A new race of non-feminist superwomen

[thatdamnwoman]

I'm heading rapidly for 60 but I'm meeting more and more women who are the product of feminism's fights but not, it would seem to me, feminist.

In their late 30s and 40s, they're hospital consultants heading up large departments, they're heading council departments, they're aiming for political office, they're CEOs or they run their own businesses. They all, every single one I can think of, either run marathons or are triathletes or, at the very least, seriously competitive cyclists. Some of them are lesbians, few of them have children. Most of those I know are politically left-leaning. They are fiercely intelligent and driven and terrifyingly confident and accomplished. There's nowhere in the world they haven't been: most have worked abroad and they're globally connected. And this is just in my small and unremarkable city.

I was out last night with a group that included two of these superwomen. I sat there, the oldest in the group, watching and listening and acknowledging that they are the fruit of feminism: confident, intelligent women achieving their potential and helping to change the world.

And yet... Both of them talked several times about their transgender friends without any apparent questioning of the way some of them slip in and out of various identities. They believe gender is a 'thing' rather than a social construct. They think sex is irrelevant, just a random outcome to be ignored. Our evening of conversation covered homelessness, poverty, earnings — but never in the context of women. Women, men, all apparently equal.

One of them has funded a project in a deprived area to support transgender children and talked about how awful it was that a 13-year-old girl had found help too late to be prescribed puberty blockers and would have to undergo mastectomy at a later date. I and a couple of other women just looked at our plates and said nothing: it really wasn't the place to start talking about it.

I gave three women a lift home afterwards. All of us are old-fashioned feminists. We sat in the car till gone midnight, with the windows fogged up, wondering what happened to feminism that so many of the women who've benefitted from the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers are now what someone described as 'amazing men with vaginas'.

I think we choose to live with the lie, or live with the truth.
I find it easier to live with the truth. At least that way I don't have to play the constant placating game. And I don't have to live with the constant fear that I can suddenly have it all taken away for refusing to play the game well enough - you cant lose what you never had.

This is how oppressive systems work. A handful of individuals from the oppressed class are allowed to 'make it' almost as though they have privilege. The price they pay is alienation from their own class. Their function is to make it appear as though the oppression is a choice or failing inherent to other members of their class rather than an external imposition.

You can see examples of this throughout history wrt women, black people and working class people.

It's a lot to do with denial, not wanting to see oneself as a victim, particularly for these strong, independent women. It's understandable, it's depressing and tiring to allow oneself to acknowledge all the ways in which women are oppressed and the transgender trend obscures that, making it appear empowering for those not familiar with the full context and ideology behind it. If she's funding a project she should surely be aware of the gender critical view, however, and be prepared to justify her position.

It was the place to start talking about it. The other woman had already started. That's your female socialisation right there stopping you from stating your strongly held opinion. It seems you are cross with them for being able to state opinions while you are still afraid so you say they are really men. Come on. Don't blame them for you being a wet blanket last night

Interesting point OP -I know a few women that fit that description. They are all from fairly well off backgrounds and I wonder if that has protected them to some extent from experiencing female oppression in the most obvious ways. I don't mean that they haven't experienced it at all - just that it might not be quite as clear to them for that reason?

I think this is my daughter too. We just cannot agree. She says I am a bigot and I should let them live their lives. And that they are women if they say they are and they should be able to access women's spaces. I am sad and angry. Things I fought for, for women, to keep them safe, she is willing to give away.

I say I have given her feminist principles and she should be supporting women. She says I have given her a sense of fairness, and treating everyone equally. She is right, I have, but I cannot make her see this is not treating people equally, this is men taking priority, again, pushing women out of the way.

I don’t think this is anything knew. Greer said that the misogyny of women is the biggest problem women face & she’s got a point, but fails to address her own misogyny so demonstrates her own point.

