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 missed where the milk of the biologically male transperson was empirically shown to be of equal quality to a lactating female, and of the same benefit to the infant - able to change its constituents in response to the environment.

Cows lactate and their milk has been empirically studied; you don’t want to breastfeed - use formula. (FYI I am very pro breastfeeding. IN SITUATIONS WHERE THERE IS AN ACTUAL BENEFIT !)

By the way, the infant in that one study was not exclusively breastfed by their father iirc, it was supplemental

Jezebel Your ideological stance seems to be based on much of Geraldine Bunbury's early work, which is interesting as she's quite an obscure feminist

Yes I was wondering about Jezebel's ideology too.

TLDR for all posts trying to respond to Jiz delicately; basically RFs may believe gender dysphoria is the main cause (at least recent-historically), they may believe best treatment for some includes social and surgical transition, they may believe they are at risk of certain things usually directed at women. But they do/did not believe transwomen are literally women, they do not believe in a ladybrain and it is utterly irreconcilable with the suggestion that women were - and continue to be - oppressed based on their biology, not some mystical “female essence”. Tackling the root cause would of course benefit GNC males, but the idea that RF considers men women if they say so is antithetical to the whole bloody thing. /rant

The political position you’re advocating, with its privileging of subjectivity over material reality and therefore its individualism rather than class politics is what liberal feminism IS. It wouldn’t matter if Kate Millet herself rose from the dead and announced TWAW, the position itself would still be fundamentally contradictory to radical feminist theory and politics.

This.

I know I am judgey but I always feel so disappointed when a woman falls under the spell of a man, takes his name, becomes his 'Mrs', sacrifices her career so he can advance his.*

Can feminists be called narrow minded or are they only allowed to label and judge everyone else?

Males lactating is normally a sign something is seriously wrong, or a side effect of cancer treatment. It’s not at all radical to force that on an infant. It would be radical to value the exceptional role that women have breast for, that they can make a substance that science can’t come close to replicating. Now if we were to value the exceptional thing women’s breast can do we may be able to recognise that women don’t have breasts for the pleasure of men.

I believe a trans woman was able to exclusively breastfeed her adopted child for six weeks.

No they were able to induce lactation with a cocktail of hormones. The milk produced would never be sufficient to feed an infant.

Note also that women who take a single dose of the morning after pill are often instructed to pump and dump to avoid the hormones passing to the baby.

If a man lactates it’s a sign of high prolactin levels which can be caused by several disease processes and many drugs (it’s quite common on antipsychotics for example, or with certain tumours.)

For a physician to induce Male lactation with a hormone and drug cocktail is grossly unethical because the milk is being fed to a baby with no thought to what is in it - most drugs in serum pass to milk in some amount.

The lactation was not done to meet the baby’s nutritional needs. It was done to validate the male parent at an unknown but potentially serious cost to the infant.

That is not OK.

Gronky The statement that Jezebelz made (and the one to which I was objecting) was that "some radical feminists support transgenderism". Which just isn't possible once someone accurately understands the distinction between radical feminism and liberal feminism.

Hi Jezebelz, you said:

Plenty of radical feminists support transgender equality. Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon for example.

Two things. First the word 'equality' what do you mean by that? All of those women you mentioned were very careful to stress that they thought transsexuals deserved to be free from harassment and discrimination. Perhaps this is what you are thinking of, when you use that word? Because none of them ever agreed that women should tolerate random dicks in the women's showers, prisons, hospital wards, sports etc.

Second notice the conflation. Forty years ago Dworkin thought transsexuals (the average transperson at the time) should be free from random harassment on the street, and today trans claims that she wanted dick in the women's showers. Where is the proof, dear? Where is the quote? Also notice how the typical libfems assumes she is not obliged to back up her claim. Anybody can type the names of feminists, but where is your evidence? Do you have any quotes where Dworken said hell yes to dick in the women's showers?

It is perfectly feasible for feminists to want to abolish the patriarchy and oppose all sexual objectification of women (radical) and still accept and trans women as women.

Originally you said "radical feminists believe transwomen are women" which is what I am objecting to. At what point does it occur to you that you need to provide evidence for a statement of fact? Repeating 'x = y' a thousand times is not the thing which it true. Evidence makes it true, so where's yours?

Is this the new tactic? Call yourselves radfems, then try to redefine what it means?
Thats the definition of colonization.

Upstart, there’s a parallel somewhere there... rhymes with schwimmin...?

The lactation was not done to meet the baby’s nutritional needs. It was done to validate the male parent

This. The need for validation supplants everything, even the welfare of newborn babies.

Is it cool to call yourself a radfem or something because I don’t understand why you would identity as something (you didn’t have to) and then start rewriting it to be what you think it should be in order to meet your internal version of it, as opposed to an external agreed definition of it.

