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'.

IDK any radfems that are gaslighters. They tend to be straight talkers and find the truth more convenient than convenient lies. Its why they aren't very popular outside of their own circles.

I'm not interested in the trans issue at all and what Jezebel has to say on that.

Her other comments were patronising, judgemental and offensive. I am not a radical feminist. I agreed with the "Geraldine Bunbury" comment but for a different reason.

If Jezebel is a radical feminist I'm very glad not to be one if it means being like her.

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

I've been thinking about this, it's really disturbing me. I really, really hope this isn't true (does anyone know?). How could any adoption agency put a child in such an abusive situation?

Basically this would be unsupervised drug experimentation on a newborn just to validate someone's feelings. i mean, if you'd do that you'd never, ever, ever put that child's needs first. And what happens when they find out that babies aren't props to validate parents identities? That they are needy and annoying (don't sleep when you want them to, wake up every few hours, don't let you get any sleep, poo/vomit all over your clothes etc). What a huge safeguarding red flag.

I really hope this is just a pile of bs because, if not, that poor, poor child. They'll never have a chance.

It wasn't true.
A trans woman took a lot of drugs and managed to produce some lactate. That has been interpreted by activists as breastfeeding.

It was extremely disturbing to read about it for several reasons. Mostly because it put the need for validation before the needs of the infant.

www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/health/transgender-woman-breast-feed.html

I was told I wasn’t allowed essential medication (that I’d researched and found was in the “safe” group of meds) for nearly a year after I had DS2. They point blank refused to give them to me because I was breastfeeding.

Eventually I got written evidence of how safe it was considered from an expert pharmacologist, and they still moaned that I shouldn’t be having it.

Upstart thanks for that link (I think, I'm better informed I still feel physically sick). So, this transperson gave milk to a tiny infant while taking drugs whose effect on babies has not been tested. I mean, FFS. And if I'm reading it correctly they had a female partner who gave birth and could have breastfed normally but chose not to.

I mean, god knows why you'd do that - raging out of control narcissism or a fetish but that kid is fucked regardless of whether the drugs cause long-term harm or not.

And how much doctors time was wasted that could have been spent on actual genuine medical need.

I am slightly relieved to see a transwoman quoted in the article who actually considers the needs of an infant before their fantasy of womanhood:

“We all want to have the same experiences as women,” Maria Clifford, 38, a British transgender mother who has been using a surrogate to breast-feed her child, said on Thursday. “We need further testing and evidence to show that these drugs aren’t going to cause harm to the baby.”

But the world has gone mad. Breastfeeding clinics are being shut down and this is happening.

Yes, Beyond but you're the wrong type of woman aren't you?

The type who they won't spend time or money on so just make blanket pronouncements without bothering to find out if they're true.

It doesn't matter if YOU are dissuaded from breastfeeding, or the impact of that on YOUR baby, just as long as some bloke manages to squeeze out a few drops to make themselves feel better - no medical cost too high!

Well done for persisting though, and doing the right thing for yourself and your baby.

I am now officially depressed about the world we live in.

This thread makes me feel sad and depressed. I am very far from a superwoman, though I had the education to be one - I was derailed by my own life choices, by children whose care and education I chose not to outsource, and by an emotionally abusive alcoholic of a 'partner', who I didn't leave because I didn't trust the Family Court (for good reason) or that the kids would be physically safe in 50% care of an alcoholic. And now the kids are getting older, I'm nothing, have nothing. And the women who have everything, are prepared to sell me even further down the river by denying my sex class and the needs of that class, in favour of arguing for males. There is no solidarity. It feels like there is no point, honestly. When the women in power hate you as much as the men in power, lower class women like me get the message we should just shut up, crawl away and die.

That’s awful beyond. I found it really easy to get my drs to agree to a wide variety of meds whilst bf by having the bf support network specialist pharmacist email all the studies over. I avoided a lot of meds also of course, that likely were safe but not enough research on to clarify that, but still managed 3yrs bf whilst accessing enough medication that met my needs at the time also. Which was all a relief as I had very high needs sucky kids and nursing helped us get through a lot of teething nights whilst still getting some sleep and I don’t function at all well without sleep due to my disabilities. It is awful how little gps know about drugs in breast milk. I’ve known a lot of mothers discharged with paracetamol after sections. Codine is no longer consider safe but nsais are as is Co dydramol, dyhydrocodine and even tramadol is according to bfsn, albeit there’s less research on that last one. But it’s like punishing women who want to nurse their babies, sending them home after major surgery with no pain relief, which is setting them up for chronic neuropathic pain long term. No man would ever be refused pain relief after major surgery.

Contentious Sorry you feel this way. Yes, you're being sold down the river by the women who've been let into the boys club (because that is what it is isn't it?).

But you're not nothing. There is solidarity here on FWR. We are beginning to fight back.

Re-reading that it doesn't read quite right. Contentious what I was trying to say is that you matter, you do. I know it doesn't feel like it at times, but you do. I bet your kids love you, and always will.

How can you be so sure these women are "a product of feminism's fights"?

I've no doubt that the work of feminists has made it easier for women to accomplish things in certain situations, but on the other hand there have always been strong women. Joan of Arc and Attilla the Hun, for instance, preceded feminism by several centuries.

In fact, the majority of female high flyers I encounter seem to be quite right leaning.

ineedacupoftea

Thanks. They do. But there are real issues out there - the one in my future is the rising rates of homelessness for older women who are in the rental market - and instead these women, these powerful women, couldn't give a .

Contentious yes, I agree, it's a really big issue. I don't know what the answer is. It seems to me all the women who are really powerful either don't have kids or have money behind them before they have kids so the impact of caring doesn't hit them.

ineedacupofteadesperately thanks for getting it. I just wish we didn't have to expend any energy at all on this bollocks, and could put it all towards the issues facing non super women - many of whom are dealing with far more than me.

*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.*

This earlier by ThePrincipal could almost be describing me!
The only differences are that my job wasn't professional, it was blue collar, and I am early 40s.

It is only in the last 3 years that the scales were ripped from my eyes - the catalyst was the trans stuff.

...and then I read the rest of the thread, & realised it had moved on massively 😳

Must RTFT before jumping in...

Yes, maybe we need a women's strike day like they had in Iceland in 1975 although there would be a problem for women who were single parents (sure we could figure something out - creches on the march?!). Because society only functions because of unpaid caring work of predominantly women. And the people who do it are repeatedly kicked in the teeth these days. Including by women in power who just don't get it. Lisa Muggeridge is very good on all this stuff and sees the connections.

Attila the Hun?

That was to ScottCheggJr.

Sorry, meant Bouddica.

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 know a lot of other things have been discussed on this thread, but this bit is to me the most disturbing part. How can these women think that prescribing off-label powerful medication to healthy children is a kind thing to do?

These are presumably intelligent, educated women. How can they not think through the consequences of this 'help' that they are giving to troubled children?

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

I'm fucking not. But I'm fucking tired of younger women fighting to put me right suck cock

at muddling up Boudicca and Attila the Hun!