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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Mathew Parris: Maybe Treatment of Trans People is Our Generation’s Blindspot

64 replies

Redkeyboard · 06/10/2018 07:36

Interesting column. Also includes this paragraph:

On the facts and the rationalities I’m with my brave Times colleague Janice Turner, whose journalism I much respect. I don’t think women can have penises; don’t think anybody in any field is free to categorise themselves without reference to how others would describe them; I do think women who want “women-only” places have a right for their fears to be heard; and I do think that, changing gender being so important a step and so hard to reverse, we should give deep thought to how fast and how early in life a person should do this.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/prejudice-will-never-be-a-thing-of-the-past-qbft3z07f

OP posts:
ChrysanthemumsAreMums · 06/10/2018 08:52

fufulina

Yes, gay people wanted the same rights as heterosexuals

Trans people want privileges

boatyardblues · 06/10/2018 08:52

Please posters with Times accounts post some of the on point responses in this thread in the Times. I refuse to see a dumb article as a bad thing at the mo, so long as its possible to present alternative views & resources in the comments.

Threewheeler1 · 06/10/2018 08:57

Read the full article now.
Would have been better to let Janice do the talking and leave it at 'I stand with Janice'.
I had a bit of hope that there'd be some critical thinking but I'm not seeing any in what he writes.
It's more of the wholesale ignorance that women simply don't understand what it's like to bound by gender norms. Hmmmm.
There have been some good things this week - Spectator, Tom Farr, Jonny Best etc.
Parris has just regurgitated a whole load of stereotypes and false comparisons without thinking in any depth about the starting point for women. If you ignore or misunderstand that, you're never going to appreciate how this all impacts upon us.
Wrt to Pips Bunce 'womanface' thing, that grates on me continually.

ErrolTheDragon · 06/10/2018 08:57

Well, I'm glad that on the facts and rationalities he's with Janice Turner.

There’s a “but” coming, though. Only a woman can know how it feels, or have first-hand experience of how the world is reacting to them....
I'll take a bet there was institutional sexism in the FCO when he was there too which he never noticed (two or three women, eight or nine men in his cohort? What proportions made it to the top?) and which the women didn't complain about.

Matthew- women want to break the cages of gender. We want men to be able to do so too. The current genderism is analogous to if Robin was accepted into the FCO because he was Oxbridge, because had acquired some indefinable 'englishness'. Nowadays (I hope) a British Asian is accepted for their talents, for their integrity - not for having transitioned to 'Englishness'.

SuperLoudPoppingAction · 06/10/2018 08:59

If anyone manages to quote Marilyn frye's 'network of forces and barriers designed to mould' etc in the times comment section I will send you a Spartacus badge. Trufax

rightreckoner · 06/10/2018 09:00

Matthew Parris is a good writer but he has a massive blind spot which is women. He doesn’t appear to spend any time thinking about women’s lives because he’s never had to.

Some gay men are our allies, understanding the challenge of not being a part of the patriarchy; some are utterly unaware of us because they have no wives or daughters and spend their lives in a male realm and do well at work without needing women; and some hate us because we frankly disgust them.

Matthew is in the middle group.

He wrote a piece once about abortion which failed to recognise that it’s not simply a philosophical issue - pregnancy is a matter of life or death for a group of people that he’s not in. He wrote it as if abortion was like Brexit - an important issue for political discussion. It is an important issue for political discussion but it’s also about what happens to my womb, my vagina, my flesh.

ErrolTheDragon · 06/10/2018 09:01

I've never heard of Marilyn Frye, do you have a link to what you're referring to, super?

Manderleyagain · 06/10/2018 09:04

Pips bunce and Alex with the beard are almost in a gender cafe (idea a few posts up). It would be liberating if they did it from the position of manhood or maleness.

ErrolTheDragon · 06/10/2018 09:08

Yes, right, that does appear to be the case - we have exemplars of the three types now in Best, Parris and Harrop.

It's ironic that the column has in its heading mention of 'our generation’s blind spot' when he seems to have a massive blind spot about women. Of course, the women with whom he does associate now are likely to be the ones who've achieved some success despite misogyny and structural sexism.

Redkeyboard · 06/10/2018 09:09

Yes Manderley if those two did their thing as men without trying to claim they are actually women sometimes. So near and yet so far.

Although not sure fake boobs and stereotyped sexy clothes at work is quite radically breaking down the gender cafe, but can’t quite put my finger on why.

OP posts:
SuperLoudPoppingAction · 06/10/2018 09:10

people.terry.uga.edu/dawndba/4500Oppression.html
Errol you're in for a treat.

She also wrote one on separatism and power.
And one on racism.
She's amazing.

EverardDigby · 06/10/2018 09:10

I've commented (but not Marilyn Fry!) All comments pending approval, I'll go back and maybe comment again one I see what else is there.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 06/10/2018 09:11

Yeah. Woke bloke edging around the bits of reality he can't get away from.

I'm so glad you think women should have some right to talk about men in their spaces Matthew - how about thinking that through a bit more and confronting your own male entitlement going on in there?

This will be our generation's blind spot and there will be a whole lot of looking back in horror, but not in the way you're suggesting

JenFromTheGlen · 06/10/2018 09:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

speakingwoman · 06/10/2018 09:14

Gender s indeed a cafe.:)
Off to spread more jam.

