MNHQ transphobia guidelines part 2

[QueenStromba]

First thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2120841-MNHQ-are-going-to-decide-what-constitutes-transphobia-on-MN-What-advice-guidelines-would-you-give-them?

Sitestuff thread that was about is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2117350-MNHQ-now-email-posters-with-how-to-get-around-the-talk-guidelines?

The thread that was about is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2107862-Following-on-from-the-TERF-thread?

Eh?

Women are oppressed because of their sex.

Gender stereotyping is wrong because it perpetuates the stupid idea there's a fixed correlation between sex and behaviour.

They're not the same thing.

And no-one is suggesting all women should think the same way. We won't, obviously. It would be absurd to suggest a woman who's never miscarried feels the same as someone who had a 20-week miscarriage last week. But the fact remains, the experience of miscarrying at all is something only women will experience, so it is worth treating it from that perspective.

Do you also think Unions are fundamentally wrong?

The best way for women not to be treated with suspicion that they might turn out to have caring responsibilities is for people to stop believing that having caring responsibilities is something that should be viewed with suspicion.

Just to allow someone to call Godwin's Law, are we in some firing squad situation and you want an equal opportunity with men to shout, 'It isn't me! I'm not responsible for a child! It is that other person over there!

okay I really have to do some work but one final attempt....

The system currently assigns childcare as a womens issue. In a truly equal society it wouldn't be. In our current society it isn't in fact a purely womens issue, with SAH Dads being an increasing demographic.

By claiming childcare as a womens issue rather than a parents issue we are:

1. reinforcing the stereotyping we would actually like to erradicate
2. taking responsibility for problems caused as being gender specific when they aren't.

I don't know why we do this. It hurts us and I am not sure that many childless women are drawn to the battle cry because they presumably instantly realise it isn't their issue just because they have a uterus.

So what is the advantage of claiming childcare as a womens issue? And how can it possibly compensate the huge damage done regarding perpetuating the myth?

I think everyone should support better miscarriage care. Everyone should be a feminist. Everyone should care about issues that have an impact on women.

ice I have not seen one campaign that demands that 'all women' should get behind it. That is not really how campaigning works, it is more about spreading awareness and changing POLICY which in turn protects groups.

It isn't a myth. Women do most childcare. Pretending women don't do most childcare will not make men suddenly do more childcare.

Should poor people stop denying that on average they die earlier so that people stop stereotyping the poor?

Ice I have already discussed that childcare is a traditionally female role and by showing that it is low-paid and not respected as a 'decent job' along with many other traditionally female jobs, it is a feminist issue.

You have refused to continue that line of discussion but you are now saying the same thing you said originally again.

why is that?

Do you understand social exclusion? Do you understand implementing policy changes? Do you understand what raising awareness, social justice and campaigning is for?

Sorry, that should be start denying.

I just don't agree that is what we're doing, ice.

I get why you feel it is and I'm not trying to knock that - I just do disagree quite strongly.

IMO, that stereotype is so ingrained, there are ways to take it down, but we do also need to stop it hurting people while we're taking it down, because the people who're here at the moment matter.

I think there are three attitude changes that society needs to undergo:

1. Caring responsibilities should cease to be seen as a Bad Thing
2. Caring responsibilities should cease to be seen as something that will ordinarily fall to women all else being equal
3. Caring responsibilities don't have to have one 'owner' per person cared for (whether that's a child or an adult) - even in shared care situations people and society tend to assume there is a primary carer. Even if one person does more of the heft most of the time, the responsibility (which shouldn't be viewed as a synonym for burden) should be owned by all involved.

Changing attitudes to caring is definitely a womens' issue because the current attitudes to caring disadvantage us. Caring itself shouldn't be a womens' issue but a human being issue.

almond please don't shoot!

It seems to be a powerful tool around here in getting things changed for the better, to point out that men also benefit. This is perhaps sad but it is true. Labelling things as women's issues when they are actually aimed at improving work life balance for everyone is shooting yourself in the foot.

I mean why automatically rule out 50% of the support you might get?

Better parental leave rights? all in favour? Better maternity rights....oh 50% of the population suddenly don't think it has anything to do with them.

Ican the point I was on earlier was that the disapproval of feminine traits by society might be viewed as the ultimate feminist issue but it isn't the ultimate womens issue. Because some women don't exhibit feminine traits and some men do.

If you are looking at societies belittlement of caring in general then it isn't purely a womens issue and it probably does affect transgender people a lot.

ice - but, loads of men support women's issues?

Don't you think it's a huge problem if, by labelling something as a 'women's issue', men decide they don't have to care? If we crush all the other stereotypes but leave that one in place, won't it all have been for nothing?

I mean, if I read about people dying in Syria, I don't immediately thing 'oh, that's a Syrian issue, not my business,' I think 'oh my god, what's happening in Syria is awful'. Right?

It is clearly not the case that identifying yourself as part of a group of people based on one characteristic is a complete waste of time on the basis that you are all individuals with disparate lives and looking at things collectively just creates stereotypes.

If it were the case, there would be no point having a national government making national policies on anything. After all, I don't have something in common with every other person in the UK because I am an individual, and I share some qualities that are more French. If people start making national policies that apply to British people as a group, this will only encourage others to view me as an eccentric binge drinking football hooligan who drinks tea and eats cake all day.

