This is getting out of control - Ladyfest

[Chickpeasandpakchoi]

Has banned the use of the word 'clitoris' at its feminist festival as it it trans exclusionary.
www.feministcurrent.com/2016/06/03/german-ladyfest-clitoris-exclusionary/
I hope it is boycotted by women. How DARE they tell us we cannot celebrate and talk about our female anatomy?

Are you winding me up? I know I can be a bit thick ( I've got a degree) but can be in my own world...my brain just is female..

I'm with you on the male and female brain too petal

I don't think it looks different but I do think hormones within a body causes a male and female brain to act differently.

It is bloody good conditioning.
Take a small tiny unimportant example many mothers of girls might relate to - all those small girls running around refusing to wear anything other than pink. My own daughter started expressing that preference from about 18 months despite a very feminist upbringing.
She would say she genuinely liked pink - not any other reason. Friends explained to me it was because pink is a delicate feminine colour. It must be innate as all those girls liking it couldnt be by pure chance.

100 years ago pink was a boys colour. Its just culture.

Human brains are fantasically adaptable and we are social creatures expert in fitting in with social structures. Thats the bit thats innate not what those constructs are.

Try the Cordelia Fine book its really good at this stuff.

Omg....I'm going to tesco...I'm clearly thick as pig shit....can't get my head round this at all.there has got to be some differences between a male and female brain...

You're clearly not stupid petal.

You don't have to believe there's no difference petal - and holding that belief wouldn't make you thick. There are intelligent people who still believe there is a difference. But if you want to explore the issue there are loads of interesting studies and articles - the trans threads are full of them.

This sort of misogynistic drivel almost (tragically) makes sense of some of Germaine Greers recent transphobic drivel. If at this 'lady fest' you wanted to discuss the clitoridectomies suffered by FGM victims, presumably you wouldn't be permitted to do so? Unbelievable, depressing and offensive.

Germaine Greer may speak bluntly. However she's been thinking about and fighting for feminist causes for decades. Isn't it odd she's being dismissed as talking 'drivel'? Feminists are not normally known for being bigoted types - quite the opposite. So why aren't people thinking about why GG might hold that opinion.

I love that comparison, sixinabed.

And you certainly don't come across as stupid, petal, anything but!

Because most people don't think all that much.

Well this thread is certainly making me rethink Greers's position- it's heartbreaking that an excluded and victimised group like MtT can use the welcome they've had in some sectors to try to silence/ deny the reality of another group suffering discrimination and exclusion.

there has got to be some differences between a male and female brain...

Well, yeah, there is. For all I know, the XX chromosomes that are part of your genetic makeup are also in your brain.
There are differences - there just aren't any that make you like pink or want to clean and cook.

I'd wager that female brains are about as different from male brains as female hearts from male hearts - we know that there are different symptoms for a heart attack in men and women. But for all I know, hearts can be transplanted to the opposite sex.

Most of the differences seem to be caused by hormones. The brain is part of the body. It is not possible to have a female brain in a male body, or the other way round.
The brains of lesbians who take testosterone do change, some of them become attracted to men - why would this be the case if they had before been heterosexual male brains, and this had been the cause of the attraction to women (as homophobic gender extremists would have us believe)?

So, my partner is disabled - he has very severe osteo arthritis and will need a knee replacement soon. He is involved in a few disability action groups. So I'm imagining a 'disability-fest' where an event is planned to talk about ways to celebrate your crutches or stick, because some people (dp included) can feel embarrassed about using them and this can affect their life and self perception negatively.
Then some wheelchair users declare that they find this activity violent and exclusionary because they are unable to walk at all. And so the organisers cancel it with apologies, in order to be inclusive.

I think non-disabled (or trans-disabled ... there are people who feel their functioning legs aren't truly part of their body, after all ) people complaining about feeling excluded by talk of crutches would be a better comparison here.

But other than that, you hit the nail on the head.

I never heard of women with PCOS complaining about anything done to celebrate menstruation, even though there are some for whom menstruation is very painful, and some for whom it is not regular. Older women, likewise, never complain.

There's also women who don't have legs (but don't complain about celebration of leg hair), women who don't have breasts anymore (but don't complain if other women walk around topless or celebrate their breasts in any way) women whose genitals were mutilated (shouldn't they be the first ones to complain about feeling excluded by the celebration of normal vulvas?), and so on and so forth.

I'm sat in tesco,looking at everyone walking around,and it feels like step ford wives or zombie people,they can't all have the same brain,with no differences...it can't be down to nurture / conditioning... Surely the mans brain makes him do his thing and the woman's brain do hers.it can't just be down to sex organs what makes us the gender we are ....I'm not a feminist or a man hater...I'm all for equal rights and if women want to celebrate their labia,fantastic...if men want to wear dresses ,great get on with it p,no problem,if women want a women's festival fantastic.why should their festival be censored in any way...why can't the men who want to be women have their own festival,and not gate crash the women's one,then they won't be offended by hearing about body parts they haven't got

Virgin,I hate pink,I hate cleaning and cooking...none of that makes my brain female...I'm so frustrated because I can't think of kthe words to explain what I'm meaning.i just know my brain is female...so if hormones are there from birth waiting for puberty ,that's got to mean the brains are different ,different hormones in each one

I do think there are some differences between boys and girls even as children.

For example my son has been raised in the same way as my daughter. They both play with the same toys. Dd has a lot of pink toys so ds is fully exposed to pink. Yet at 15 months he has gravitated towards cars. He is also a lot more rough and tumble than what Dd is. Now that could just be him, or it could be that he is a boy

At 15 months he's probably quite aware of his surroundings. We do not live in a gender neutral world.

No we don't but apart from a baby group we go to where no one but me and his sister interact with him, he doesn't really get a chance go be influenced by society. Yet

Ok ,so when someone has had a full sex change,then they can be allowed in women's loos,changing rooms..but a man in a dress with a penis ,even if he identifies with women,should not be allowed in.....how is that wrong? If indeed it is...I would be very angry if a man in a dress came in to my female space ,in the loo or changing room....would the law be on my side?...so why are these men going to the festival?

My second child is way more physical and rough & tumble than her older sister. At 15 months she could easily overpower her 3 yo sister in physical play. I think if she'd been a boy I would be attributing the differences between them to their sex but because they're both girls I put it down to personality.