I don't identify as a feminist - so why does this get on my nerves?

[SophieJenkins]

I was listening in the car to WH yesterday and they were doing their 'power list', first off discussing Kim Kardashian (have a vague idea who she is but not much) and then they started off the list and after about 1 or 2 interesting women, they announced Caitlyn Jenner.

I turned it off instantly as I couldn't listen. I don't know why but it just made me really angry.

I didn't want to start another thread about this as I realise from titles that people were getting sick of them, but cant get it out of my head and wondered if anyone could briefly help me figure out why it pissed me off SO much?

If we're not allowed to discuss this then I apologise and feel free to tell me. I haven't been reading any of the other threads about it which perhaps I should have done after all.

I think I feel like being female has been hijacked by someone and used to get publicity - when a lot of women are denied even the basic human rights that come with being a bloke.

And then to be put on a list of high achieving women for what? For wanting to be a woman?

I don't get it.

Thanks for the thread OP. I'll catch up on today's post before commenting properly.

Sophie, I think you may be more of a feminist than you think. :)

It's a really interesting thread Sophie and I agree that we're being sidetracked

Lou your entire contribution to this thread has been bizarre from start to finish

Yy to that Ehric.

So, back to the power list - was Emma Watson on it?

Guys please don't apologise, it's fine You can't just ignore someone, I can't anyway, I'm really bad at it! Besides which Lou clearly has some interesting points to make but I'm just not sure they contribute much to this iyswim.

Anyway - Emma Watson?

Ah, no, she wasn't. Maybe for 2016 when we see how HeForShe plays out?

Here's the 2014 list - game changers was the theme last year

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2BWKGxv4mnL1wQ4589SB0yR/the-power-list-2014

No it's not good form in the slightest.

I had no idea that was impolite, sorry. I would have thought that someone wishing to hide would be a little more inventive with their new username, perhaps. My mistake

(sigh) I posted at 11.28. Now please go and be Head Prefect somewhere else.

Oh wow Yonic that list is much more like it. That's a really impressive set of women.

Not that there weren't any on this year's but there aren't any 'gratuitous' entries for 2014.

Back to the OP. I think it boils down to a few things for me;

1. What it is to be female being defined by someone with a penis. That doesn't seem new or radical to me.

1. Feminists being derailed, no-platformed and pushed out by this agenda.

1. Being gender critical has somehow been completely eclipsed by being gender fluid or trans. There is suddenly no issue with the box I'm shoved into, because I can just pick another box. The fucking cis-label!

1. Transpeople being defined by a vacuous media-hungry bunch of awful, awful people (the Jenner/Kardasians). The trans people I know are thoughtful, gender-critical, interesting friends.

I think those are really clear and important points.

Though I don't know what Gender Critical means?

I agree that being transgender should not mean being represented in popular culture by a bunch of unpleasant folk who think they are the first to have the idea. That doesn't seem at all fair.

It would be like (and I dread this) some sort of awful person appearing on BB people with another condition, or disability, or whatever - then the foaming red top readers suddenly have a poster boy or girl for that, even if they are nothing like most people with the condition or disability or whatever.

I dread this happening with my own 'thing', in case it makes the less educated go 'Oh you're like such and such aren't you' when I tell them what I have.

I don't often tell people what I have but it would make me a darn sight less likely to.

You are right about womanhood being defined by people who are (at least born as) men. We are used to that. It;s sad and old, but it still happens, only now in a new way! yay. Men can be women too if they make themselves look a certain way.

Finally the 'cis' thing.
I've only ever heard this term on MN and I think it means 'born as a woman' rather than 'a woman by choice' or something? I have skimmed threads about this before, not read the arguments properly, but I really, really object to be told I am now a 'cis' woman and need to use that prefix in order not to discrimate against those who came late to the party.

I find it belittling, patronising, dismissive and insulting.

Sophie- the cis thing isn't quite that. The narrative is that some people are born as women. Some of them are biologically women from birth- so are cis. Some are not- so are trans. But they are all women. I think that's right.

I struggle with this, despite my unwanted categorisation as a Mumsnet RadFem. I still don't know what I think- it goes against something very visceral in me about being a woman and being part of a centuries old struggle. But my daughter tells me I'm wrong. So I am still thinking......

Thanks, Bertrand, I think I get it now.

I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know, if you don't have women's body parts, how on earth you can decide that you are a woman.

To me it would be that you are a man who identifies with some aspects of the social construct of femaleness.

But I am simplistic - to me, being a woman means you have a vagina, uterus etc. and being a man means you have a willy. That's literally all it means.

The rest is social construct, social history, and so on.

I mean I have no problem with someone wanting to call themselves a woman, act in a way that is largely feminine-defined in our society and wear what are considered women's clothes.

I would not, however, consider them to be a woman, because that to me is a biological term. So I would respect their desire to be a woman but not the fact of them actually being one.

Then you would be deemed a trans exclusionary rad fem, Sophie, because there has been a fair measure of success in equating those two concepts, as can be seen from Lou's initial insulting post.

Ah. [puts on badge]

Who was it said she identifies as a cat? I think she is onto something.

Did you actually use the word willy?

I don't understand the need for the word cis. How about we call people who are born women 'women' and someone who later decides they should have been born one of those women 'trans'.

The Kardashians may well be 'awful, awful' people but they are one of the most influential pack of morons on the planet. I don't think they pose as much of a danger to a generation's thinking as, say, Germaine Greer, who told us that a boy cannot by definition be raped as an erection demonstrates consent.