How is this anything to do with furthering women's rights?

[SparrowNest]

I'm sympathetic to many radfem arguments, but I can't for the life of me understand how opposing lacy lingerie being made to fit a wider range of bodies helps women.

Given that similar lingerie already exists in standard women's sizes, surely expanding that so it can fit anyone is only lessening gender constraints? How is trying to restrict it only to biological women helping anything?

www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/03/01/anti-trans-protest-over-pornographic-transgender-lingerie-fashion-show

Are they making it to fit male bodies? I haven’t seen the article and it’s not clear from your post.

Ok, read the article.

I think it’s pretty clearly explained by the women quoted?

You need to read the article and then perhaps a few links to what the women were actually protesting about.

It's not about lingerie.

@WellErrr

Yes

@SpartacusAutisticusAHF

I've read it, I still think it seems meanspirited, petty and to have little if anything to do with helping women. If they showed up outside regular lingerie shows and protested "an image of femininity that comes straight out of the porn industry that we totally reject" it would at least be consistent.

I am very, very sympathetic on issues like self-ID and single sex spaces, prisons, the influence of organisations like Mermaids on children and so on.

But I think when you're aiming to prevent people attending a fashion show and buying the sort of underwear they want to wear, you've totally lost your way. It makes it seem like a vendetta against people with gender dysphoria rather than a serious attempt to protect women's rights.

How do you know they don't?

But women in lingerie shows aren’t men using lingerie to dress up as a fetishised version of women. That’s the difference.

But yeah, it’s all very clearly explained in the article.

People protest things all the time. You won’t agree with all of them, but it’s a free country.

Old school feminists have plenty of critique around lingerie.

Maybe read some.

@SardineQueenII I've done some searches and can't find anything, do you know something I don't? It seems like it would be the kind of thing they'd mention when explaining this action.

@WellErrr

Yes, it's a free country. And I decided to start a conversation about whether this particular protest was good or worthwhile, because I don't think it is.

Apart from anything else, I think it's likely to seem pointlessly nasty to many people who might be supportive on the major issues.

WTF you have read the Internet and can find no feminist critiques of lingerie!?

You can't have looked very hard.

@SardineQueenII

I've read plenty of old school feminists. I know the broad criticisms, and I still think there's a difference between that and specifically targeting this show.

I think you need to go away and read up on these women as individuals, some of the things they have published, watch some videos.

Julia Long is awesome I heard her speak years ago before this trans stuff kicked off.

To essentially accuse her & others of being one trick ponies / hypocrites is, genuinely, pathetic.

It's not the sort of thing I could get het-up about myself.
If trans people want to wear sexy lingerie they should be able to, and also it is clearly a transgender lingerie show, none of them are claiming to actually be women, it is all very clearly designed for male bodied people, and everyone can see that, so I don't think it was an appropriate time or place to protest.

As I've said, I'm probably on the same page as most of you when it comes to the big substantive issues. I think porn is a major social problem. I think fetishists who don't truly struggle with gender dysphoria are increasingly influential in online discussions on these issues. I find Mermaids going into schools and telling six year old they have a "gender jelly baby" inside them and might need to change their body to match terrifying.

However, things like this makes it harder to take those positions publicly because it seems spiteful and motivated primarily be dislike of trans people. It makes it harder to defend against the argument being gender critical means hating trans people. I don't know what it's supposed to achieve besides upsetting people and hardening the battle lines.

There have been threads on FWR alone in the last few weeks talking about lingerie from a feminist perspective. Quite a lot of us are very vocally aagainst lacy frills being held up as 'empowering' to women. The specific issue being highlighted in the protest you reference is lacy frills being indicative of some men's absurd notions of what it means to be a woman.

It's not about restricting uncomfortable lingerie to women. It's about some people defining 'woman' as lingerie clad sex fantasy.

Would you get it if it was selling merchandise to help you black up?

This is about allowing people colonise womanhood so that they can get more enjoyment out of their sexual fetish.

Nowt to do with gender dysphoria.

Julia is feministing wrong
She may put people off

Oh noes! She'll be gutted to hear that. I'm sure she's never heard it before.

@FloralBuntingIsObnoxious But that's not what picketing an event like this portrays. The impression given is that you're opposed to people with male bodies being able to purchase and wear the sort of lingerie that's routinely available in normal women's sizes.

I've read plenty of critiques of pornification and all the rest of it, but as a cis/natal woman (I'm really not looking for a pointless argument about terminology) nobody has ever tried to directly shame me for buying lacy undies.

I could write pages on lingerie

But I'm on my phone so I won't

It's not hard to find feminist critique of it
Sure it's been done more on MN

So have a read of all that, then have a think.