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?

FWR, which is for professional feminists and not women in general.

It shouldn't be Tanacot. I'm a (sporadic) regular in FWR and I am neither a professional feminist nor an academic.

Feminism belongs to all women and its speech should too IMO. It is not an academic subject, it is a grass roots movement, although I fear we are losing our way rather.

More than once, for example, when proposing a week on feminism to a mixed-sex class, the men have demanded that they will only do a week on feminism if I will also teach a week on "masculinism"

That is the influence of third wave right there. Perhaps we are using the term third wave differently.

ARGGGG ! To Tumblr.

What a stupid format for "conversation". It's all in bits, all over the place and I have no idea how you are supposed to piece it together.

Plus... I am finding it really hard to work out what is parody and what is meant to be taken seriously.

Google helped, but I am stuck on working out if being Transfat is a piss take or not. Becuase when I turn to google I get defeated by an ingrediant.

Why can't people just use blogger so you can trace uproar back to source reletivelh easily ? The whole platform seems designed to allow maximum outrage to flow about at top speed and minimise any possibility of "hang on, looks like trolly types were at work" blocking said outrage wildfire.

So what are we all supposed to do: just give up on explaining any kind of theory that sounds vaguely academic? I mean, if someone says (because it sounds like common sense), postmodernism says there's no material world or that the material world doesn't matter (and everyone nods along), is it being "too academic" to say well no, that isn't what postmodernism says, it is very interested in the material world and here is an example if where this is true (and it happens to be in architecture, because that's where the movement known as postmodernism started). And that maybe architecture is a feminist issue when we're talking about women's spaces. But I'm not sure why all of this has to become "feminism has lost its way because of critical theory". Postructuralism was interested in rewriting exactly that kind of make philosophy that posed precisely as "common sense", to show where and how its language erased biological and political difference. That doesn't mean it should be tasked with not offering "solutions": there is plenty of feminist thought that isn't postructuralism. But we mustn't say anything unless it's clear and comprehensible can easily shade into make sure you make your language so that the dominant discourse finds it decorous and acceptable.

I don't think this notion of masculinism is primarily influenced by the third wave. It's dominated by the media and by patriarchal backlash. The Mail isn't seizing on Butler as a way of co-opting the enormous influence and power of third wave gender theory. Students' opinions on this are more shaped by "my dad says X" and "boys are discriminated against in schools because all the teachers are women", and they genuinely believe that.

Right, Diana, and there we go - you're getting something out of the academic language, so it's not as cut and dried as nobody should use it cause I can't parse it. Other people can understand and get valuable stuff from these posts. I do see that and accept it, sorry.

With tumblr what you do is you sub to people and tags and it comes through on your dashboard as one long stream that you immerse yourself in, like an endless conversation you dip in and out of. Nothing is meant really to last - it's meant to be more like speech than publishing. You tailor the feed to your interests and you block out tags you don't like using savior or xkit blacklist. If you don't have a tumblr and therefore a dash you probably won't find it easy to follow at all.

*male philosophy not make!

Transfat would be a way of justifying the body dysmorphia of anorexia rather than treating it, no?

If transfat exists as a thing, i must be transthin. Explains why clothes that I feel should fit me dont anymore, I clearly have a smaller bmi brain.

transfats are an actual type of fat though which is best avoided in foods as it is very bad for you.

so don't know where that gets us

btw i have no clue about all the conversation up there ^ but can dip out until it comes back down to my level again and I'm sure other posters who don't understand it can and will do the same.

I don't think this notion of masculinism is primarily influenced by the third wave. It's dominated by the media and by patriarchal backlash.

But the third wave is the patriarchal backlash. Lots of people think that the 'waves' of feminism build on each other and they think that because that is what we are told to think (cultural hegemony again). And it is true that the second wave built on the first and there are odds and ends of the third wave that built on that.

But on the whole the third wave is the backlash. It is radicalism co-opted and diverted from radicals to serve and preserve the establishment whilst giving an illusion of progressiveness to the people. It is the feminism that the status quo/neo-liberalism wants you to consume.

I'm sorry, I'm dipping in, but with 'academic' language, I think there are two things.

One is, people are socialised to use language differently. When I'm completely on top of an idea, I find I can and should use simple but precise language to explain it. Then, I might get frustrated with someone who insists on using an important term to mean something different from what I think it means - and we'll need to have that out before we can go further. I think that's normal miscommunication of one kind.

