can we reject gender and still be pro female?

[Flingingmelon]

Anyone else have an irrational dislike of all this 'gender is a false construct' talk?

It's been really bothering me recently. Not so much the discussions themselves, rather why I get so irritated in the first place?

I wonder if it's because rejecting gender in some way feels like rejecting the concept of femininity, by that I mean feeling like a woman in the 'traditional' sense of the word.

I'm struggling not to associate it with the idea that we are letting the side down somehow, fighting for women's equality and then turning around and distancing ourselves from what makes us women.

I absolutely believe and agree that how an individual chooses to identify themselves is no ones business except themselves, but it feels like we are throwing the baby out with the bath water somewhat.

Can we be female, be women, be proud of what makes us women and still reject the concept of gender?

I'd love it if someone could help me make peace with this, although I accept that as usual I'm writing far too late in the evening and this is after all, only my problem, no one else's.

Does anyone else feel the same?

"Interests and preferences should just be that. There is no reason to attach them to what somebody has in their pants"

Yup.

Almost always wear flat boots, flat shoes or trainers. Because other shoes hurt my feet.

Have a couple of pairs of shoes with a 1 inch heel that I would wear with a "business dress", probably just for the duration of a function.

This "shared" experience between women is most likely due to being simply biologically a woman.

TTC - biology (typical shared experience between women)
Pmt/menstruation - biology (typical shared experience)
Buying a bra - biology (typical shared experience)
Shopping for high heels - gendered (not majority shared experience)
Liking pink? - gendered (not all women)
Watching Sex and The City whilst eating Haagen Daazs - gendered (not all women)

Where gender causes a problem is through conditioning, which is separate from biological limitations (or strengths).
Where conditioning means (eg): men are assertive and get what they want, paired with: women are available at all times to other people's need and need to look decorative. All BS when the only difference is biology.

I wear high heels sometimes because I have short stumpy legs! But I wear Converse for actually walking, and doing anything.

Yes, 0phelia. Mention something like the time you started unexpectedly and leaked somewhere inconvenient or embarrassing, or the comments you had from boys as your breasts grew, and women will be nodding and grimacing and sharing similar memories. Men don't and never will.

Hmm, just thinking about my female colleagues shoe choices. By and large flat shoes/boots. There may be a choice to change into under the desk but no one really bothers.
TBH I really don't care about what my female colleagues wear on their feet and I assume they think the same about me.

But Ophelia, not even your biological examples are biologically determined and they don't necessarily form the basis for a consistent group identity:

TTC - biology (typical shared experience between women) - I've never done that
Pmt/menstruation - biology (typical shared experience) - not all women menstruate, not all women get PMT, menstruation does not have the same significance for all women
Buying a bra - biology (typical shared experience) - ^there's no real biological need for a bra. It may be more comfortable for some women, but a lot of flat-chested freaks like me either don't wear one, or don't need all the measuring and comparing to ensure a proper fit.

I think the biological things Ophelia has mentioned are a consistent group identity. That doesn't mean all members of the group will have experienced them. It is the identity of the group, not of each individual.

IABF, I sometimes wear block heels under 2 inches. I'm not sure what the proper name for them is. Cuban heels? I suppose those are unisex to some extent. I wouldn't wear very high heels or stilettos because I don't understand how to walk in them, and my mum and sister don't wear them so nobody has ever really explained to me how to do it.

I have never really noticed other women wearing heels at work or whatever, but I know some of them must be doing because the shops are full of them! Maybe I just don't pay enough attention to what is on people's feet.

Yes, but it's a bit tenuous, isn't it? A lot of women will share my experiences of being a woman, but they may be more or less important to how they view their gender identity. And there's a lot of "shared experience" that I haven't experienced myself and never will and then the only thing I can use to relate to that is empathy. And the identity of the group tends to loosen its hold once the group is no longer present. Other identities become more important.

But isn't that about you, rather than the experiences of most women?

