Can we please talk about "Gender" - I seem to find myself in a muddle thinking about it

[LovelyFriend]

I'm still not perfectly clear on the differing feminist ideas/theories/positions on gender. I've read many threads on here about it and they are enlightening and I have learnt a lot but my mind but still struggles to understand some concepts.

My own feelings veer towards gender being a spectrum - society wants each sex to conform/identify in particular gendered ways. I see that being a woman/man as a very broad spectrum that includes all the ways a biological born woman or man may live and be. I guess by extension then I would view a Transwoman as a biological man and part of the spectrum of "maleness" and a Transman part of the spectrum of "femaleness". (I totally accept any trans persons right to be called by the name/pro noun of their choosing).

Perhaps it is biological physicality I view as a spectrum, rather than gender?

Apologies for my clumsy descriptions!

So I was looking at a RadFem website about an upcoming event that seemed quite interesting.

The event website states:
It is a central part of radical feminist analysis that gender is a tool of women's oppression, not women's liberation. None of the organisers consider ourselves to have an innate gender - neither masculine, feminine, trans, cis, gender queer, or any other gender. We are gender abolitionists who have been raised and socialized as girls and women because of our female bodies* in the context of patriarchy.
Women who view gender differently, as a benign spectrum of self expression rather than a human created power hierarchy, will find other events where they can organise with like minded people. RadFems Resist is designed by and for women interested in radical feminism and those who want to genuinely engage with second wave theory and women's liberationist ideas.

I'd like to understand this statement better - what are gender abolitionists? How does that manifest in daily life? What is "second wave theory"?

Am I one of the "Women who view gender differently, as a benign spectrum of self expression rather than a human created power hierarchy" who they don't want to attend the event? I can't figure it out.

Can anyone provide any insight or recommend any reading on this? It is something I'd really like to be confident discussing (outside of this forum).

As I understand it, the RadFem analysis of gender is that it is a patriarchal method for reinforcing gender stereotypes (masculinity and femininity) and, by extension, women. Sex is not gender, it's biology. It's very important not to mix those up. The underlying premise is that there are few if any real differences between men and women that are not biological/physical. What differences there are are generally thought to be the result of social conditioning (TV, media, social norms etc.). Gender critical feminists are, er, critical of this patriarchal control method and gender abolitionists wish to abolish it. That would mean people would be free to express themselves however they like regardless of their sex. So bearded men could wear make up, for example, if they wanted to and still be regarded as men.

So if you view gender as a restrictive method for controlling people, putting and keeping them in neat little boxes, then that's a RadFem perspective. If you see gender as merely self-expression with no limits, restrictions or privileges, that ain't.

You could try Rebecca Reilly-Cooper as a primer

And Second wave feminism is here.

Is this a toe dipping thread? I hope nobody minds if I dump the contents of my brain here, this has been going round my head for a few days and the recent threads are a bit fast moving for me.

I knew gender stereotypes existed, but I didn't really realise how gender socialisation works until I had my second child, who is a boy. He looks virtually identical to how his sister looked at that age, apart from the different genitals.

But people treat them differently. And are very quick to 'assign' gendered characteristics for them. Both my children, at around 12 months of age, showed an interest in toy cars. They have wheels that spin, you can push them and make them move, they're bright colours, what's not to like when you're that age? But they were the reasons people said that my daughter liked cars. My son liked them because he's a boy. He currently likes pushing toys around in my daughters pram. He likes the pram because it has wheels, so it's a bit like a car. My daughter likes it because she is a girl.

It just seems a load of crap to me and it pisses me off. My current train of thought is that gender isn't something we have, it's something that other people force upon you based on your biological sex.

I think we're heading towards a culture of "post-gay", and I'm very happy with that. If someone asks me about my sexuality, I usually just say that I like individual people and don't focus on gender. So maybe we'll be "post-gender" one day too. I certainly don't have any concrete ideas about what makes me a woman except I've been brought up as one.

totally agree with your last para Kryten (in fact the whole post!)

Think what Kryten talks about is an example of what these abolitionists would like to see gone.

Gender is actions, perhaps, and decisions, but not a predetermined quality.

sorry, I mean it's an example of what contributes to the construct that these abolitionists want to get rid of

Kryten toe dip, splash around even, by all means.

NiNoKuni thanks for the Rebecca Reilly-Cooper link. Amazing article which was very helpful and pretty much in line with what is in my head - though expressing everything verbally is still a struggle for me. I'll admit I was very relieved when at the end she talked about how complex gender issues are! It's not just me then. I will go back to it over the weekend and read more of her links.

Question - are the words "woman/women" and I guess "man/men" now considered to be gendered?

If we talk about females we are taking of a biological/born group. If we accept that transgendered people can identify as gendered women but still be biologically defined males, and part of the male class where does that leave the word "woman". What happens to the term women's movement? Do we not use that anymore? Is the "women's movement" a place where born females and gendered women who are biologically male share?

Buffy thank you - everything you say makes complete sense to me.

I don't think I could hold a fluent discourse about it like you can (yet) but I would like to get there - but that is part of the learning process isn't it? I feeling of both understanding and confusion.