The other thing is, though, that we don't all respond the same way (and as individuals we respond different ways at different times) to things we don't yet fully understand. I know I am more likely to repeat a bit of fancy language if I'm clinging onto it for dear life because if I paraphrase, I'll completely lose what I was thinking about. I think everyone does this, right?

The problem is, this can sound awfully like the MRA-types who come in with their '@LRD, I find your solipsism to be verbose but etiolated' kind of bollocks, when what they mean is 'I know long words and I will cram them in to a sentence for the sake of it'.

This particular debate about transphobia badly falls foul of all of these, because those of us who use simple, direct language with precise terms (on both sides) tend to make the people in the middle feel alienated, because they're still wanting to cling to phrases that might make sense, like 'performativity'. I just wanted to say, that's not a bad thing to do. It's not necessarily a snobby, 'ooh, look, I'm so well-read/good at third-wave terminology', it might just be what people do before they break the ideas down into their own words.

Beyond

I don't think it's about anorexia, but could be... I may not have read enough.

What I was reading described Transfat being about being thin/average size, but feeling like you should be much bigger and suffering becuase of your thin priviledge.

So you try to gain weight, or use padding under your clothes to try to make your outside look like how you feel your outside should look.

I was cross eyed by that point so may have missed some salient points.

I would agree with most of that LRD. I would just add that words like 'performativity' sound like they describe terribly tricky concepts but they often don't really and the ideas behind the words are often simpler than the words themselves. Which seems like a funny way of supposedly sharing ideas to me.

Gender Performativity for example is just doing things like wearing black lip stick instead of red (extra points if you are male!). How hard is that to explain really??

I think it depends on the complex idea.

I think generally, complex ideas do not need complex language. But they do need precise language. And precise language is exclusionary at times.

I definitely agree there's a big problem when someone starts talking about 'power structures' and forgets they're talking about real people. Isn't that what happens with the 'cotton ceiling' stuff. They've forgotton those are real people, who can't be reduced to an inanimate barrier.

Something I often notice happening, which pisses me off, is when academic or 'educated' third-wavers assume second-wave language is not complex or considered. They think the ideas are simple because the language looks simple. But that language is extremely precise, and actually, you do need to understand exactly what it means before you can wander in and criticise it ('you' as in 'random person,' not 'you, Buffy,' obviously).

I think this is what happens in these debates. I can't count how many times someone comes onto threads about trans issues and say 'oh, but cis just means not trans, guys!' with a subtext of 'aw gee, these poor stupid radfems, how surprised they'll be to learn they just didn't understand the word huh?'

I was guessing mamm

Buffy IMO feminism should be informed by 'ordinary women'. (and indeed it is still thankfully)

The book writers serve to write books with that information.

Cross post.

beach - absolutely agree. That is the case with a lot of third-wave stuff. Fancy words that don't actually do a great deal are very useful to hide behind if what you mean is 'gosh, I'm sure this issue is complicated and I'm kinda scared of reducing it to something simple cos then I'd have to pick a position'.

There is nothing wrong with not being ready to pick a position, or with saying a debate is complicated. There is something slightly dodgy with equating that with greater academic value.

I don't think all postmodernists do this, or all academics (though I promise all first year English Lit students do it at one time or another). I just think it's one of the tangles of language we have to work through.

Gah, I'm not even making my own point(s) coherently.

I don't feel ok with shooting someone down just for using complex language, because while it can be a sign someone is a patronizing twit, it can also be a sign someone needs that life-raft of jargon to cling onto while they work out what they're doing, and it can also be that the idea genuinely needs precise language.

This last situation is where I suspect buffy's 'complex' and my 'precise' coincide with beach's 'ordinary women's language'. Because 'woman' is a case in point. That term is exceptionally complex in this debate. I argue it must be used precisely, and (if I'm understanding rightly) beach points out it should be a very simple term.

We're all correct in this, but we're looking at the debate from slightly different perspectives.

Someone walking into the debate halfway through may not get what's going on, not because the language isn't complex/simple/precise enough, but because there is very little substitute for hanging out on these threads until you've heard the argument go past a few times.

Slightly off the point, perhaps, but I must admit that I do find myself in a work context using more complex terminology than necessary, which I suspect is due to the experience of finding that any given audience is likely to listen to what I have to say through the charming filter of assuming that I have roughly 30 fewer IQ points than my male equivalents. If I present scientific explanations in words a non expert could use, I find myself treated as a non expert by default. DH says this is a bad and patronising habit of mine, but then he never has to put up with being called 'nurse' and having people look at me for confirmation of what he has said and referring to me as 'doctor' whilst I stand beside him wearing the exact same uniform.