Obsession with transwomen fetishises sex difference

[spannablue]

Just read on Twitter:

'The problem with patriarchy is not due to men having penises, it's due to the lie that this random feature of birth confers & signifies rank, power & domination. We must not collude in that by fetishising sex difference & aggrandizing genitals that happen to be on the outside.'

What do you think?

But like most of us postmodern feminists I'm concerned that we must acknowledge bodily experience as part of that. This isn't easy

Actually, I am now wondering if this is in fact an admission of cognitive dissonance.

YetAnotherSpartacus, yeah, I get the thinking, and I thought it was probably something like that - much like the question around using 'battle language' around cancer or suicide.

But I find it hugely tone deaf in significant ways because of how similar it is to justifications for rape being no big deal.

To use an analogy - I have lost children in utero. It was very distressing at the time, but I don't spend any time now remembering their due dates or other things. I only named one. However, I know many women who have experienced still birth or miscarriage find it hugely helpful to speak about their lost children openly and often. It doesn't feel at all right to me. I lost children, it doesn't help me at all to dwell on that.

However, it would be phenomenally tone deaf of me to expend lots of energy arguing that my approach was more 'neutral' etc. If you're not hugely distressed by a bad thing, to the point that you are neutral about it, then why do you need a special term to describe it?

I’ve read it fermat and it is indeed brilliant :)

One of the things that’s key to the name of the rose is the idea of humour being a very dangerous thing for ideology (for anyone who hasn’t read the book, I’d recommend it as an antidote to extremism in general, however, don’t bother with the film, which managed to strip every bit of subtext and intelligence from the text*) eco also pokes fun at how language is used to obscure things - from very sad and banal things to true evil. There’s probably a lot more in there I miss but I’m no intellectual.

As we’ve said before: there’s no fun in fundamentalism ;)

*although it does have a naked Christian slater on a pile of fish, if that’s an idea that appeals...

Aak when I was in my uni library looking for books on violence against women, sex/gender readers etc I swear I found a book on the sexuality of the foot.
Like that was relevant to anything.

When 50% of the founding document of Queer theory revolve around legalizing paedophilia, that is all I need to know, really.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u3hmZCsXoE

Shocking. I only started noticing the covert nods toward pedophilia a couple days ago, this is MUCH worse than I thought. This has probably been part of their agenda since Day One...?!

Superpopping

Lots of decent feminist women put a lot of energy into helping the woman quoted in the op to gain an understanding of feminism and to get through her PhD.

Except that I'm afraid I'm not at all sure that that's true. Postmodern, poststructuralist feminism has permeated right through university departments, and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is now not just the accepted version of feminism, but almost the mandatory version. So it's very likely that the writer of that tweet in fact was taught this stuff at university.

This is based on personal experience.
It is true.

I was not meaning professors at university.
I was meaning very kind and wonderful radical feminists who were delighted to see a young woman taking on the patriarchy through academic work.

Heartbreaking.

I remember a school friend and a video copy of The Name of The Rose, spending ages with the pause button and boring the crap out of everyone because you can see Christian Slater's genitals for a split second and wasn't that naughty and exciting.

Using the overly simplistic phrases "supporting trans rights" or "opposing trans rights" is an attempt to frame the argument in a fundamentally dishonest way, in my opinion. Trans people have the same rights as everyone else, plus additional protection under the Equalities Act. By using these phrases you are falling into the trap of framing things as a simplistic binary in precisely the way that postmodernists supposedly are supposed to be trying to avoid. I'm afraid I see this as opportunistic and hypocritical
Kesstrel this is spot on

But materialist feminism is still being taught in a few places. The amazing Stevi Jackson is still supervising PhDs in York.

Birdbandit

Our grannies are laughing at our kids for their puritanical understanding of sexuality, and their insistence that they are "woke".

This comment really struck home to me, with your use of the word puritanical. I wonder how far this is simply another one of the endless variants throughout history and around the world of philosophies/religions based on revulsion at the crudeness of physical sexuality, and a desire (mainly from men) to rise above it, seemingly always ending in scapegoating women?

Thanks, Turph!

One of the things pomo does is drain words of any useful meaning. The thread title here is an excellent example - what does "fetishises" mean in that context? Certainly not what it usually means, and if the new hollowed out, redirected meaning stands then it becomes harder to use the word to mean what it originally did, and therefore harder to discuss the phenomenon described.

Repeat for "woman", "sex", and so on.

