What is feminism?

[Happylittlechicken]

After spending a few days on the feminist boards I’m now more confused than ever about what feminism is. I always thought feminism was the fight for women to achieve parity with men, to break free of the shackles of gender stereotypes and become the very best they could be. Supporting all females in their choices of how they wish to live their lives and smashing the patriarchy.

Apparently not. When feminism includes and centres males, how can it be feminism? I don’t mean feminists should denigrate or abuse men, or put men down, but it is not women’s job to centre men in their lives. Why should women be expected to support and nurture men. How many times on international womens day have we seen “but what about the men”? I’ve seen women turn on other women for “not doing feminism properly because they don’t include males”. I’ve seen “feminists” argue that sex is irrelevant in womens fight for rights, and we should focus on gender. Instead of smashing gender norms, these feminists want women to embrace them, and declare anyone who subscribes to those stereotypes Is a woman, and if you don’t…. Are you really a woman?

I read the post from StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar and immediately thought of Martin Niemöller.

First they came for the Socialists…

As I said, it's a genuine issue and perfectly OK to care about it. However, I just can't believe that somebody terrified of going home to an abusive partner would even give a moment's thought to whether they might encounter a transwoman in the toilets at Tesco.

The sports thing is utterly bonkers and rightfully getting media attention at last, but again it's not the biggest issue for me. A battered wife isn't worrying about podium positions.

I guess my feelings are that it's a valid topic but I'm still a bit dubious about posters that are monomaniacal about it to the point of prioritising it above all other feminist issues - I feel this describes quite a few people on here.

I was probably a bit out of line with the white feminist comment though, even if I think it's quite likely to be true.

But someone fleeing an abusive partner msg worry about meeting males in the DV shelter no? If a woman traumatised by males thinks she’s going to have to share spaces with males, wouldn’t that worry her and cause her further trauma? Or does that not matter?

And if I'm terrified of going home to an abusive partner, I'm probably pretty keen on not being in a private space with any bloke.

I really do care about the sex of the people I'm in close proximity to.

I had a very safe feeling experience at the breast clinic with all female staff. I was horrified at the gynae appointment when it was a bloke. I should have thought ahead but was carefully avoiding it.

Yeah, they're real problems....for a tiny minority of the population.

That's fine then. Because Real Genuine Trans women are a tinier minority so we can ignore all their requests.
We're done here. It's all solved

@StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar you are sounding a bit sneery with your accusations of 'white middle class' there.

And is drum beat code for dog whistle?

You may not give a shit about that 'tiny number' of vulnerable women in prisons, consider it a fringe issue or care that a 'tiny minority' of raped women can no longer access a rape crisis service. Thankfully some people still do.

And thank fuck for the internet! May all the women be radicalised by Mumsnet.

If you read what I said, I agreed with most of the issues but thought the toilets and changing rooms was OTT, it clouds the more important risks

Tell the then-ten year old victim of Katie Dolatowski that worrying about men identifying their way into women’s bathrooms is “OTT”.

We used to have a social contract that a man in a woman’s single-sex space could be assumed to have nefarious intent and we could therefore take steps to have him removed, preferably before he caused anyone in those spaces harm. It was one of the layers of safeguarding that helped minimise the risk to women and girls. Now we have to wait until one of the women or girls in those spaces has been raped, sexually assaulted or otherwise actively victimised before we’re “allowed” to notify the authorities and hope they take us seriously (assuming they don’t try to pull a WiSpa on us and call us bigots who shouldn’t be looking at an exposed penis in a women’s changing room).

How many women and girls do you consider acceptable collateral damage before you accept we might have a point about wanting to revert to keeping men out of women’s bathrooms and changing rooms? For me, the number is 0.

In addition, how do people who think transwomen in women’s sports is too much but transwomen in female single-sex spaces is okay and not worth getting het up about square that logical inconsistency? You either see them as women, in which case they should be allowed anywhere women are including the female sports category, or you recognise they’re not women and have physical advantages over women…in which case why the fuck are you shrugging your shoulders over men in women’s bathrooms and aligning yourselves with the Katie Dolatowskis of the world rather than their female victims?

The thing about domestic violence is everyone agrees it's wrong. The government (all parties), the media. There are plenty of well-regarded charities working against it. Mainstream efforts to reduce domestic violence may not be as successful as we'd like but at least they exist.

Whereas people speaking about the threats from the trans movement are ignored, even brutally shut down, by much of mainstream society. Far from trying to do anything about it, many of those in power are actively furthering the trans agenda. It's not surprising in this context that many feminists feel this is something they have to shout particularly loudly about.

And this "tiny hand full" are dictating how the NHS works, how the police work, how education works, and how companies can have a chap on their board who says "I'm a woman" and BAM! they're diverse and no women need apply thanks. Not to mention sport.

Adding in how universities work too.

Universities want to improve equally and diversity, but how that’s translated by a tiny minority becomes ‘Queering the university’, pronoun badges sent to the admin staff (but not faculty, that’s class in action for you), pronouns added to everything, the allowance of the ‘Fetish Society’ where you learn to get tied up, the self censorship, faculty in sciences experiencing abuse because their research is on sex differences in pharmaceuticals, academics whose work is sex based forced out of their jobs, young feminists in trouble if they want to host single sex women only events. The list goes on.

Kind of how I feel.

Yes, the issue is affecting some women in real life and it's a real issue which shouldn't be ignored.

It's just that I feel overwhelmed by the number of threads about it, the constant tribalism, and how the gender argument gets shoehorned into literally every thread possible. I mean, even my thread about the child sex ring in my local area had somebody saying 'well, in a society where kids are read to by drag queens...'

Sometimes I just can't help but eyeroll tbh. And through all of it I still can't remember the last time I actually saw a transwoman! I just feel like it's not the be all and end all.

And of course if you dare say that it's not something you spend too much time on, you'll get a barrage of posts like the ones above (and probably the ones to follow) 'educating' you on the trans issue.

You are perfectly within your rights to feel that way, if it doesn’t affect you, why should you care. People can care about whatever they like. Surely the number of threads on this might relate to how much other people do care about it, but if you don’t want to be judged for not caring, you can’t really turn round and judge people for caring can you?

You'd prefer to say what you want to say and have everyone else shut up?

As another poster eloquently said, that'd a diary.

Hello, the next books for the LFN Bookgroup are:
Tuesday 20 June 2023: The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement by Sylvia Pankhurst

Tuesday 18 July 2023: America’s Women: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines by Gail Collins
(not having read the book is no reason not to join in)
We are a radical feminist women only group who meet every third Tuesday of the month 7.00 p.m. Join us on facebook or through the the radical Feminist Social London MeetUp group. We meet via zoom. www.facebook.com/groun ps/1602858270013933/