I may not be following here.

I like this article www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/01/why-disregarding-motherhood-and-women-s-bodies-won-t-help-feminism

I think it's saying that although gender is a social construct, women are a reproductive class and our biological sex gives us a shared cultural background rooted in childbearing - even if we as individuals don't have children. (Much as you can have a Jewish culture and identity without practising Judaism.)

I don't know, almond, perhaps it is just me. I just don't think that these "shared experiences" are as shared as we like to think. And I don't think that they are enough to build a fixed identity on. But that is what being "gendered" assumes - that the very few experiences common to all women are enough to create a consistent and unchanging identity, one that is present all the time.

While you're at work, you're a worker - until you go home. While you're doing things for or with your children, you're a parent - until they're at school or otherwise out of your hair. While you're discussing women's issues, you're feminist - until you start talking about something else. But when are you a woman? All the time? Biologically yes, presumably. But what things do you do with the conscious knowledge that you are a woman? Being gendered as a woman (your given name, the way you look, dress, etc.) presents the illusion that everything you do, you do as a woman. But is that true for how you see yourself?

Sorry if this is too convoluted, I'm tired and may not be expressing myself well.

I don't believe in all this identity business, uglyswan.

I think that shared experiences among women are far more common that feminists think. It is feminists who often don't seem to share the experiences other women do.

I'm always a woman, for the reasons Devora has given in her link to Glosswitch's excellent article. Glosswitch is always amazing.

I am a woman because I have a female body and I've grown other people inside it. That never stops being true, and I never see myself as being a person or woman or mother independent of my own mother, children etc. And as Glosswitch talks about, I felt that cultural cohesion of motherhood even when I wasn't one.

Sorry uglyswan I think I was reading "shared" experience as "universal" experience.
Of course everyone has their own experiences and there will be a lot of overlap in what women experience.

I agree with you when you say these shared experiences arent always as shared as we may think.
Eg buying a bra. A woman with an A cup is going to have a very different experience to a woman with a EE cup.

But that takes us dangerously close into "you're not a woman until you've experienced pregnancy or felt the call of motherhood" territory. And I for one haven't and I can assure you, I am most definitely a woman. Just not all the time. I have a female body, I live in it, it's always there. But I am only rarely aware of it as a female body. And that's why, to answer the OP's question, I am "anti-gender". Not because pink doesn't suit me, or I don't wear high heels. But because there is a constant slippage between the identity bestowed on me by society and how I see myself. This wouldn't matter much if were just me, I'm a feminist on basic principles. But if feminism tries to reach out to other women as "women", on the basis of "shared experiences" and these women simply don't view themselves primarily asrepresentatives of their gender, then I don't see how you can convince them otherwise.

"A woman with an A cup is going to have a very different experience to a woman with a EE cup." That's true and made me laugh, actually. But it's not just that. One woman may see "the time she bought her first bra" as an incredibly exciting, identity-forming experience. Another woman may have hated the entire experience and cultivated a deep-seated loathing against "feminine" underwear. And another may have simply forgotten all about it. It's not just the experience, it's how we interpret it and build it into a sense of who we are.

The shared experience of most women includes that they are, or are going to be mothers. That's different to a universal experience.

Feminism, hopefully, reaches out to everyone to advocate for improvements in the way women are treated in society, often by using a class analysis of women.

As Glosswitch says, that often means women as a reproductive class.

Feminism is not actually a project to validate any woman's sense of identity in any sense, including her sense of womanhood (or the lack of it).

I'm anti gender because I want feminism to focus on the rights of women, such as better miscarriage care or help for rape victims, or adequate resources for women living in poverty.

I don't care about whether there is slippage between society's notion of identity and your own, anymore than I care about this stuff when trans people go on about it. That isn't the purpose of feminism.

