Women are being censored because they wish to discuss the politics of gender. I say NO. Who wants to join me?

[Beachcomber]

Ok, I'm guessing that many here have heard about Julie Burchill's explosive article defending her friend Suzanne Moore against trans activists.

I'm also guessing that there are a lot of women who don't know that trans activists have been becoming increasingly influential in many areas that affect Women's Rights since the 1980s and 90s. These areas include feminist websites and blogs (such as the F word), feminist meetings and conferences, women's music festivals, in feminist literature and in academia teaching gender studies (a subject that used to be taught as women's studies) and in post-modernist and queer theory circles.

Transactivists call any resistance to their increasing influence and presence in these areas of female interest "transphobic". Discussion of gender identity as an oppressive social construct and as a threat to feminism and women's rights is also considered transphobic. Consequently, discussion of women as being a political class of people oppressed due to our sex and our reproductive capacity is becoming harder and harder for feminists to have without being accused of transphobia and bigotry. This is very very concerning.

Numerous women have been threatened or silenced by these people (for example they have been no platformed and/or picketed at feminist events or attacked and threatened after writing articles or essays discussing gender identity).

Let me be very clear that this discussion is about transactivists and people who threaten others into silence. It is not about transpeople in general (some of whom have stated that they are afraid to get involved in the controversy).

In my opinion, no matter which side of the gender identity debate one stands on, surely we can all agree that debate should be allowed to take place. One side cannot be allowed to shout down, threaten and silence the other.

The recent events are not just about differing opinions on gender identity though (or I wouldn't be bothering to post this), they are about women's right to talk about and identify sex based oppression and male supremacy, and therefore to fight against sex based oppression and male supremacy. And that is why this is an important if not vital issue for women's rights.

I think women's rights politics are reaching a pivotal moment - a moment in which we must stand up for our right to discuss our status as second class citizens as a result of the biological fact that we are female. If we can't discuss it, we don't have much hope of fighting it.

bugbrennan.com/2013/01/19/for-every-one-of-us-you-silence-100-more-will-rise-to-take-her-place/

To summarise the link - a well known and influential feminist blogger has been censored for discussing the issues outlined above. She is not the first woman to be silenced by these people. I think it is about time we stood up to them.

Thanks for reading.

If patriarchy = male supremacy

to act in a way that is not masculine is shameful. Does that mean women are shameful? I don't know but I would guess that if the world is male shaped than men gauge everyones value on their own criteria, made in their own image. All they need is for women to provide a juxtpostion to their position for them to conclude that masculine is top trump!

Not all men choose to be part of those groups of men, those who are most sexists and requiring men to conform to some kind of male ideal.

(ff, by normal human being I meant I as a woman am allowed to want success, money, power. I was just saying those are human values many many women share and that it is sexist when people suggest those values are only male. Of course you can say the values are wrong and we should all be lovey dovey low testosterone kissing our sisters in collaborative sharing whether male or female but I don't like suggestions that women aren't often ambitious and powerful - many of us are. It may be some of us simply have higher testosterone levels than others. In fact you could perhaps track female success and income by levels of testosterone).

Yes, patriarchy hurts men too.

So why don't they change it? They are the ones who have the power to do so.

The more I think about it, it's all in men's image, God is in man's image of himself.

Why don't they change it? well I don't think working class men really benefit from it so that only leaves those men who competed and hold the spoils of their historical struggle for power. The only reason working class men are not conscious of their subordinated position is probably the same reason so many women aren't. The patriarchy (capitalist B's the lot of them) control education, the world's wealth, all the world's natural resources, have control of mainstream politics,every think tank, every banking institution, TV stations, all media, the church, the legal system..........

It's a pecking order Mini.

Better to be a working class man than a working class woman.

Now that is a question - I agree the ones in the media are those who pass. That says a lot and it would be good to see trans people who did not pass in the media - but you can guess the comments they'd receive. What they said would be ignored for what they look like.

This is gender conformity. In fact, your entire post speaks of gender conformity. Isn't 'passing' just another manifestation of gender conformity?

Agreed Kim.

Gender conformity is what makes radical feminist analysis incompatible with much of transgender theory.

