for me it isn't the most important issue feminism is facing at the moment and I'm tired of talking about it on absolutely every thread.

Fundamentally feminism for me is about removing those structural barriers for women's equality in society. Those barriers are imposed by patriarchy, not necessarily deliberately by men, but by a society which has always prioritised the needs of men above those of women.

Many of the things which hold women back most in society are not the most obviously "sexist" things, they are to do with the way society is organised, whether consciously or by accident, to benefit men.

Most of these most pressing issues are ultimately about money. They are about women's ability to participate on an equal economic footing with men and to do with their right to manage their own reproductivity and be supported in bringing up children without being impeded by men's lack of willingness to support them.

@midgetastic

So rather than feminism the trans population could have transgism!! (Although that sounds all kind of wrong in my head)

I'd get behind that and support them in that, rather than the trans women trampling all over the hard fought for rights and spaces of women.

male privilege does not just come from looking like a man today. It is also about how you are socialised.

Trans women often don't lose any male privilege when they transition - look at the treatment of trans women in sport, for example, male privilege writ large - and when they do, they mistakenly interpret that loss as transphobia, rather than being treated like a woman which is what they claimed to want.

I've come to see that the male sex and all the systems springing from patriarchy such as religion, capitalism, colonialism are all part of a death drive that leans always toward dominance and destruction, rather than towards creativity, nurturance and life. When left unchecked, these systems are ruinous for all people and the planet.

All heterosexual women are basically dancing with the devil. They might have got lucky with their particular male (who may have been harmless or even virtuous) but on the whole all are participating in a delicate, largely unconscious process of ensuring they don't come to harm at the hands of an alpha predator. This happens on a spectrum from those in abusive relationships to the tedious battle of the sexes that I see in so many of my straight friends' marriages.

Yes and it's a really odd argument to make because it is in fact an argument to not have any segregated spaces, not an argument to let some men into women's spaces.

No I'm not! :)

This.

It comes up all the time in sport.

If there was a way of completely eliminating male advantage, why wouldn't you let trans women compete as women?

Err, in that situation, why do you need separate categories for men and women at all?

I really do hate the terrorist argument because it’s so ignorant - the Islamic community does fucking LOADS to try and stop young men being radicalised. Mosques work with police, they target young men being isolated, they run support programmes. If men as a class did even a fraction of the work Muslims do to stop male violence we’d see incredible results.

Excellent point, Pumper

The terrorist point is also irrelevant. Some males are a risk to females, and in order to protect women from male violence, ALL men are excluded from single sex spaces.

That includes the men who are no risk whatsoever to women, and men who are themselves at risk from male violence.

As a feminist I support women and girls (including those seeing themselves as transmen or non binary).

Asking me to accomodate TW is like asking the Cats Protection League to become The Dogs’ Trust.

@AgnestaVipers I am interested in what you are saying. I can't get too bogged down in the trans argument. It seems to me if you believe female oppression begins with female biology you obviously can't include transwomen within your feminism, or exclude trans men from it. One can only wish them well and support them if it doesn't negatively affect women. So, when you speak of the death drive, is that a Freudian reference? And are you suggesting women stop procreating with men?

@Thepeopleversuswork Yes, I do agree with all you have said.

@Pumperthepumper

Thats a really good point.

Possibly because the Muslim community in the UK understands the experience of being marginalised and discriminated against. Which most white (straight) men don’t.

I agree with you. As a heterosexual woman I have basically come to realise that depending on a man as part of the infrastructure of your life is playing Russian Roulette.

You may luck out and get one who is solvent, progressive and loving and supportive. But the odds are against you and why would you take those odds?

I am still (regrettably) heterosexual and not quite able to live completely without men. But I would never put myself in the position of having to gamble on a man meeting the standards I need, let alone depending on one financially.

Practical feminism for me means minimising the need for dependency on men in your life.

@gnilliwdog
Yes, it's a Freudian term (he said all humans are driven toward death and destruction, but of course by 'human' he meant 'men' as they were the default), and although I have huge issues with Freud's misogyny, this seems borne out by the way in which human hierarchies (almost all of which have predominately men at the top, or in the most advantageous positions) involve gratuitous bloodshed or destruction that usually disadvantages the weakest. Sometimes this is women; it can also be seen in class terms, and in terms of non-human animals.

Eros (the life instinct) is usually conflated with sex and procreation, yet it's a lot more than that. But where procreation is concerned, technology is bringing women increasingly to a point that they do not need to form relationships with men to procreate. I'd see this as a benefit for women, like the pill was. Many women are choosing to have children alone. They also have the choice to raise children with female friends, and obviously those who are lesbian do this too.

I suppose one could think of men as being mostly domesticated, like dogs are, but still capable of ferocious violence. I'm a cat person.

@Thepeopleversuswork - interesting! And I suppose the sexual revolution is most powerful where it allows heterosexual women to have sexual encounters with men, no strings (or shame) attached.

@AgnestaVipers

Absolutely. And a key part of liberation for heterosexual women is learning to decouple the sexual urge from a lot of conditioning that tells you that when you are dating or having sex with someone you are essentially looking for a provider.

I found that before I had a child, my sexual urges were impossible to separate from the notion that I was aiming to find someone to settle down with. Having done that, had a child, figured out I far preferred raising said child alone and done so without any financial support, the whole concept of sex is different and much better. But there's still a lot of hard-wiring that most straight women have and its very hard to unpick.

Which is partly why I think having a happy and financially stable single mother might actually be the optimal way to raise girls because you cut out a lot of that hard-wiring. But that's a whole other thread.

@Thepeopleversuswork I admire your clarity of mind and divergent thinking.

I think another thing I find really interesting is the way in which patriarchy has the female as being located in the body, and the male in the mind. Thus we get the nonsense about men being rational and women emotional, when we know that patriarchy produces emotionally incontinent men who vent theirs as (primarily) either anger or euphoria and experience shame over much of the rest. We also know that there is a deeper wisdom in the body than most people fully tap into, but as this is the 'feminine' sphere it counts for little. And, anyway, women are capable of enormous intelligence and wisdom.

And there's the idea that human brain intelligence is better than non-human intelligence, which has led to a psychopathic destruction of our planet. The arrogance of this never fails to depress me.

The trans thing taps into this sense of our bodies as avatars that we can switch about and divorce ourselves from. It strikes me as a uniquely patriarchal perspective.