The actual literal festival of the phallus is to me an example of actual fetishising

But that's OK, you see, because the people attending that festival like cocks. It's when someone doesn't that there's a problem.

www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/social-brain-social-mind/201205/the-mind-body-illusion

Very outdated thinking under the guise of modern pomo twaddle imo

I am in no way trying to say that is a bad festival. Just what 'fetishising the penis' brings to mind.

Although I would likely politely decline any invitation extended to me.

The Name of The Rose, spending ages with the pause button and boring the crap out of everyone because you can see Christian Slater's genitals for a split second and wasn't that naughty and exciting

It was erect too!

Re the issue of rape - I might just stand aside because I don't understand German and I'd like to see the whole context but I agree that your translation makes her work sound very suspect.

Just like the term 'survivor' the term 'experiencer' shifts from passivity to activity, but without value judgement. After all, every experience is only determined (in value) by the added adjective (beautiful experience, gruesome experience, boring experience) and even leaves room for ambivalence (a gruesome but banal experience).

"Experiencer" is a dreadful neologism.

I sort of get the idea here but did not want to be either passive victims or heroic survivors and all that these terms implied? They wanted something else - a more neutral statement but the problem I have is rape is a crime.

All crime requires a perpetrator to commit it and most require a person on whom that crime is perpetrated. Even crimes against property- e.g vandalism will impact indirectly on a person.

Calling someone the "victim of a burglary" is a neutral term. It does not imply heroism or passivity. It merely acknowledges what happened to that person.

Also "experiencer" to my ears anyway implies an element of choice.

"Experiences" are frequently marketed as fantastic/wonderful/ thrilling (I went on a tour of the Far East run by a company with "Experience" in its name)

Or "experience" is a postive thing in a career sense (my work profile says I have over 25 years experience in my chosen field)

I am not convinced "experience" is neutral.

“ am a postmodern/poststructoral feminist, yes. But like most of us postmodern feminists I'm concerned that we must acknowledge bodily experience as part of that. This isn't easy but Sara Ahmed and Lisa Blackman are making inroads”

Why isn’t it easy? (I may need a Dummies” guide to post structuralism OP so break it to me gently)

Calling someone the "victim of a burglary" is a neutral term. It does not imply heroism or passivity. It merely acknowledges what happened to that person

I get that. But I have also known many people who don't want to be seen as victims of a range of things from rape to DV to cancer. Not everything can be expressed in quasi legal terms. These people know that cancer is bad and that rape and DV are crimes and that the latter two crimes were committed by men, BUT they don't want to be seen (outside of the law) as 'victims'. At the same time, I also know those who have (had? experienced? been stricken with???) cancer who would punch anyone's lights out if they used the word 'journey'.

Christiane Rochefort did much the same thing in french with 'survivor.'

Different words are good for different things I suppose.

Victim is good because a crime took place. Because we don't always survive.

Kate smurthwaite had a good defense of that word in her last show.

Survivor is good as it implies we still have agency.
This isn't necessary with other crimes because victims of other crimes aren't as stigmatized.

Nancy Fraser wrote about the way different forms of injustice require different forms of remedy. And sometimes that means clashes of remedy.

The fact rape happens is a sociopolitical injustice. It harms women in a material way.
The fact rape victims are stigmatized and silenced is possibly more of a cultural injustice.

So requires a different remedy.

And they both clash even though proponents of both genuinely want to help women.

Whatever the ops motives for starting this thread I want to thank them because some of the posts are fascinating. Barracker's post really resonates with me because I am in the 'bear of little brain' category. I am not stupid but not having been to uni I find that the language used leaves me a bit behind sometimes, yes I can use a dictionary but it interrupts the thought process somewhat. I read these boards but rarely post, so i hope I am not stating the bleedin' obvious when I comment about the person mentioned who queried Posie Parker not wanting to share a cubicle with a man when she has a husband. It shows, to me, a basic lack of understanding of feminist women. They assume that as a feminist, Posie must hate men, therefore how does she tolerate one in her home? They surely can't be stupid enough to assume that if she is happy to have a particular man in her spaces then she should welcome any man there?

If you're not hugely distressed by a bad thing, to the point that you are neutral about it, then why do you need a special term to describe it?

This.

It's daft anyway as an argument.
We have sex segregation in family life.
Mums tend to take girls into changing spaces and loos and dads tend to accompany boys.
And single mums hover anxiously trying not to think the worst.
Or get glares from other women if we bring boys into sex segregated spaces.

Girls might share a bedroom. Beyond a certain age we wouldn't expect them to share a room with a brother. This is reflected in housing policy.

But also its sad to see somebody being punished for being a straight woman standing up for women's rights.

I hope I don't do that. It's shoddy.