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

Lass, are you against Self ID?

No, and I think you know that.

My point is that how easy or hard it is to succeed is still affected by the degree to which you conform to feminity for women. You feel that your success is entirely attributable to your skills and character. I think this is a type of blindness and cherry picking.

Your experience of being a girl and then a woman was not marked with difficulty because you are comfortable with feminity. That was the point you made on this thread.

For my DDs who are not feminine and not comfortable with feminity you have little to offer TBH.

You have an ideology, as I interpret it, that says individual character and skills are the only thing that matters and all this fussing about structural oppression is just whiny victimhood. I think that is reasonably easy to believe if you are, as an individual, comfortable with feminity because you will not identify the application of standards of feminity to you throughout your life as sexist because you do not find them to be restrictive and you do not experience social sanctions for breaking them as often due to breaking them less often.

As throughout history, there are many women who could have been ‘very good’ at many things but were never given the chance to be because of structural oppression. Being ‘very good’ at something depends on being given the opportunity to do it in the first place at the most basic level. For women that still depends on ‘being allowed’.

And re law it is ridiculous to claim it is not an incredibly sexist profession. It doesn’t just depend on being a ‘very good lawyer’ there is also many elements re women’s social roles and perceptions of being ‘the right kind of woman’ (that don’t always favour expression of feminity btw) that affect opportunity for women.

IMO you do women and girls a massive disservice when you tell them the key to success is simply a matter of individual skill and character. This simply means when they experience sexism they attribute it to a lack of skills or character rather than as a structural societal problem which unfairly limits their success. This is career and life limiting. It is one of the reasons women do not assert themselves re pay rises or promotion, because they have been told not getting those things is always down to them not being good enough.

(And no, that doesn’t mean I think individual skills and character are unimportant/irrelevant.)

Lass, you are likely to be underestimating the usefulness of your gender performance and your appearance to your career.

I was shit hot at my job, but I don't doubt my own success in a very competitive field was heavily influenced by my class, my race, my schooling and on being a very attractive young woman. I had it all going for me, though had I been plain things would likely have been different.

My brothers, who had the same package plus male privilege, did that much better financially.

Performing femininity might include, for example, wearing high heels or makeup, styling your hair, getting your nails done. All of these things are performing femininity. If you are truly GNC in the legal services sector then hats off to you. Not an easy thing to do. But still if you were a mediocre lawyer instead of a bloody good one you may have found a lot more sex related barriers. Whereas there are plenty of older mediocre male lawyers about. Thankfully the world is changing. Do you agree Lass? Or do you think women have always just been letting themselves down as individuals. Would you have turned up at the ballot box in 1901 and insisted they allow you the vote? I bet you're confident you could have persuaded them that in your case they might just as well.

And re law it is ridiculous to claim it is not an incredibly sexist profession. It doesn’t just depend on being a ‘very good lawyer’ there is also many elements re women’s social roles and perceptions of being ‘the right kind of woman’ (that don’t always favour expression of feminity btw) that affect opportunity for women

Do you have any practical experience or is this something someone once posted on a feminist forum?

As for SarahCarer who needs men to put women down or belittle their achievements when there are feminists like you so ready to step up to the mark. Your comments about high heels and nails are laughable- yeah we really want to hire an incompetent woman just because she looks good.

Pratchet- you keep asking if I am against self ID? Why? I rarely post on trans threads. I think MN FWR is obsessed with trans issues to the exclusion almost of talking about anything else. I think the push to normalise prostitution and pornography is far more dangerous for women and society than trans rights.