YY

But that is quite a complex thing to explain! I could write pages but I won't.
One of the ways in which working class women find themselves oppressed is in relation to production and the home. Working class men compete with men but also with women for work. Under advanced capitalism working class women have even less economic power for several reasons. Less workers required, more educated middle class women entering the work place as different skills are needed. The impact upon working class women is seen in the fact that they are employed over men on lower wages but they are forced unlike middle class women to do a double shift when their partners are in employment. But they are also pitted against working class men. Women have been used in the past to undermine the unions and to devalue wages. The other reason I think the position is worse for working class women is because they have little reason to live with men with whom they compete, they certainly have no reason to want to work and keep a man who doesn't work. They have no reason to want to stick out marriage because their male counterparts can not keep the coats on their backs. That's without bringing in the exploitation of the sex industry and porn. (real work, like any other huh???) Do working class men benefit? no unless you think being bought off with access to porn is a luxury and that men actively choose to be socialised into. Why wouldn't the capitalist suggest to his wife or daughter they strip to make end meet? Do you think that working class men have actually examined this in any detail. Well some have....socialists

nods.

However, can we not accept that we are all in this together. It is the patriarchy that oppresses, excludes, others, should we not model our own behaviour on something else?

aw Kim although I can understand your very real desire to be a woman. I love being a women I'm sure you pass. The only transwoman I know is lovely, the only noticable thing is, she is very tall but then I'm a midget so everyone is taller than me!

Kim, I don't think passing is a theory. I think it is very real and I agree it is a survival mechanism. We all do it to some degree. It isn't just a theory to me either.

MiniTheMinx are you arguing that working class males do not have male privilege??

I think what is happening is far more complex. Under capitalism working class men are being demoted, out shone by working class women. In everu society working class women are more literate than their male counterpart. They are now more in demand in every country......First and third world. Working class men are "emasculated" by their subordinate relation to capitalist men. This means that the capitalist can create a need where non existed...porn, strip clubs, lapdance.

Can you imagine what would happen if working class men also realised that "their women" were in the pay of their oppressors, being denied to them (greater family breakdown, more single mothers etc) then repackaged and sold back to them to line their oppressors pockets. If working class are engaged in everyday acts of sexism it is because they are socialised and they are also to some extent sold the idea that in engaging in this empowers them. Its works like an illusion like the american dream.

Sorry, loads of typos, Off to bed now.

"Numerous women have been threatened or silenced by these people"

"these people"

Nice fear mongering there.

"these people" are coming to get you, and don't you forget it.

Is that a threat, Gigabot?

eh? [bconfused]

Xenia - It may be some of us simply have higher testosterone levels than others. In fact you could perhaps track female success and income by levels of testosterone

I posted earlier about a time when I took an androgen suppressant. The endocrinologist who was working with me had, in fact, been tracking this and various other social performance markers (my phrase, and a lazy one) such as sexual assertiveness. The study did seem to be showing that women with higher testosterone levels were higher achievers, more sexually assertive, more orgasmic (!) and had other qualities such as building muscle more quickly. Measured against female controls with mid-range testosterone, that is.

This line of enquiry was a political hot potato and was also inconclusive because there was no clear cause and effect. Stress, for example, promotes androgen production. The high-achieving women were in stressful jobs so maybe the lifestyle caused the testosterone, rather than the other way around.

Anyway, my trial concluded and the specialist went abroad to save African women so I have no idea if the project was even completed. While I noticed unexpected effects of my medication, I wasn't aware of any loss of muscle tone or ambition so the androgen reduction in my system didn't seem to affect my 'performance' in those respects. (I did have less dramatic orgasms, though!)

I am continuing to read this thread but am getting annoyed by the amount of agenda-driven theory that's being posted ... this is how it looks to my eyes, not an attempt at critique. So I hope others will bear with my slightly random, tangential posts.

I do think performing masculinity is as big a burden as performing femininity, though in vastly different ways of course. I can't possibly describe the masculine imperative as 'do not be feminine' - that would be to suppose masculinity is the default, non-performed mode and as such would be misogynistic.

MiniTheMinx, you are talking about male privilege - which is a hierarchy too. Some men have more of it than others. The proliferation of porn (which is hate speech against women), lapdancing, etc is the backlash. It is keeping us women in our place with sexualised violence - we have got too uppity you see. In addition, this backlash has been sold to us (and internalized by many women) as 'liberation'. When in fact it is just a way for men to exploit some women for capital gain whilst keeping the rest of is in line with the constant threat of violence and abuse.

It is a reasserting of male privilege.

And yes, it has the additional advantage of keeping the masses quiet - if men are jacking off to images of women being abused and thumping their wives, they aren't protesting against class, and they are keeping the women in line.