Think I am beginning to get it...

[SlowlyWaking]

And largely due to reading here and the gender critical boards over on Reddit so thank you.

Just had a few things click into place for me and wanted to share and learn more.

Sex is biological and cannot be changed.

Gender is a spectrum constructed by society as feminine roles and identities all the way along to masculine ones. When somebody identifies as non-binary/gender neutral/pangender/genderqueer they are essentially saying 'I move along this spectrum day by day, moment by moment, Im neither always overtly masculine or feminine.' (Personally, I think I, and a lot of people do that, but I'm still a woman.)

Women are currently more fluid and flexible in sitting anywhere on this spectrum because of the earlier waves of feminism. Women are more comfortable with (and often embrace) the masculine elements of their identity whereas men are still stuck in what it means to be a man and wont be so open to their femine elements.

This has led to a rise in toxic masculinity/manosphere/ anti feminist culture because they are afraid to lose the privilege that has oppressed women for so long. This fear of 'losing' something stops men from feeling like they can move fluidly along the gender spectrum. It has led to feminine males transitioning to female because it makes the things they want to do/be more societally acceptable by presenting as a woman. Conversely, females transitioning to male are hoping to win some of the power - many have been victims of abuse at the hands of men and seek to protect themselves from the system by becoming part of it. As they are generally no threat to men or the male privilege, ftm trans people largely go unnoticed.

Feminism is the advocacy for women's rights based on equality of the sexes, so feminism is about protecting biological females. Whether or not they are masculine or feminine or anywhere on that spectrum doesnt matter but biological females face oppression in ways that are exclusive to being born female like FGM and rape. Therefore, transwomen are not female.

That doesnt deny that feminine males also face discrimination but it does deny that their struggle is based on their sex. Feminine males have their own struggles because they dont fit the box of what an 'ideal' masculine male is - a box that was constructed by the patriarchy (alongside one that says what an 'ideal' feminine female is) in the first place to keep women oppressed.

Self ID is a problem in that it removes the protection of biological females, thats why feminists are so against it. It cannot be allowed to happen. Females must be allowed to only compete aginst females, females must be allowed to change separately from males. Gender has no place in those arenas.

TRAs are often at odds with feminists because they dont understand that their fight should be about deconstructing gender roles which would benefit everybody. Transgender people should be feminist allies. MRAs who spout sarcastic statistics about their privilege dont seem to realise it is the patriarchy that is responsible for putting them on the front line, for putting them into hazardous employment, for making women the primary caregiver in the majority of cases and, predominantly, men that are raping other men. Men should be feminist allies. Even women need to wake up and realise this. The patriarchy has worked hard to desecrate the word feminism to the point where women won't even identify as feminists - thats crazy to me, women wont admit that they support the fight for, and desire, equal rights for women.

I'm still wading through what I think about post-op trans people in terms of their access to safe spaces and opportunities to compete in sport/hold job roles specifically relating to womens' rights. Im still unsure about pronouns. But its coming together in my head. Little by little.

I know I've missed a whole heap of apostrophes but meh. Lazy.

^ I think women would be more interested if warehousing and constructon were less male dominated. On a societal level women get the impression that these sort of jobs are not for them... and I think they also have a reputation as not being partcularly female friendly. Fairly or unfairly the stereotype of a hyper masculine work culture which dismisses or even demeans women persists in some lines of work and construction is one of these imo.

Perhaps as a society we perhaps need to be encouraging more girls to consider these jobs... like STEM careers are being encouraged for girls in schools.

It is not right imo to simply state that females don't want to do 'dangerous' jobs and will leave this up to the much braver menfolk [incidentally, just how dangerous is HGV driving anyway? ^

I think having more females in the industry would help, but there's still the issue of getting dusty and grimy with dirt under your fingernails which doesn't seem to appeal to many of my female mates despite sounding like a girly stereotype.

As for danger....maybe not so much on Class 1 driving, but you now have to do Class 2 first. Many people start by driving rigids and much of this is multidrop urban work. Driving a lorry down an urban high street or a residential area when a local school has just kicked out presents a lot of opportunities for accidents as trucks don't stop very fast and have much bigger blind spots than cars.

With good practice you're relatively safe, but you are in close proximity to fork lift trucks for much of the day (holding back the curtain while they unload heavy pallets at arms reach of you, and having to be careful that an unstable load doesn't fall on top of you when you undo the side curtain which might be holding it up. It's much much more dangerous than say office work. A guy had his neck broke and sustained head injuries at a company I worked at after having a 250kg compute cabinet dropped on him by a forkie - now disabled.

If you see human society as fully socially constructed, material reality is not a concern. I dislike this ideology because it disregards existing structural power relations in favour of hyper-individualism.

This.

Lots of men also don't want to be HGV drivers. Even those without jobs. Occasioanal local news about the chronic shortage of such drivers.

In trying to assert if more women than men would be adverse to the job, you would need to be sure that the proportion of men and women who did not want the job was different once you had fully accounted for all the societal differences. Controlling for the conditioning that starts when very young is just incredibly hard. a child falls over. They may be "brave" or " a poor thing". In a pram they may "strong" or "pretty" . That's what leads to girls worrying about their nails.

I am not saying that there is def not a genetic difference that would mean that men are more likely to enter a dangerous profession or a profession that takes them away from home. I am saying we haven't got a clue and with current society we are unlikely to be able to tell.

What we need to ensure short term is that should a woman want to drive an hgv or a man want to be a beautician then they can do that without feeling odd and uncomfortable. Without being teased or excluded Without their sex in influencing the probability of them getting the job...just their actual capability.

I think I have talked myself into thinking that you have a good point, given the shortage of drivers and ( from what I understand) the reasonable rates of of pay, then promoting such jobs are for women as well as men is a good thing. Perhaps it's an example of how sexist society still is that we don't.

There are reams and reams of testimony, even films, describing what men do to women to discourage us from working in a field men consider their own. Pipe Fitters, Law Enforcement Officers, Fire Fighters.
The abuse is horrific and the management does not have women's back because they do not want us there either.

The abuse is horrific and the management does not have women's back because they do not want us there either.

Very true. :(

It certainly is a lot more than "women don't want those jobs", it takes quite some time for women to get a foothold in some sectors.

But further, if women are found to be better at some jobs, and the ratio of women overtakes men, watch the pay rates go down accordingly. Pink Ghetto.

I've never experienced much of what I could call genuine abuse, but I'd concur that the HGV sector (and IME the construction and warehousing sectors) are much less politically correct environments than corporate ones, which might bother some. I think many women would feel intimidated by some of the gruff, grubby blokes I used to encounter on a daily basis but I actually found working for a law firm much more intimidating tbh as, despite the focus on diversity etc, I encountered a lot of bitchiness from female colleagues and a lot of veiled snideness which seems less present in more 'blue collar' work.

A lot of people look down on drivers but the big supermarket chains pay £45k for arctic drivers and that's more than a lot of office workers get, and it's much less stressful once you're up to speed as the job is fairly consistent and doesn't involve managing people and all the office politics that comes with it.

are much less politically correct environments than corporate ones, which might bother some

Nice minimalisation. Why not say it directly; in your opinion, women are just too oversensitive™.

I have a forklift licence btw.

You're reading far too much into my comment. I do think some women would have a problem with being called 'sweetheart or 'love' for example, which doesn't really bother me when it's not intended in a patronising fashion .

...and it doesn't just apply to women either. I can think of quite a few blokes who might get offended by the sort of banter that is common on worksites - "get a move on you fat bastard" etc.