What makes a woman: documentary by Munroe Bergdorf

[DarthArts]

I'm too tired to comment sensibly.

I'd like to remind everyone re: no personal attacks and use of preferred pronouns (or avoidance thereof) when discussing a named individual please.

I suspect the 'fierce debate' will mean that rather than gender critical feminimists being aired, it will be right-wing Christian social conservatives. The better to demonstrate trans ideology as progressive and on the right side of history.

God, I'm sorry for whinging everyone - as you were.

Prediction:

Those that share MB's world view will find it 'brave' and 'insightful'

Those that don't will peak.

The vast majority of the Great British Public won't bother to watch it - it is a Channel 4 documentary after all.

Apartment from anything else, I doubt that you can adequately cover brain scans, the trans experience and GC feminism in one hour less ad breaks.

We will see.

Apart from! Not apartment!!!

Can I make a channel 4 documentary about what makes a woman?

Oh I see they're also featuring that embarrassing dancer Sophie Rebecca. A middle aged woman takes up ballet dancing and no one cares. A middle aged trans woman takes it up and they are celebrated.

My highly scientific timeline based on Early Learning Centre etch-a-sketch says that the pink/blue divide arrived between 1998, when we bought a green/orange one for DS, and 2002, when a well-meaning relative bought a nice new pink/purple one for DD.

So, yeah, it's the Millennium Bug that did it.

So what are the odds of any of us pitching a doco based on our [natal] experience of "What Makes a Woman?'

Production company: "Oh, who cares. All those vaginas are icky. But let's ask someone born a man."

My prediction for the fierce debate is a lot of shouting and talking over as demonstrated on the recent JHN programme.

Some production companies seem to specialise in documentaries where they take somebody from ‘Made in Chelsea’ or Eastenders and film them exploring an edgy topic that relates to their own life - I think this is that style of documentary.

So what are the odds of any of us pitching a doco based on our [natal] experience of "What Makes a Woman?'

Don’t know - is anybody on MN in a soap?

.Is gender in the body or the brain

She will interrogate the wider science and social norms of gender, as she joins groups of women of all persuasions, alongside leading experts, to understand how our body, behaviour and brains help define who we are.

Oh here we go again, proudly marching backwards to the 19th century. The brain isn't a sex organ.

The "genderquake?"

Alice Roberts cane out very firmly on the side that any brain differences are socially influenced by societies' obsession with gender differences in this programme, looking at a range of experiments and research. MM was a bit on the side of some sex linked brain differences but obviously each one could be explained by the societal influences, bar changes during puberty and when reaching sexual maturity.

At the end of the day though it's how society interprets individuals' personal traits and pigeon holes them into genders rather than taking them at face value and accepting and valuing those preferences and skills no matter what your sex.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knbny

I feel I will be shouting at the tv rather a lot.

Gender-focused clothes for kids came in during the early 90s. I was pregnant with my first in 1990 and vividly remember that Next was full of gorgeous bright-coloured uni-sex children's clothing. Within a couple of years they had switched to heavily gendered. From that point I watched with horror as shop after shop made the same change over the course of a few years.

The genderfication of toys started later, IIRC.

Anyone notice that Nick Hornby is the Executive Producer. Does that mean he is actually involved in the program, owns the production company? Not very sure.....

I wonder if men living in counties where women have to keep their bodies /clothing covered in public, or are not allowed to drive etc are wanting identify as women?

I’m relatively new to the trans issue, (it reawakened the feminist activist in me after she had been laying dormant for some time!)

How did we get here? When did all this ridiculous gender stereotyping crap become part of everyday life ? It really does feel like we are going backwards doesn’t it.

And I hate all this celebrating transwomen who rediscover new avenues (the dancer mentioned earlier etc) or celebrating the first women on the front line, which was massively offensive to the actual women who have/do serve on the front line (medics) it’s just men taking over, pushing women out and pushing themselves forward- we were supposed to be finding ways to help girls have access to spaces where boys couldn’t push them out of the way, but they’ve managed to find a way round that haven’t they, it’s interesting to see how many transwomen say they identify as a women but carry on acting exactly like a man, with all the male privilege that entails.

Sorry for the rant.

Gender-focused clothes for kids came in during the early 90s.

It was all part of the backlash against feminism.

In the 1990s:
-High heels and 'wonderbras' became fashionable
-Evolutionary psychology took hold telling gendered lies - and Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus came out

• 'Ironic' and 'retro' sexism (and racism) was edgy and cool
• Porn exploded
• Young women became 'laddettes' - instead of feminists, so instead of deconstructing retro/ironic sexism and boorish sexist behaviour, they joined in, claimed to like porn and football and out drink sexist men.
• Lads mags like 'Loaded' came out
• The Spice Girls galvanised a feminist feeling at the time and called it Girl Power - yet appeared in the lads mags, etc - so were doing feminism in a way that men could happily masturbate over.

-Tarantino films came out - pushing the boundaries of glamorising cruelty and violence.

• Meanwhile, behind the scenes, certain pioneering trans activists worked on 'privacy' laws, which effectively mean 'deception and enforced collusion' laws, which now result in teenage thugs and unhinged celebs gleefully abusing them for personal advantage and control, by accusing everyone about 'outing' them.
• The poor science of 'gender' was filtering down - and the marketing of pink and blue happened, which, by the end of the decade nearly peaked - but continued to rise through toys, clothes, games, everything pink and blue, until the late naughties and a new pushback against the outrageous overt sexism that had taken hold.

Sorry, I meant

which now result in twenty-something thugs and unhinged celebs gleefully abusing them for personal advantage and control, by accusing everyone of 'outing' them.

Just so fucking sick of this shit now.

I hate all this celebrating transwomen who rediscover new avenues (the dancer mentioned earlier etc) or celebrating the first women on the front line, which was massively offensive to the actual women who have/do serve on the front line (medics) it’s just men taking over, pushing women out and pushing themselves forward- we were supposed to be finding ways to help girls have access to spaces where boys couldn’t push them out of the way, but they’ve managed to find a way round that haven’t they,

Magdalen Burns put it really well in one of her videos about them being bottom feeders.

I am completely paraphrasing here - but the thrust was that males are raised with a sense of entitlement that their life should have a heroic arc to it, but the males that cannot achieve the heroic arc because they haven't got what it takes to compete with other males, use 'womanhood' as a way to achieve it. I think she said "because other men wouldn't take their shit'.

From Dr Nic on twitter today:

They should get peachyoghurt and Miranda Yardley to answer the same question. Now that would be interesting.