Feminist Pub VII - Chat, questions, random thoughts too small for a thread ...

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just setting this up while we finish off the last few posts on the old thread. Come in and pull up a bar stool!

LRD, that sounds great. Good luck your project.

Thanks!

Some more "funny cos it's true" amusement from The Onion.

LRD Good to hear from a Happy Feminist

Thanks, Annie, that made me smile sardonically too - what goes round, comes around…

I am really posting to apologise for running in and out of The Pub like a confused chicken on speed - too many balls in the air, the vast majority of them good, so I won't complain, but I am incapable of sustaining prolonged debate

Here's my tiny feminist contemplation du jour: all partners at work take turns to take the towels home once a week to wash them (tea towels form the kitchen and a couple of hand towels from the bathrooms the public cannot access - everything else is paper towels, natch). We are 3 females, 3 males - all of us wimminz wash and fold the towels and put them back in to the cupboard where they live. All the menz take them home, their wives wash them (and I presume fold them), they bring them back and dump them in the kitchen in their bag for the cleaner to tidy away.
Nobody has ever said a word about it other than me once in a very jocular manner that now makes me wince at the memory.
All of us are married and all of us have partners who work outside the home.

Anyone watch the equestrian on sky sports today?

Found it very refreshing that women were competing (and beating) the men.

And judging by this women are very dominant in this sport
www.usefnetwork.com/news/10817/2014/1/12/the_women_cant_be_beat_in_75000.aspx

Yes there is a mix

In todays event yes

I think it varies though overall

On a business trip and just looking around it amazes me that the airport is still so male dominated (90%). I know all the reasons for this inequality but when faced with a sea of identikit suits, it still surprises me

Oh no! Pub thread dropped off my active list! Must post inane things ... Hmm... No great insights. Am reading Philip Roth's The Human Stain. Anyone else read that? Half way through.

And DC are having the poncy-est packed lunch today - sea bass fillets.... (Went cheap at the shops so bought a couple but they have to be eaten up NOW...)

Dammit, I had another Great Thought I wanted to share with you all and I've gone and forgotten it again. Stupid brain. It's probably cos I is a wimmin and we all know wimmin is hard of thinking.

Down the side of the sofa? In the freezer? In the tinned food cupboard? (I have found unlikely things there before.) In the washing machine? (I have found even more unlikely things there before too.) In DH's motorcycle boots? (More likely to be Lego than great feminist insights.)

A quick question inspired by my perusal of the transphobia chat thread. What on earth is the cotton ceiling? If someone could give me a brief summary I'd be much obliged.

I'm also interested in the question that's been raised quite a few times: what is a woman? I'd be very happy to see that one posed on chat, or perhaps "what makes you personally feel like a woman?"

Ah, I see. Not surprised I couldn't work that one out myself, it's really not immediately obvious!

I can't comment on any trans issues - too ignorant, but reading and learning.

What is a woman? Hmm. The first thing that springs to mind is the XX chromosomes. Is that too simplistic?

What makes me personally feel like a woman? Hmm. Do I? Have to think about that one... When I'm buying a dress? Is that too shallow? When I'm being discriminated against? Is that too angry? Let me think more...

You know sometimes when you are happily existing on your own plane, and then somebody says something sexist, and you suddenly pulled down to earth and realise you are a woman. Or is it just me?

You see, this is what baffles me. The experience of being "a woman" is completely and absolutely unique to each individual woman. Aside from the potential to give birth to a child, there is not one single characteristic which is absolutely shared by women. And some women can't give birth anyway, so even that one is pointless.

So, since they'll never be able to give birth anyway, I remain baffled by what it is about born women that transwomen identify with. If it's a "feminine" appearance, that is completely a social construct, and why shouldn't they be able to achieve this while remaining a man? WTF is so wrong with our society that we are more comfortable with people completely changing their identity and undergoing extreme surgery rather than just being who they are, regardless of genitalia? Why is it so damned important that we fit into a "man" or "woman" box?

It's absolutely insidious. Despite my best efforts to raise my DDs not to worry about these things, my 6yo insists on classifying every bloody thing into "boy" or "girl". And as for languages where even inanimate objects assume a gender, well - what hope is there that we'll ever eliminate gender from society?

And please don't get me started on this awful new trend for labelling children who don't fit gender stereotypes as "transgender" and actually "transitioning" them. FFS, just let them be children!!!!

It baffles me too.

I was going to say that I probably felt like a woman when giving birth, but of course what you felt like when giving birth is probably quite unprintable... Certainly very unladylike.

In fact, yup, on reflection, the only times I ever "feel like a woman" are generally when I'm putting up with the shit heaped upon me by society for being a woman! Doing wifework, being discriminated against, being harassed etc etc. Otherwise, I just feel human.

LordC and Annie

Maybe turn it around? I, like several in the pub, don't plan any more pregnancies. So if I woke up tomorrow "me" but in an XY-typical body, what would be dissonant?

1. My marriage, as there would be two penises in it. But if DH was ok with that or if he also swapped bodies, that might be solved.

Um. Beyond that my imagination fails me.

Quite right, BillnTed. Now that I don't want any more DC, I wonder why I still bother having breasts. They are annoying. Sure, they're fun during sex, for me and DH, but that's hardly reason to have to lug the bloody things everywhere, cope with bras etc. And I don't associate my "woman-ness" with them - I am who I am regardless of breasts. But hacking them off seems extreme, so I won't.

My body is a wonderful thing, it's done pretty much all I have demanded of it for these past 40 years. I do feel somewhat betrayed that bits of it are starting to get so creaky that I can't enjoy my hobbies the way used to. There are many things I do with my body that define me, like karate, running, cycling, eating cake, even hugging my children close. But none of those things require that my body be a female one. I can't think of a single thing that I feel defines me that would change if I suddenly had a penis instead of a vagina.

I think the only time I feel categorically a woman rather than just me, is when people feel the need to express or inform me of the "supposed" differences between men and women. I don't sit there and think "Yes, I am a woman" rather sit there and think "Yes, this is how I think, it's unique to me and I happen to be female through to the construction of my biological design predetermined".

I engage with what some would consider male practices and norms and have always found more commonality with men than women. If I was to chat anonymously online without any reference to my gender and gendered world (as in, I'm a daughter or sister or aunt or wife) I think it would be hard for another person to gauge what gender I am, not because I act like a man or identify with them more, but because I feel quite neutral. My thirst for equality stems from my belief that we should all be given equal opportunity in life without having a helping hand or societal discourses that deal out opportunity based on anything, really.

But I've always put that down to not having gender dysphoria (which seems to me would be better named sex dysphoria or body dysphoria or sexual characteristics dysphoria). It must be awful to have a feeling of detachment or loathing forv