Gender abolition

[Damsili]

On another thread a few posters have enthused about the abolition of gender. I wonder how many people see this as the ultimate goal of feminism?

Also, is there room for people who are broadly content with the idea of femininity and masculinity being separate things, but want better treatment of women? Do the abolitionists accept this point of view?

I have been wondering about the physical attributes all the way through Buffy.

I have never had blonde hair. DD, who is naturally blonde, has bought the dye to go brunette. She has also just bought some clothes from the men's section and is generally (as teenagers do) changing identity. It is more than just going brunette; it does have some kind of meaning, but I haven't discussed it really as it seems quite a sensitive issue right now.

It concerns me that in situations where the wearing of butterfly motifs doesn't happen (certain jobs), actual physical attributes - blonde, petite, young, breast size become more of a way of putting people in the girly group. The problem doesn't go away; it just moves to physical attributes.

My DD is blonde and large of boob. God help anyone who ever tries to put her in the girly group.

I am only using the phrase because it's the phrase being used here and because of the way it's being used here. It's not something I would ever say.

That's one of the problems with patrirachy and language; it's insidious. People naturally use words all the time without analysing them fully.

I am girly by virtue of being a girl. Well, a woman. OK, an aged crone. Not by virtue of my likes or dislikes, or my academic and professional qualifications. Anything I do or like or have achieved is girly by virtue of having been done by me, a person with girl bits. That's the only thing that matters. Not the labels anyone else chose to put on those activities, achievements or interests. Many of the things I like doing are also liked by my husband and son and probably by other males. thus they are also manly. So that actually makes them - human.

Damsili - I am well aware of the language. I am using the phrase in the societal context of this thread, in an attempt to show my solidarity with the other posters and fit into the social group.

And you are?

I think the meaning is the same in your post and Helga's Buffy.

It isn't that girly is rubbish in either of your statements (although that is often suggested), it is that girly is weak and unable to defend yourself or others physically or verbally.

If I said DS is both tall and muscular. God help anybody who tries to put him in the Macho group, it would make no sense.

People shouldn't assume you or Helga's DD are weak, passive or unable to verbally demolish somebody because you (which you claim would amaze people who judged you as girly) can demolish them, and any opponent of Helga's DD would need the help of God.

So that's the stereotype isn't it? Non girly girls are strong and can defeat others, meaning that girly girls we assume can't.

Not a criticism of either of you, by the way. I know you are trying to explain the stereotype, not uphold it.

But all this brings us back to asking what are the gender neutral values we are working towards.

I am not volunteering to be less argumentative in the current society, because I don't think I could. But I have been moulded into that. I may well have grown up less or more argumentative in the gender abolition world, depending on what it looks like.

Which is why I worry that we get the balance wrong and more people move away from girly towards macho.

same as almond

Just saying that language developed in a Patriarchy; we were all fluent in our native tongues before we were really old enough to reflect on deeper connotations. Plus, of course, words have a variety of associations that are different for different individuals. It's tricky talking in a non-sexist way in a language that evolved in a sexist system.

Almond, I think that's a very real fear. If we become less gendered but the attributes that survive are the "more masculine, less feminine" (under current phraseology) because of the incumbent power structure, what have we gained/lost?

what are the gender neutral values we are working towards

I don't see it as working towards gender neutral values but working towards values not being gendered. That would mean being whoever you are because of your personality not because of being a woman or a man.

And also I worry about what happens to people in the process of getting there. I understand Rabbit's point that people who criticise mothers (because it is usually mothers people mean, whether they claim to criticise parents or mothers) for having a ballet daughter are un feminist.

But such criticisers do exist, in numbers. So girls and women are being criticised on one hand if they don't conform to a feminine stereotype, but also being criticised for conforming to it by those who don't like girly girls. So saying we're going to critique gender (particularly if the gender being critiqued is woman and girl) can just feel like more criticism.

And as you say Yonic, we may actually need more of the 'girl' stuff in society.

I think Germaine Greer talks about this as two cultural strands of feminism (with one being about valuing undervalued feminine traits) tht different feminists choose, in the Whole Woman.

Flora, but who I am is largely the product of the values promoted by society. There can't be a society where people emerge (from an egg) with a set of ways they have already decided to behave in.

It's tricky talking in a non-sexist way in a language that evolved in a sexist system.

I'd always been a highly competent driver, then lost confidence during a big personal crisis. To get my skills back, I kept exhorting myself to "drive like a man." Literally speaking, this was bollocks - my problem was being cut up by predominantly male van & lorry drivers, who were driving very badly! Nonetheless, "drive like a man" worked better for my subconscious than "drive assertively", even though assertive driving was the skill I wished to recover.

I think there's a similar semantic minefield in talking about girly to macho, unless we're very careful to elucidate. If macho is code for assertive (and girly for subordinate), then bring it on! If macho's being used to characterise predatory behaviour, then clearly we hope there won't be even more of that.

Almond wrote about being argumentative. Do you mean assertive? Or something more, like a tendency to road rage??

^^This isn't meant as a personal interrogation, btw; you don't have to answer :) I'm still asking about the specific meanings of words as we use them when discussing gender.

i worry sometimes about the drive to get women into science. not because i don't think that's a good thing - i really really do and it's important. but because what about all those women in the arts? they already get comparatively shit pay and poor funding if i understand it - are they not doing important work though? it's striking the balance between encouraging women into science but also not discouraging those women who want to go into the arts

but i may be talking out of my arse because i don't actually know much concrete stuff about this beyond hunches

(should read "arts, humanities and social sciences" for arts there)

Garlic, no I don't mean assertive. I mean argumentative (not in a negative sense) in that I am prepared to argue a point. Unlike Helga (as she described herself) I am not attempting to fit into the social group. Even if there actually is a role in the FWR for a thorn in the regulars' side albeit one who attempts to be civil and not troll, It is coincidental not deliberate if I fill it.

How navel gazing was that!? But you did ask.

But I am not actually assertive. I back down over various issues in various way when I shouldn't do, as much of life isn't settled through discussion.

Assertive is a great thing to be. I don't think that masculinity is about being assertive, hence your driving example.

Sorry, Garlic - is that question to me or Almond?

girls and women are being criticised on one hand if they don't conform to a feminine stereotype, but also being criticised for conforming to it

I'm afraid this makes me shrug, on the whole - not in crisis situations, but in the general scheme of things. Women and girls are under constant criticism anyway, both from men and from women acting out patriarchal values. A bit more or less of the same thing won't overtax us for now. What you tend not to see so much, is boys & men being criticised for under/over/incorrectly performing masculinity or equality. I'm not saying I think they should be, either! Just that this sort of imbalance is deeply affecting, and I'd like to see it disappear. If we can move towards simply NOT evaluating anyone at all to gendered criteria, we'll have come a long way.

As a kind of aside, I used to despise what I thought of as "girly girls" talking about nail varnish for ages. I should say I also despised men doing the same thing. It was a long time before I understood that what I loathed wasn't the conversation itself, but the fact that it was a feminine stereotype.