Spreading the idea that everyone has a gender identity

[Macareaux]

Mermaids has quite a reach. Influencing consumer groups.

The ease with which schools, workplaces and other organisations are being brainwashed is quite astounding

To answer Lass, my point here would always be that the choices or positions we take are steered by straight society and conventional masculine/feminine divisions, either going along with them, seen or understood as going along with them, or pulling against them. The point I was making is that understanding is based on society and social aspects of gow youcarexseen and understood as a lesbian both by wider society and lesbian society. so social all along, not innate gender. yes, we all have our own personalities and propensities. But these change over time as society changes, the way Radcliffe Hall understood things, the way old style butch/femme worked, and current patterns. And just as believing your sexuality is innate works for some, for same reasons a belief in innate gender can work. Strength or utility of a belief doesn't mean it is true, and i resent others trying yet again to rope butch in as support for their own beliefs. I find social and feminist explanations a more satisying and plausible framework than innate sexual orientation or innate gender.

My salty old sea dog ex-navy missus would be laughing at the 'the idea is keeping it out of the boat' bit!

Picasso: wow. That must take nerves of steel.

swear I'm not playing the ditsy helpless female - it's only the sea that does this. I think it's a bit of a bastard! But I get the impression from sailors that it 'bites' you and once bitten you can never leave it.

I knew two sailors who do big sailing, is it called oceanic.

They tried to take me out. Nothing changed my mind.

I might be more interested if being on boats didn't make me want to puke like an outtake from The Exorcist.

@supermatchgame . "You have women that have lived as out, gender non conforming lesbians for 30 or 40 years coming to a realisation that they are men - and want to have a deep voice and facial hair. How do you explain the mechanism behind that?" I'm pretty sure I have already done so actually. A lifetime of feeling ill at ease as a result of internalised mysogyny and homophobia, an extreme discomfort with the way others relate to you according to your sexed body, an association of your sexed body with weakness, heterosexual porn, vaccuous glamour and simpering subjugation, and access to a social narrative that says if you are uncomfortable with all of this it's because you have a male brain. Also a desire to have the body you perceive most women desire. Once the idea is accepted the internal narratives confirm and reconfirm it and your identity, developing socially as it does, fully incorporates this narrative and applies it to the sense of self and personality.

@beachcomber thanks for some excellent insights on this thread.

I think having a sense of internal gender is widespread but not universal. Like language, it would never appear without social interaction. Like language, it will alter according to the influence and input of others and the pre existing structures will influence the way we see the world and ourselves but we will also influence the language of others in tiny imperceptible ways. Our innate tendency towards using language doesn't determine the language we use. That is determined by the culture we are born into. But we can also learn new languages. They will have limited applicability to our immediate social surroundings however.

I think having a sense of internal gender is widespread but not universal.

Right. A bit like how believing in God is widespread but not universal.

No different from that. Because some of us have actively and unconsciously incorporated traits associated with femininity into our personalities. Therefore gender has altered our brains.

This is very well written about in psychology and social science. What is more it explains why we make choices that harm and collude in our own oppression. Like Daimbars does. The only bit which us faith based is the idea that the gender was there at birth. It cannot have been, since it develops socially.

I mention Daimbars and also Lass too because this forum is mostly populated by people who don't perform their own gender. There are just a few voices who do. But irl I find it the other way around.

Hmm. I don't perform my sex. It just is. I don't perform any gender because I don't have a gender identity. It's not subversive. It's just me being myself.

What is more it explains why we make choices that harm and collude in our own oppression

I'm not sure what "it" is as there is no link.

I mention Daimbars and also Lass too because this forum is mostly populated by people who don't perform their own gender

If a head teacher of a girl's only school wanted someone to speak to her girls I would be an excellent example of a successful woman. Confident, outspoken, self-assured, successful in what was when I started, a male dominated career and also a mother.

As far as I'm concerned the only thing I haven't colluded with is the defeatist attitude of a certain style of feminism.

I am so glad I wasn't told when I was a teenager about 99% of what is posted on here about how miserable it is being female.