FlowersAndHerts · 06/10/2018 09:16

Busy saying nothing, arse covering article.
Totally agree with this. It was heartening to see the paragraph highlighted in the OP, but he goes on to talk about the rage that many trans people feel, as if that explains the action that's being taken to silence people who question self ID. Needless to say, all comments on the article are still pending!

AngryAttackKittens · 06/10/2018 09:20

Do the rest of us have any idea of the invisible cage that gender makes around us all, and the tremendous difficulty and pain of breaking it?

Do women realize that gender is a cage, and how hard that cage is to break? Oh, I don't know, you could maybe take a look at the entire history of feminism for an answer that covers the last hundred plus years, and a great deal of women's writing going all the way back to antiquity for further evidence.

LangCleg · 06/10/2018 09:26

I think it’s a bit crap to be honest. Asks if we can really understand the cage of gender. Yes, Matthew, you total arse, all women can. Drips with mansplaining and fails to see the massive elephant in the transroom of how fucking sexist the whole thing is.

Yes. He conceptualises the whole thing as transgressing gender when actually it's the reification of gender.

On the upside - he does seem to recognise practicalities involved.

Nicknamesalltaken · 06/10/2018 09:28

I don’t like ‘trans’ being liked to race or sexuality. I don’t know what his definition of ‘trans’ is and I think that’s hugely important here.

It all read a bit ‘be nice’ and ‘be careful you don’t end up on the wrong side of history’ to me.

NoSquirrels · 06/10/2018 09:41

I do think women who want “women-only” places have a right for their fears to be heard;

We have a right for our fears to be heard. But maybe not the right to enforce the boundaries of our sex-based protections?

Listen to the women, sure - but they might be on the wrong side of history so, you know, be nice...

heresyandwitchcraft · 06/10/2018 09:46

It will be a blindspot. Because the people the trans activists and their allies are blind to, and actively ignoring, shutting down, persecuting, and demonizing are:
-lesbians
-mothers
-feminists
-transsexuals
-ordinary women
-some gay men
-people who dares to defend the facts of basic biology, or look into this subject properly
I think anyone with common sense will go, well hey, those are actually generally caring groups of people with expertise in gender, non-conforming, tackling prejudice, acceptance of others, being a woman, and caring for children. Why aren't they being acknowledged as legitimate stakeholders in this?
As a man, you can have no understanding of what it means to actually be born a female.
The whole point is that neither can any male, including those who call themselves women.
Why in the hell would lesbians and radical feminists suddenly decide to become "hateful bigots"? The answer is they are not. They just think the cotton ceiling is a bunch of rapey bullshit, that straight men can't call themselves lesbians and demand sex, that women should not have to compete with men in sports, that men shouldn't be in women's prisons or refuges, that men do not have the right to speak "on behalf of women," that men cannot dictate women's boundaries, and men are not the arbiter of the definition of woman. Women have a right to self-determination, to assemble freely, to exclude men from certain spaces, and to freedom of speech.
Biology still matters, and always will, no matter what the claims are to the contrary. Magically, in this debate, trans activists still seem to know who the actual female-born women are in order to burn them at the stake for their heresy.
A declaration of a feminine gender identity does not change these basic principles, and in many situations can be seen as an actual affront (Pips Bunce the "part time woman" comes to mind). These individuals are born as males, grow up as men, and later say they identify as women. Caitlyn Jenner does not know what it's like to be female-born, whether as an athlete or carrying a child as a mother.
Stop speaking as though sexism is not the most important part to consider in all of this. I think widespread misogyny is the only reason this ideology hasn't been shut down for the farce it is, because men just don't seem to care or acknowledge that lesbians don't do dick and should not be coerced to consider men as sexual partners, no matter how they identify inside. It's all starting to make me think that perhaps men think women actually are just a feeling in your head, an extension of men, that men can become women just by donning a dress or high heels. Maybe men really don't think women actually exist, that women don't have a right to penis-free facilities, or that women don't face sexism.
Matthew Parris sure seems to be struggling with these ideas.

arranfan · 06/10/2018 09:55

If only even Elizabeth Barrett-Browning had written a verse novel, maybe called it Aurora Leigh and in Book 1 included this description of what happens to a young girl in society, hampered by social expectations:

A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage, And she was there to meet me. Very kind. Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed.

arranfan · 06/10/2018 10:02

If Robin Chatterjie had moaned about racial prejudice (he never breathed a word on the subject) I’d have said he was imagining it, making a fuss about nothing.

In a nutshell, emotionally and cognitively, politically, there is Matthew P again, doing the same to women while not savouring the irony.

arranfan · 06/10/2018 10:07

Yes - MP is missing the point.

Those racist Civil Servants had to distort reality to justify their phobia.

TRAs and their woke allies are demanding that women should accept the distorted reality of others and to cede our civil rights and legal right to exist. We are on the other end of that - call if misogyny, call it coercive control on a societal scale.

As ever, Matthew P would have benefited from reading or chatting to Jane Clare Jones on these matters. E.g., GAY RIGHTS AND TRANS RIGHTS – A COMPARE AND CONTRAST

janeclarejones.com/2018/09/09/gay-rights-and-trans-rights-a-compare-and-contrast/

nicenewdusters · 06/10/2018 10:16

I think he's just hedging his bets so history won't judge him.

His lack of self awareness about being trapped in the gender cage is just perfect. He couldn't feel the racist undertones that his colleague would have, just as he can't feel how a natal born woman feels when a man self identifies as a woman and expects her to move over.

I have some experience of civil service fast streamers. Very academic and confident, but socially rounded and outward looking - not so much.