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?

messy That ties in with another experiment I read about, which as far as I can recall wasn't actually about testing the adults but threw up something interesting in that the adults were more likely to cuddle the baby girls than the baby boys. So even in the earliest days of their lives boys and girls are taught different things.

messy I agree with that. It starts so early and is mainly carried out by the people who love us most that it feels innate and is difficult to reject.

I am aware that even being so conscious of all this social conditioning stuff I still find myself unintentionally treating my children differently according to their gender, obviously I then do my best to correct it, but I wonder how much I do that I don't pick up on.

Plus if I'm this wound up by it and still do it who knows what it is like for those who don't even see it.

Quote from the "what's wrong with FWR" thread. I have posted that I'm quoting bUffy, for no other reason than I picked up on this remark as relevant here:

" I don't see feminist theory as separate from activism. I personally need to step back from everyday common sense before the inequalities we face make sense. Otherwise, everyday common sense tells us that women 'naturally' do x or y, men just don't see dirt and so on. That's just me, but without my theory, I don't have any feminism."

I can't figure out if I'm weird (OK, yes, but ) or it's just an effect of being born in 1955, but this doesn't look common-sense to me. In my childhood, both sexes learned to cook and to mend a bike. We all climbed high things, jumped off them, fought, baked mud pies and played shopkeeping. In my late teens/twenties, gender bending was the fashionable thing. I think I am naturally empathetic, but also that I've been socialised to enhance this quality. I know a lot of women who aren't particularly caring, and an equal proportion of men who are. Neither do I believe men care less about dirt than women - only that women have been more intensively socialised to remove dirt.

The idea that common sense says 'women naturally this; men naturally that' sounds like something from my grandparents' era! Is it my age? Have things gone backwards to my Granny's day (not socio-economically, thank god ... yet)?

Or am I just missing ten zillion points? Is this sort of thing everyday common sense for most folks?

Ahah ... Then there's socialised gender which is not a physical thing like sex but it is just as real, and virtually impossible to avoid. Everyone is subject to this one. It’s both overt and subtle ideas of what men and women should be like, it dictates anything from personality traits, to mannerisms, to interests and preferences.

Yes - and, as you say, it's so pervasive and starts so young, that it feels like it must be innate.

I realise my post above sounds like I think I had some kind of speshul gender-free upbringing. Far from it. I was trying to explore the 'common sense ' thing, which you're doing better :) I should know better than to try & think when I'm this tired

I think things have gone backwards tbh. Not sure why though. That does seem to be accepted as "common sense" now.

I think it's related to the increasing consumerism of society and the increase in disposable income. Back in the day, people simply couldn't afford a blue pram for the boy and then a pink pram for the boy, or a pink highchair and a blue highchair. Now, they can, and the companies exploit this to earn more money for themselves.

*pink pram for the girl

Not that there's anything wrong with boys in a pink pram.

I'm blaming the painkillers.

That's a fair point. I did get someone ask whether were getting rid of the blue pram when we had DD! You can just imagine the look I gave them

Thank you for that, Bella. How sad. Could it possibly have anything to do with freedoms enjoyed by men - to wear fancy clothes & makeup, show their sensitivity, etc - which, to their horror, came with responsibilities like not expecting their women to clean everywhere & generally act like servants? Could they have (collectively) gone "Well, fuck this lark! If living the male stereotype gets my dinner on the table, show me the way to 1950"?

Just a half-baked idea ...

I did get someone ask whether were getting rid of the blue pram when we had DD!

Argh!!!!

I agree that the pink and blue products are driven by consumerism and marketing. The idea of buying new stuff for a second child would have been preposterous a generation ago. I'm pretty sure at least 20 kids had slept in my first crib before me.

I have 3 kids. there's a big gap from oldest to youngest. I did get a new buggy for DD but it was navy (she's 16) and only because we had given away the one we had previously. The pram was the one that was mine when I was a baby, I bought a new mattress for DS1 and a new one again for DD.

They all ate their dinner out of the same highchair as my exH and all his siblings sat in. It was recovered and is now being used for other children in the family.

I don't know, I suspect it's possibly more like how after WWII when women had been doing "men's" work while the men were away, when they came back there was a push back towards women needing to be more "feminine". Right down to clothing, out went the more masculine silhouette and in came the nipped in feminine New Look. I doubt that everyone was involved in some massive conspiracy to put women back in their place, but for whatever reason all areas of society suddenly started emphasising the differences in the sexes. Even female movie stars changed from some fairly strong (for their time) characters, to much more sexy and soft characters.

For whatever reason we'd started making some serious strides into equality in the last couple of decades, and now it's the pushback.

Men knitting if they want to. Women becoming astro physicists. Without feeling they're doing something slightly odd

Er but they already do. And I'm fairly certain you will find male and female knitters of traditional Arran and Fair Isle.

That sort of statement strikes me as an entirely straw argument set up solely for the purpose of trying to reinforce the belief that men and women are constrained by gender from doing things.

Me and mum were bored one night and decided to teach my dad to knit. It was mighty funny.

But in Arran and Fair Isle the men knitted. And the stitches represented the villages and families they came from, so that if they were drowned and their bodies were decomposed (sorry - fishing communities primarily) the men could be identified by the jumpers they had on.

YY to things going backwards. I can't remember my 70s childhood being pink at all. Definitely something to do with rising consumerism F & F (!). The earlier you can segment the market the better.

I think that part of the problem is that it seems so harmless on the face of it. What does it matter if my son's birthday presents are all train themed whilst my daughter's are all princess themed? But it builds up and gradually has an effect on the ways they think they should act and what they're familiar with.

I remember wearing my older brother's hand me down jumpers in the 1970s and even his jeans.

Imagine if someone did that today. SS would be getting called.

Phaedrals, we must live on entirely different planets then, because I only know one of each and each is aware that they are unusual.

It really isn't a strawman argument to say that males and females generally follow the norms of their gender. It's reality.

What on earth do you mean by "follow the norms of their gender"?

And I'm fairly certain you will find male and female knitters of traditional Arran and Fair Isle.

I'm sure there are, but that's not how it is in the larger population. If you can find me many men outside of that niche market that knit I'd be surprised.

follow the norms of their gender

The norms that society dictates for whatever reason. Eg. that women will wear makeup while men don't.

"but for whatever reason all areas of society suddenly started emphasising the differences in the sexes"

It's a bit theoretical but if you look at times in history where there has been a drive to keep women or to emphasise the differences between the sexes it has usually followed a period of social change where women have attempted to push out into the workplace and challenge their place in society.

So, for example, the early feminism of the 19th century advocating for education and access tonthe professions (plus the upheaval caused by the Industrial Revolution) led to a backlash and the "angel in the house" doctrine where (middle class) women were considered to be the moral guardians of hearth and home. A similar thing happened in the 1950s like Bella says. I'm sure it cannot all be coincidence.

YYY, messy. The campaign expenditure by the British government to get post-war women back in their kitchens was unrivalled until surprisingly recently. It was entirely deliberate.

Sorry, I lost my link to the data but 'tis true.

I think "gender abolition" is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard all year.

It's like saying sexuality abolition or race abolition.

I get where people are coming from - like let's not discriminate, but you can't literally abolish gender differences. That's misinformed and silly. I mean, physically there are gender differences, so how do you abolish that? Are we going to castrate men or make everyone a hermaphrodite?

Seriously, I'm not tying to offend, I just don't understand how people who call themselves "gender abolitionists" can expect to be taken seriously.

You do not have to ABOLISH gender in order to be gender equal in terms of rights.

Gender exists because physically it exists. We need to focus on mentality, not physicality.