She told women that caring for a home & raising children was not ‘feminist’ enough and excluded millions of women round the world who have no choice. She back tracked later of course and said that if a women chose to be a sahp it was equally worthy a choice. But this is the problem with second wave feminism in itself. Part of the start of feminism (as I understand it, and I acknowledge I not as well versed as some) was that a women’s role in the home raising children and running the home was of equal value to a man’s role of earning out side the home, deserving of equal share in the home assests income etc but second wave came along and made the women’s role of carrying children, caring for them, cooling & cleaning, managing the oragamisation of a home a thing for lesser women to do, so that ‘real women’ could go into traditional male areas of working outside the home. Which under mines the importance of women’s roles (hense why women’s jobs are under paid and under valued) and the importance of children’s experience. If the follow through had been women’s role in the home been seen as equal value then men would be much more inclined to take an equal part of it and would free women up to pursue careers and education without lessening the importance of transitional women’s roles.

I think it’s not surprising that this gave way to a world where women continue to hold onto the same misogyny that’s socialised into us. Where women’s bodies or our eggs can be hired to give the real women who want careers children without having to do the work of lesser women. It’s not surprising to me thar these women can feel it’s fone for women’s bodies to be purchased for men’s pleasure or that they see womanhood as discardable and don’t see the problem with some men picking up what they discard. The division between women suits and serves men perfectly well. And the misuse of feminism to meet that need means it’s open for men to continue to misuse to meet their own agenda.

I don’t agree with Greer as such, I think the problem facing women is always men. But I think she has a point and I think she played a part in it, however unintentionally.

I don’t think it’s surprising that women want to identify as strong women equal to men who can play in an equal playing field and who don’t experience the oppression that gets ousted onto the lesser class of women who face the reality of womanhood, the poorer ones, the more vulnerable ones, woc or who live elsewhere or who don’t have the education to achieve the class of equal to men in every way. It’s ladette culture grown up and I think it’s obvious then it was going to be harmful. I’m similar age & class to what you describe op, and the feminists I knew as a child hated women, they hated women who did women’s roles or wore make up or the slut shamed or victim blamed and so on. It’s always been there imho.

Oh and to add, it’s the equivalent of colour blindness, which I find helpful when calling it out.

Both my grandmothers never worked after marrying. Never had passports, never travelled. Didn't drive, not even in the later years when their husbands were driving.
A part time job maybe after the children had grown up.
Kept the house warm with coal fires and cooking. Not to mention the laundry. No pill. No sport.

Next generation..
My mother worked but wasn't the main earner. She hadn't travelled widely, didn't have a passport. Didn't drive until much later in life. Keep fit class once a week.
The house was easier to keep warm once there was central heating. Laundry was still a chore, twin tub washing machine, no tumble drier at the start.
Birth control had become available (as we all know) for married women.

Next generation..
In my area when my kids were infants, many mums were at home, took up jobs as the kids got older. Some of us kept fit with aerobics.
Now many of the young mums all work, all drive, many have travelled. Many do competitive sports.

It should be pretty much equal, shouldn't it?

The superwomen are in charge of their bodies, there are many, many sports they can take part in.
They have become driven, competitive and are breaking new ground.

Good for them.
But I fear the new generation of superwomen assume the previous generations of women just didn't try hard enough.
Sad.

I know quite a few women like this. I have a feeling it has a lot to do with age and class - they come from relatively privileged backgrounds and grew up in a time when it was believed feminism was no longer needed. And it's easy for them to overlook the fact that for many, probably most other women life is still full of challenges.

An example is the woman you mentioned who has set up a project to help trans children in a deprived area - what is she doing to help non-trans children in that area? Or is the case that helping those children doesn't give her a nice warm glow of wokeness?

There's an enduring fantasy that all you have to do is speak the truth and people will listen, because logic will win the day.
Thats not how it works.
People dont want to give up power or privilege, and they dont want to hear about how it harms others.

CottonTailRabbit — no, it was a birthday dinner for someone who may not live to see another birthday and it really wasn't the place to start what could have been a very difficult and divisive conversation.

I’m heading into 50s and have a professional career in male dominated STEM and am very much aware that I’m one of the first women to buy into the dream of ‘having it all’, and am grateful for the opportunities I had due to feminism. Never considered myself a feminist until recently when this whole trans thing flipped me over into being one. I’m right leaning though (I know that’s not the PC thing on MN or IRL), I say that as I hope you were not correlating intelligence with left winged ness.

I sense there is arrogance and entitlement in your group of superwomen friends though.

The older generation must not roll over and concede to those who are inexperienced in life.

Older women are majorly silenced due to their socialisation in a way that older males are not.

