Radfems and transsexuals – an outsider’s view

[NoviceProFemGuy]

I?ve been reading the recent threads discussing feminism and transgender, and pretty challenging I?ve found them too. As an outsider, though, I can?t help thinking a lot of the radfems? concerns aren?t, in reality, an issue when it comes to the practicalities of how men oppress women.

This is going to be a bit of a long post, so to save it all appearing at the top of subsequent pages (assuming there are any) I?ll put the meat of it in a separate post below.

'going back' even...

ok, np narked

yes, pan i want to discuss feminism

( actually secretly i just want to point out to the fems where their going wrong and muscle in so i can lead the movement for them)

the link diddnt come up, it's 2 pages back or so

This is where Chairman has got the term 'enveloping' from: Herbs and Hags - What's Wrong With Consent? It was linked to by Star a couple of pages back.

^What dittany said; Rape survivors have a right to talk about their own experience in the terms that make sense to them. I also never said it was a rad fem critique of consent; Just that it explained the problems with consent.

Actually, it's quite telling that one word was picked up on; one out of the whole post

well, i better watch what i say then dittany, you, of course can be as creepy as you like!

I don't find dittany creepy in the slightest.

HTH.

This is reminding me of that thread we had were some male porn consumer came on and asked the laydeez to sort out his porn habit for him by nicely explaining that it isn't very nice to wank to images of abuse.

Here we have a man telling us we are doing feminism wrong and explaining that the way forward it to make feminism fuzzy and manappealing and nice for men.

Right. Excuse my whilst I pick my jaw up off the floor.

Also we get the gem that men think trans issues are irrelevant to how they stereotype women. Excellent, I can stop worrying about my political identity being eroded because it doesn't matter to men. Phew, we can all relax laydeez, our identity doesn't matter to men so what on earth are we worrying our pretty little heads about?

There aren't enough faces in the world.

i thought he was simply offering a point of view, damn! maybe he was nieve enought to think some feminists might find it interesting, even if they diddnt totaly agree?
maybe he was willing to change his stand point after the debate?
i have certainly learnt alot from these threads, i think very differently about alot of stuff now.
but why, when a guy who considers himself a feminist comes to talk here he gets vilified, demonised, ridiculed then sent away with a flea in his ear i will never understand.

fwiw chairman, I thought your re-using of 'enveloping' was pretty creepy at worst and just a bit controversial/indulgent at best. No idea why it seemed a good idea at the time.

Oh come on chairman, it was squeal out loud funny (sorry Op) I mean the bit about making feminism more appealing to men. Was in quite mixed company and it made everyone laugh (and ruined a bit of our lunch).

ffs
enveloping! enveloping! jehovah!

not my words i was quoting and if you bother to look i was disagreeing with her!

yes the making feminism more appealing to men wasnt his best sentence, but he does have a point, i mean the F word isnt exactly mainstream these days , younger women shy away from feminism making it appear less radical wouldnt be such a bad thing.....i think! hell, not telling you how to run it all!

chairman - are you bored? Really? I ask because all I see, from week-to-week reading in this section is that you do appear to have a 'lets wind up the feminists' drive. I can't be the only one who read your posts like this. And if I was a feminist of whatever hue, I doubt I could be arsed answering your stuff tbh.

Surely this is all context based? If I am talking to an individual I will discuss feminism with them taking into account their individual situation and feelings, as I would with every other subject.

It is not the same thing as talking to people on an open internet forum, where you don't know a lot of the posters, don't know their circumstances or their intentions.

yes Vashti - I thought the OP was fairly open and enquiring - but others saw something else.

Shall we just summarise that the overriding male view on this thread is 'tone it down ladies'?

The correct lady response is, I believe, 'gee thank you benevolent men for telling me how to do feminism, here have these cookies I just baked'.

Otherwise we are just nasty meanies who don't like men because they are men (not because they tell us how to react to our oppression and how making feminism manappealing should be our priority).

I'm not claiming to agree with the OP. I think there are two separate issues here. One being actual political beliefs and aims, and how much genderism and the behaviour of men as a group to women as a group overlap.

The other would be about how we actually get support for political aims, and how much time we spend on getting that support and how much on the work of supporting women who need immediate help. A lot of women are going to spend more time helping vulnerable teenagers, or collecting for a rape crisis centre than they are on convincing people to become feminists.

When it comes to actually convincing people, that is a very complex process, and appearing to be kinder or more prepared to compromise is not always the best option.

While what feminists believe is a particularly feminist question, the issue of how we get other people to support us if probably one where activists can learn from each other.

Sorry, xpost Beachcomber.