Other women weren't told about negatives to do with being female, and decided to take on a defeatist attitude. Other women experienced negative socialisation from a young age, which many struggle to overcome even though they are aware of it consciously. You were in the position not to have had any negative socialisation or to be particularly resistant to any that you did encounter. And to be totally able to ignore/resist wider society's negative attitudes towards women.

What advice do you have, Lass, for women who grew up with and have internalised negative messages about being female? Is it as simple as deciding one day not to care about these things?

As far as I'm concerned the only thing I haven't colluded with is the defeatist attitude of a certain style of feminism.

Lass can you explain what you mean by this? I have come across other people saying feminism is about being a victim, but I don't understand how standing up for women's rights can be viewed as defeatist or being a victim. It seems to me to be the opposite of that.

You remind me of my friend Lass. I think her position boils down to 'but I'm alright so don't bore me'' though. She is a success so she wouldn't even discuss any of the changes that need to be made to make things equal.

Feminism is not at all about being a victim. It's about taking control.

Lass, you appear to have some internalised misogyny there. Feminists are victims? Completely the opposite.

The Ann Robinson school of feminism.

Lass can you explain what you mean by this? I have come across other people saying feminism is about being a victim, but I don't understand how standing up for women's rights can be viewed as defeatist or being a victim

I never mentioned "victim"

What I meant about "defeatism " is in my view the difference between society actually saying to girls and women can"t do this/ must do that and feminists telling girls "society says you cant do this"

I find it all so negative. I can't remember which thread it is but for example the one with the whole list of things which apparently society tells girls they can't do.

Or any time periods are mentioned- the determination some posters have about how shameful society thinks they are.

Lass, you appear to have some internalised misogyny there. Feminists are victims? Completely the opposite

And bingo - is your next card the handmaiden one or the MRA one?

Feminism is not at all about being a victim. It's about taking control

Is it? Quite a lot of it seems to be about identifying things you (general you) don"t like, complaining about them and doing little about ithem because- "patriarchy".
"Wife- work"being one. So much of that is making a rod for your own back.

Gosh, you sound just like my husband who has to be handheld through critical thinking, and if I'm completely honest, a bit like me not that long ago.

You have to identify the problem before you can fix it. It looks like you're only at the beginning of that journey, if you have started it at all.

What I meant about "defeatism " is in my view the difference between society actually saying to girls and women can"t do this/ must do that and feminists telling girls "society says you cant do this"

I don't know what sort of feminists you have been talking to, but I, for one, would never say that to a girl. It's more likely that a girl would say to me 'I can't do that' because someone has told her that, and my reply would be that she could do anything she wants to. I just can't imagine a feminist putting ideas into girls' heads that society says they shouldn't do things because they're girls. It's the absolute antithesis of feminism.

Lass I too went on a journey from performed femininity to successful confident graduate to rising star in a sector which was at the time dominated by men to a 'successful' woman at the top of my field in a leading role. Once I realised I needed to model myself on the men instead of the women (very early on), and work twice as hard as the men I was competing with, it was very simple. In my twenties I would have said others could do what I had done if they believed in themselves and worked hard enough. I was so ignorant of my advantages. Now I know it is my job to challenge the status quo for others, to challenge mysogyny when I see it whether it affects me or not. I am driving that internalized mysogyny out of the corners of my own mind. And yet sometimes I still find it lurking there. I am grateful to others who pull me up on it.

Can I just say how much I loathe that expression "performing femininity". So smug and patronising.

Oh and don't bother lecturing me that it is just a useful tool to describe how society brainwashes women devised by Judith Butler. The sneering with which it is used reeks from the page.

Not to mention the fact that of course it dismisses the many postive aspects of femininity. And you say I suffer from "internalised misogyny".

OldCrone I am referring to the type of feminist whose outlook on life is as negative as I see on here. What I mean by putting it into girls heads is by the barrage of negativity- the expect the worse because that is what will happen. Posts about how much they hated their bodies as girls or the dismissive post from I think Sarah about treating a first period as a right of passage.

Judith Butler wasn't claiming that at all - that is very reductive. I wasn't sneering but I was being patronising and quite rude. Mysogyny isn't a hatred of femininity. Femininity upholds mysogyny.