I came across this Feminist Dictionary

I was brought up by my 70s hippy-ish feminist mum. I'd always considered myself a feminist but never 'done the reading'. So a couple of years ago I decided I'd go check out what feminism was doing these days and duly ordered my copy of The Second Sex to catch up (still not read it, bad feminist!). I read a lot of stuff online, got on board with the sex/gender thing, found out about liberal and radical feminism, took a look at some of it and nodded along with some bits, looked a bit askance at some others. Then I ventured onto Twitter cos, you know, I wanted to actually talk to some women.

Turns out you can't. The whole feminism thing has been taken over by the trans thing. I'm not sure you can be a feminist these days without having some kind of take on it. It feels like the battle lines have been redrawn, to the point where we now have to fight about what a woman actually is before we can get back to that whole business of advancing equality/relieving oppression/smashing the patriarchy. So IMO that is what has happened to the women's movement these days - arguing about who can be termed a woman in the first place. And I find that sad, discomfiting and weirdly annoying, whilst at the same time acknowledging it's a debate that clearly needs to be had. I don't really have any answers, and I don't think anyone else does either. The two groups stand on completely opposing grounds. The underlying philosophies don't and can't mesh. And the debates just go round and round and round, with generous helpings of insults and threats thrown in on occasion.

At the extremes, you have some people saying a woman is anyone who says she's a woman, period. And opposite them you have other people saying a woman is an adult human female, period. Where you stand will be entirely up to you!

NiNoKuni I also can't help but feel that for many the discussion of what is a "woman" will only be satisfactorily resolved by the acceptance of men as women by women.

Which feels very invasive and like the patriarchy is forcing itself into hard fought for corners.

Which was an attempt to reconcile the linguistic perspective of the post-structuralist take on subjectivity with the phenomenological one.
Oh crikey - I need to say (cause this is the place to be able to say it) I do not understand this sentence at all

Well, I quite agree LovelyFriend, that is in fact what is happening in law. The people who object to it are being roundly villified. I'm not sure what anyone can really do about it, though.

I have looked up post-structuralism in an attempt to translate Buffy's sentence...now even more confused!

If post-structuralism means that anything means anything anyone thinks it does...then the 'speaking embodied subject' is the person doing the, er, speaking, where speaking and what actually happens are two different things? Erm...I need a coffee!

As an aside, in my latest OU course I recently came across epistemology and the awesome word which is phenomenological and I smiled and was thankful to the intelligent women here for making the concepts slightly less alien to me

This blog post (not written by me) pretty much sums up my feelings towards gender.

I don't think anybody has a truly masculine-only or feminine-only gender. Everybody has interests (or could have, if given the opportunity) that lie on various points on the social spectrum between masculine and feminine, especially considering different societies might place some interests at different points on this spectrum.

But to my mind, this proves that gender as something internal doesn't exist. I don't think anybody could say they are truly one or the other. I think that the term "genderqueer" (correct me if I'm wrong) is supposed to be the answer to this, and cover the people in my imaginary spectrum that don't consider themselves to have a male gender or a female gender. But if nobody is either masculine-only or feminine-only then that makes everybody genderqueer, so it's a bit of a useless word.

To bring parenting into this, I was thinking the other day about how there is no way of avoiding societal gender stereotyping. Unless you never left the house, never watched anything on TV, never read a book etc.

Which brings me to an issue I have, how do you teach children that men and women are different whilst simultaneously teaching them that men and women aren't different? I have a conflict between wanting to tell my daughter that she can be anything she wants to be (an astronaut paramedic, currently ) but also wanting to prepare her for the realities of the world.

DD2 is 4 and since she could talk she had had very firm and hard rules about boys and girls and boy's things/colours/toys and girl's things/colours/toys.

As a baby - 2yo, she wore largely gender neutral clothes. She had some pink but no more that any other colour in her wardrobe. From age 2 onwards she started wearing dresses, refusing to wear jeans or trousers at all (boys), though leggings are OK (girls).

I don't talk about gender this way - I've always been baffled by her thoughts - where did she get this stuff? I work FT so I can only think she picked up lots of these ideas from playgroups etc she went to with her CM, from TV, and in part from her older sister who is 4 years older.

Since starting nursery a year ago, she ramped it all up considerably. A friend of hers has 4 older sisters and talks about what girls are and what boys are & DD is fascinated with her. Mind you she also rolls her eyes at this girl for always wanting to play "babies" all the time - its boring.

Of course I share with her all the time my POV that colours/toys/things aren't boys or girls, yet she is fairly entrenched and adamant about it :). However when she starts playing, her gender bias is less obvious - she can quite easily shrug it off and just do what she wants.

how do you teach children that men and women are different whilst simultaneously teaching them that men and women aren't different? I have a conflict between wanting to tell my daughter that she can be anything she wants to be (an astronaut paramedic, currently smile) but also wanting to prepare her for the realities of the world.

Kryten I struggle with this too.

my 7yo DD has no concept that girls can't do anything because of their gender. I've mentioned the "girls can do anything" line to her before and she just looked puzzled - she doesn't yet see or experience the issue. She's top in the class at maths, loves science as well as art and english. She has lovely friendships with boys and girls. She's competitive and empathic.

I deal with issues as and when they arise in an age appropriate way the best I can. But I'm not going to teach my DD's that they are considered to be inferior to boys in any way at all. WHen they are older of course we will discuss things but now they are too young and I think teaching them about patriarchy/gender bias/sexism etc would negatively impact on their personal development.