I’d love to be sat clueless, going on about my amazing life, oblivious to all the shit many women endure and have endured and writing off the consequences as choice. I’m really struggling with my current situation and it’s so heartening to see other women saying women like me aren’t feminists or shore up the patriarchy. You could offer to help pull us up instead of writing us off.

The lactation was not done to meet the baby’s nutritional needs. It was done to validate the male parent
The need for validation supplants everything, even the welfare of newborn babies.

It takes a very very sick person to use a baby as a prop in this way, risking their health. It should be illegal.

It takes a very very sick person to use a baby as a prop in this way, risking their health. It should be illegal.

YY. I remember freaking out because I accidentally used biological washing powder for the baby clothes. What kind of sick bastard puts their own need for validation above the needs of their tiny little baby?

As far as I can tell the belief is that that gender dysphoria is somehow rooted in biology or brain chemistry, and is hard-wired and immutable in much the same way sexuality is. And that to not accept someone as the sex class into which they identify is akin to saying lesbians just need a good seeing to or talking about keeping your back to the wall around gay men - just old-fashioned, bigoted and intolerant.

Seems like a good way to put it, thank you. If no men were violent or used their greater strength to terrorize, I wouldn't care who used the women's showers. There would be no need to sex based segregation.

But enough men are violent, enough men are creepy, enough men do use their greater strength to terrorize. Not sure how many women are old enough to remember when all the online discussions were centered on rape. And it took a good ten years of very intense discussions before most participants at the time were willing to accept what was a radical concept for the time period.

Women can't tell just by looking which man is the rapist. And guess what? We're still having the exact same discussion. We can't tell just by looking which trans is safe, which trans is the creep, and which trans is just a regular het man pretending to be trans. At the end of all those discussions about rape, people accepted that no, the only group who benefits when women aren't allowed to have boundaries, are sexist dangerous men.

Same thing here. I hope it doesn't take you ten years.

What kind of sick bastard puts their own need for validation above the needs of their tiny little baby?

Someone who absolutely should not be allowed to be a parent, if they don't give a shit about harming a baby, what other abuse would they visit upon the child?

Gronky The statement that Jezebelz made (and the one to which I was objecting) was that "some radical feminists support transgenderism". Which just isn't possible once someone accurately understands the distinction between radical feminism and liberal feminism.

Based upon who you ask, there are different definitions given for what exactly does and does not constitute radical feminism. Rather than attribute specific beliefs to you that you may not have, I was working purely within what you have said, specifically:
if something is bad for women then a radfem won't support it

What I disagree with is that you are essentially presenting your opinion (i.e. supporting transgenderism being bad for women) as immutable fact. If a radfem believed that supporting transgenderism would be good for women then they remain within the definition of a radfem. There could be any number of reasons for them believing this.

I personally do not believe that unrestricted transgenderism will be beneficial for women in the long term but I do take issue with dictating to other feminists what they can and cannot believe or terms under which they are allowed or not allowed to hold certain beliefs.

Might I suggest engaging in a debate, exploring the root cause for why your fellow radfem holds differing beliefs to you (as well as why you hold the beliefs you do) and attempting to perhaps reach either a consensus or an understanding?

Because Jezebelz isn't a radfem, thinks the term sounds extremist and thinks its needs rebranding.
We dont need to reach a consensus with them before stating a position that has been discussed and codified decades ago.

thinks the term sounds extremist and thinks its needs rebranding

Where did she say that? I've read through every one of her messages in this thread and can't find anything along those lines, perhaps you could help me out?

A nasty habit I've noticed among some MumsNetters is to assign distorted values or (hopefully accidental) misinterpretations of what has been said in a way which makes disagreement with them easier. It strikes me as a form of gaslighting, which makes it particularly troubling, considering the history of the technique being used to abuse women.

Gronky thank you. I believe you don't come across many trans inclusive feminists posting on FWR as the conversation is shut down before it can really begin.

We should be able to have these open discussions amongst ourselves without closing rank.

Gronky
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3418901-how-do-you-interpret-radical-feminism?msgid=82473172

I do think 'radical' has negative connotations though and rad fem could do with a rebrand.

Radical feminists dont think radical feminism needs a rebrand, we are happy with it the way it is. Thanks anyway.

Yeah i stand by what I said on the other thread. The word 'radical' does have negative connotations. I didn't say it sounded extremist though.

We should be able to have these open discussions amongst ourselves without closing rank.

I may disagree with your stance on transgenderism but I absolutely agree with this. If every feminist discussion were shut down with 'we've discussed this before and a consensus has been reached' we'd still be disenfranchised, maternity leave wouldn't exist and rape wouldn't be a crime within marriage.

UpstartCrow, thank you. I'm very glad to find that you aren't one of the gaslighters. Personally, I think debate is worth having because there's the possibility for all parties to learn something new and the alternative is ending up with the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front and the Judean Popular People's Front.