Op, it is interesting that you felt unable to speak out.
It is good to recognise this and I am glad you have started this thread to discuss concerns that many of us feel unable to in real life.

The terrible thing is it won't be for another decade until your friends start to wonder. They will have been replaced in work by this new "version" of be-penised women who will never need the maternity leave, carer's leave etc that feature so strongly in women's lives. Women's sport will be dominated by the new "male" version of women and they may start wondering. And when the lawsuits start rolling in from the anguished and infertile 25 years olds facing a future of sexless relationships maybe then they may start to consider whether their thoughtless obliteration of women's history and experience was worth it.

Or maybe not.

It’s interesting that you say “few of them have children”.

My experience is motherhood meant making decisions that I wouldn’t have had to make before. Time is very rationed now. I’d like to do a triathalon but I’m busy and exhausted and it wouldn’t be fun like it would in my childless days.

It's that pesky biology isn't it Delirium ? That thing that men and the woke repeatedly tell us to ignore.

They are all from fairly well off backgrounds and I wonder if that has protected them to some extent from experiencing female oppression in the most obvious ways.
This. If you have the money to walk away from an abusive partner, to be cushioned from the effects of having your job opportunities disappear or be curtailed because you become pregnant, have children or other caring responsibilities, you - and probably most of your peer group - are protected from some of disadvantage/discrimination women experience because of biology.

Delirium
few of them have children
That line jumped out at me as well.

I work in science (hospital) lots of women rising up the ranks.
Many with partners but majority without kids. Quite a few in their forties, leaving motherhood until later.
My generation started our families in our early twenties.

My experience is motherhood meant making decisions that I wouldn’t have had to make before. Time is very rationed now

Exactly this (well, not that I'm ever going to do a marathon) - DP and I both are senior in our jobs - but he gets to climb that bit higher because someone has to put the kids first - if he's not going to be able to be reliably home, I have to. If you don't have children, or you're rich enough to have people to do anything (or, have family to do so - I know a woman who's mother lives with them and looks after her children - freeing her to travel and work however she wants) then of course you're freer than the rest of us who don't - the annoying thing is how blind to that they are.

Having said that - for both of us, having the children has made us more brave/strong about negotiating for a new job. DP got a 20% bump on his last job but one because he turned it down at first, having done the sums and deciding it wasn't enough to make it worth uprooting the kids. I've been very firm with my freelancing, which actually makes me more valued, because I will only work around the kids. The most recent job, because it necessitated another move, the job pays for our kids international school fees and rent - because they wanted him, wanted him to move, and we had firm rules about what we would accept because of the kids.

Experience has also been a factor, but since having our kids, both our careers have actually taken off, and I think so much of it was due to having to say no to things until they worked for us and the family.

I had a discussion with a woman I met tonight. We ended up quite in depth. I explained how I had not “identified” as feminist, due to past criticism of being a SAHM. Then told a few stories of basically putting men who tried to belittle me in their place. She said (she’s in banking industry) don’t put yourself down. You’ve shut down tradies talking shit.

Women are really reaching out and finding common ground. I met the most amazing sister tonight.

Interesting responses and a lot to think about. I think perhaps most of them are from secure and privileged backgrounds and grew up with family support and the kind of confidence that a middle-class home and education give. I'm sure it's true that their privilege means they haven't faced the kind of male oppression that ordinary women face daily. The Thatcher reference in one response rang a bell with me. Even though the people I know are left of centre (not very far left) they are all committed capitalists and their expensive holidays are as meticulously planned as everything else in their lives. Which I'm not knocking: I could do with being better organised.

But with my rackety, disorganised life and career and great potholes in my confidence, I feel like a bag lady beside them and have to remind myself that having everything so completely under control is not necessarily a good thing.

Hmmm. All my female friends are successful, 40-something professional women, mostly married or in LTRs, some with children and some without. We all identify strongly and unequivocally as feminists. On the TWAW thing there's a pretty even split between those who agree and those who are fiercely gender critical - which is interesting because our political beliefs align on almost all other issues - but we've all got to the place where we are after a lot of thought.

So I guess it's a bit NASWALT 😂

But with my rackety, disorganised life and career and great potholes in my confidence, I feel like a bag lady beside them
Well said

We seem to have a need to be validated by our careers.