I don't think I suggested at any point that the purpose of feminism was to validate anyone's sense of identity and I do rather resent the implication that I want feminism to revolve around me. But if you're going to try and convince other women to get on board on the basis of a so-called shared experience of motherhood, you've got your work cut out for you.

our biological sex gives us a shared cultural background rooted in childbearing - even if we as individuals don't have children

Does it? I have 1 child , most of my friends female and male are childless. I can think of lots of things because of our age, background, aspirations, interests etc which contribute to a shared cultural background but that's not one of them.

I really enjoyed being pregnant, no sickness, glowing skin and hair , wonderful feelings of serenity ending in a smooth and efficient elective caesarean.

But- I wasn't in the least bit interested in other pregnant women. I stopped going to the ante-natal classes . I went back to work full time when baby was 2 months old and was never involved in mother and baby groups.

Nooooo, it's not childbearing is an experience that all women are interested in or should be interested in or that dictates all aspects of their personality. It's that our shared biological sex has led to women being part of a reproductive class and that has formed our experiences of being women - whether or not we bear children or find children interesting.

I'm not trying to get women on board on that basis. I never said that I was. I think women do have many shared experiences, but I don't think that how they feel about that is the basis of feminism.

As Devora has said, I see women as occupying the reproductive class as a social and political position. It isn't about their sense of self at all.

I was responding to where you say the following:

'And that's why, to answer the OP's question, I am "anti-gender". Not because pink doesn't suit me, or I don't wear high heels. But because there is a constant slippage between the identity bestowed on me by society and how I see myself.'

I understood that being anti gender is about being opposed to this whole identity nonsense where everyone constantly has to be situating themselves as to what their internal sense of self is and how it matches up to society's notions of gender, and what we imagine others to be feeling about us or themselves. So it seems a contradiction to me for you to say you are anti gender and then describing your own relation to gender identity!

Which kind of brings me full circle to my original point. People who are gender non conforming should of course have full rights and not face discrimination, but that is an overlapping cause with feminism. It is not the actual feminist cause, which is the rights of women as a class.

It's that our shared biological sex has led to women being part of a reproductive class and that has formed our experiences of being women -

I really don't understand this.

I think almond is saying that women are judged to be mothers and carers even when they are not.

So an employer is wary of employing a woman under 40 as she might have kids. If she has kids she will be the one who doesn't turn up for work to look after them.
If elderly relatives get sick it will probably be her who spends time looking after them.

So even if you aren't a mother or a natural carer society expects it of you.

(If I've got the wrong end of the stick almond, sorry)

I picked shoes as many women enjoy owning many pairs of shoes, a lot of shoes specifically made for women are to "look pretty", putting on make up is to help women look pretty. Looking pretty is a gendered behaviour because it has helped women be successful in a patriarchal society. Although I am not bothered by it, in part because I never challenged it too much, it seems obvious to me that if you wear make up and invest any time in looking attractive you are perpetuating gender roles. Practically all the women I know and almost every women I see wears or at least sometimes wears makeup, wears their hair longer than men, and grooms it at great expense etc, which is why I wonder if the stridently ardent anti gender brigade do not see a contradiction in continuing to do ANY of this stuff ?

My other point was about the fact that the experience of being a biological women (from birth) varies so greatly that it's of little use as a cohesive force. Society is partly the product of evolution, gendered behaviour is encouraged because it's successful behaviour. For women that typically meant being pretty, appearing attractive to men, being "feminine". But whereas that's mostly sounds shallow and bad, the other interpretation is that a division of labour gave men the most back breaking or physically demanding simply because they were stronger, women were not as effective at moving very large objects as men. Although I am all for equal rights, and believe that traditional gender roles are breaking down, there's a long long way to go before we hear men saying "she seems like she'll be able to provide a good income to support me"

" I wouldn't wear very high heels or stilettos because I don't understand how to walk in them, and my mum and sister don't wear them so nobody has ever really explained to me how to do it. "

Me too!

Swan, my post to you was rude. I am sorry.