You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't want policies that sort things out for British people and expect people not to assume you are a football hooligan.

Childcare is a feminist issue. It is mainly done by women. The fact that it is also an issue for other people means they should also campaign about it.

I am, however, totally opposed to turning it into a parental issue with additional rights for parents. There should be an allotted amount of childcare leave per child not per parent, and whoever looks after the child (often a female lone parent) should be able to transfer that as she sees fit. So if a woman is sick and cannot look after her child, she should be able to transfer her leave to any other worker be they her friend, brother, grandparent etc. Otherwise you are pushing women back into a heteronormative model where she is assumed to be raising a child in a two parent family with a committed father. This already exists in some countries.

Apart from that, if I am looking at how to get more women into a certain profession, I want to look at the factors that keep women out of the workplace or from getting promoted - childcare is a major factor that I would want to think about there. What is going on with men and their childcare is irrelevant to looking at the range of different issues that interact only together for women - stereotypes, biological sex etc together, so that I can change the situation for women.

I think that by shying away from saying "I care about this because I care about women, whom it disproportionately affects" you are promoting a status quo where it is seen to be silly to care about women, as a class.

I know I do this, by the way. I hesitate to name my concerns as women's concerns because I expect people to make me look ridiculous because of it. I don't think it's right, though.

It's like "cherchez l'homme" - if you raise something, people ask you to point to the men that it matters to for it to matter at all

IceBeing I think you might be frustrated because you think we don't understand your argument. We do. Probably most of us are familiar with it (I certainly am).

So what is the advantage of claiming childcare as a womens issue? And how can it possibly compensate the huge damage done regarding perpetuating the myth?

Feminists don't 'claim' childcare (or any other issue) as a women's issue. Male dominated society forces it on us as a women's issue.

It is not a myth that childcare is a women's issue - it is an observable fact of society. Feminists do not reinforce a 'stereotype' by naming childcare as a women's issue, because women as the main carers of children is not a stereotype - it is a global wide observable fact. That your office bucks this trend does not change that global wide observable fact. Calling it a people's issue or a parent's issue will not change the fact that the world's child carers are overwhelmingly women and that that works to their disadvantage in male dominated society.

Calling it a parent's issue will just disappear the fact that it is overwhelmingly women that society disadvantages by placing low status and value on the work involved in child rearing. And it will disappear the fact that the reason society places low status and value on child care is because it is overwhelmingly done by women.

The same goes for abortion or anything else. Which I was gobsmacked that you mentioned upthread as one of the things you don't think should be a women's issue.

I don't have children, I don't intend to ever have children.

But I have a mother, I have sisters, I have female friends and relatives and female employees. I also see the barriers placed in my way as a woman simply because I have the potential to have children.

It would be pretty remiss of me as a woman to shrug my shoulders and say not my responsibility. I have no issue at all for campaigning for something that does not directly benefit me because ultimately anything that promotes the liberation of women indirectly benefits me and hundreds of thousands of woman.

Do I have a responsibility to them as well as myself ? I think so.

buffy it isn't that I don't think you get it...its that I am not understanding your arguments as to why it is wrong....

I can see that I must be wrong because lots of people I respect highly are telling me it is wrong...

I am basically in the "but whhhhhyyy" whiney phase.

Oh sorry it was beach I was responding to...although buffy made a similar point earlier.

I think spending all my time in a male dominated environment has made me very goal focussed. If I propose a change to address a womens issue I know I will get nowhere. I propose a change to address a parenting issue I know I will. Likewise I propose positive work life balance changes...etc.

In the end the most powerful argument for making society more equal is not that it makes life better for women. It is that it makes life better for everyone.

In hunting down the causes of poor retention of women in my field we find mostly things that would apply to anyone who didn't have a SAH partner. Being female is not essential. Being more likely to not have a SAH partner is the problem.

Ican the point I was on earlier was that the disapproval of feminine traits by society might be viewed as the ultimate feminist issue but it isn't the ultimate womens issue. Because some women don't exhibit feminine traits and some men do.

If you are looking at societies belittlement of caring in general then it isn't purely a womens issue and it probably does affect transgender people a lot.

I am unsure how this relates to what I was saying?

I absolutely believe that feminist issues are ones that affect lots of different people, that doesn't stop them being feminist issues.

Whether it affects transgender people or not is not really my concern, as a feminist my primary concern is equality for women.

Oh, I think in certain situations you just have to go with what happens to work. So sure, if you find it works to promise 'positive work life balance', fair enough. I'd do the same.

But I don't think that means the rest of us aren't goal-focussed. It might just be we're looking at different things. Do I want to change the bit of the world I live in? Absolutely! Do I want to change the situation for women everywhere? Yes, and I think that's more important, and will ultimately make my life better too.

I just don't see what your approach is, Ice.

How are you proposing we deal with issues that don't apply to everyone but apply to more people than just individuals?

How are you proposing we deal with with issues of multiple factors converging on one group?

I don't think you are criticising feminism as much as criticising the policies and methods of pretty much every government, aid organisation and activist group on every social issue ever.