"A subset of women"

[JellySlice]

The statement "black women are a subset of women" appears to cause offence, but I don't understand why. Surely black women are a subset of women in the same way as Jewish women, Polish women, refugee women and diabetic women are subsets of women? Isn't that what intersectional feminism is about?

Is this statement offensive on its own, or only when hijacked by the AWA TRAs?

As a diabetic black woman am I subset of a subset?

To answer your original question, I find the use of the word 'subset' offensive.

Yes, it's important to be very clear about why we are discussing this - because AWAs have rhetorical trick whereby they make a false analogy. They compare one categorization of people with another categorization of people, and say that because one categorization exists, the other must logically exist too.

Aside from the utterly offensive nature of choosing black women as a group by which to prove that the group of men who believe they are women are analogous that has been discussed extensively on the thread, it's also logical nonsense.

Putting a random prefix on a word for a category doesn't create an equivalence between the random new prefixed word and all other variants of the term.

Black women, white women, etc. are members of the category 'women' first - the prefix doesn't do anything to affect their membership of that category. If I were to postulate the existence of 'Tree-women', I could argue until I was blue in the face that a sycamore is just a subset of the category 'woman' because I had chosen to define certain trees as women, but my analogy would be false, meaningless, and probably offensive if I used it in such a way to prove that a non-sentient plant was just as much a woman as a particularly oppressed actual member of the larger group 'Women'.

Categories are very useful things. AWAs have us all chasing our tails with this bullshit shell game whereby they invent categories and challenge us to defend reality from their onslaught of Lewis Carroll style gobbledygook. They can do one.

Bottom line here, this is only requiring more than scornful dismissal if you accept TWAW. If you don't, you just point out their racism, and go about your day.

They're not a subset. There are some people who are women. There are some people who are black. There are some people who are black women. They are within the intersection of black people and women. Being within the intersection is not the same as being a subset.

This is the intersection of black people and women - it falls totally within the women category:

Its the language of maths, so while you can use it to discuss sociological theory, when its used to talk down to people who are actually affected it becomes a tool.

An analogy would be someone using 'intersex' as a gotcha while talking to someone who has a DSD.

"They're not a subset. There are some people who are women. There are some people who are black. There are some people who are black women. They are within the intersection of black people and women. Being within the intersection is not the same as being a subset.

This is the intersection of black people and women - it falls totally within the women category:"

facepalm still a subset. something being the intersection of two sets does not stop something from being a subset. the intersection can itself be a subset.

They're not a subset. There are some people who are women. There are some people who are black. There are some people who are black women. They are within the intersection of black people and women. Being within the intersection is not the same as being a subset.

No. You've completely missed the point.

The set under discussion is women. Subsets of the set women include white women, black women, British women, American women, fertile women, infertile women, etc ad infinitum.

The set you describe here is human beings. An entirely different set.

Far from being a bad thing, the ability to distinguish between various subsets of women is a good thing because it enables to collect accurate data and direct good public policy towards where it is needed. For example, if black women are shut out from opportunity or suffer from particular discriminations, we can't address it unless we have the data to establish the problem in the first place.

The issue here is that extremist transactivists are suggesting a subset of women exists that simply doesn't. And that subset is not black women!

"Black women are a subset of women" is offensive if the unspoken assumption is that white women are the default.

And that unspoken assumption is prebuilt into default western perceptions.

That's why it's loaded.

The set is women - defined by those who are biologically female humans- have XX chromosomes.

White women is a sub set of women.
Black women is a sub set of women

Transwomen is NOT a subset of women, because transwomen are not biologically female, and therefore fall completely outside the set of women. Doesn't matter if they are black transwomen, white transwomen etc, they do not have XX chromosomes so do not fit in the set that contains only biologically female humans.

Its pure maths, and not a judgement at all.

Mathematical language is great when discussions are related to topics where statistical analysis is helpful. However one thing I am certain of is that the use of the term subset has been subverted by the TRAs and I really find it's use in the TWAW argument repulsive. Someone said it is used to 'other ' some women so the TRAs can justify TWs as women and i think they are right. I will never use the term subset, no matter how correct it is, in discussions such as occur on this board because 'othering', intentional or otherwise, causes such negative emotional responses.

Speaking from the US: What’s missing from this set theory discussion is historical context.

In the negative space around the TRA analogy is the unspoken historical argument rising out of racism that black women weren’t women at all. That they were closer to male and closer to animal. There is an entire cultural context around that lingering notion that leads to very specific abusive treatment and unjust expectations black girls and women, at least in the US, face that other women, including women of other racial and ethnic minorities, do not.

The TRAs who always use black women as the default subset in their analogies are dogwhistling this racist skepticism that black women are in fact women, and that’s what allows the subconscious connection in the listener to males as women. They do this intentionally and cynically.

Its vile.

But sometimes it is a useful term when we talk about statistics in relation to this issue. Because MTF trans people are a subset of males as a class. I don't use it to talk about black women, or any other women. TRAs do that.

Set theory was created to categorise numbers, it's also used to categorise things. The problem with using it to categorise women is that it objectifies us, reducing us to types, which we aren't - we're human. We can talk about different groups of women, we don't need the terminology "subset", which is best left to the mathematicians or logicians. When you google "subset of women", the main references are medical one because it's useful in a scientific environment, not so much a political one.

Grouping black women and trans women together is vastly offensive because it revives the old racist trope that black women are like men. Men can't be women, even when they're appropriating someone else's oppression in order to pretend that theirs exists.

Joisanofthedales totally agree.

Submariners are not inferior to other sailors! yes hipsterfun because submariners have had to endure centuries of being othered/treat and made to feel inferior by sailors

Talking about intersectionality as meaning something different in this context than subset doesn't make sense - it's saying the same thing, just using different language.

A lot of the criticisms here are just false, like an assumption "white women" are the basic set. White women are also a subset of women. Women are a subset of humans. Humans are a subset of mammals.
It's almost always a bad idea to become offended when people use different language to talk about the same thing, and subset is not loaded language in itself, its math and has a very particular meaning.

I don't think I find the historical argument compelling. It's not untrue, but it is also the case that people talk about subset groupings like race for positive reasons. There is a yoga class for black women down the road from where I live, that's a positive differentiation, not a negative one.
The TRA argument is wrong because it is factually wrong and manipulative. That gets lost by claiming the language is itself offensive.

As far as the argument by transactivists though - I have never understood it as implying on black women are quite real women or are lesser in some way.
I've interpreted it the opposite way - that of course, it would be racist to say that black women, though a subset of women, are not real women. Similarly, it would be bigoted to claim that transwomen are not real women, even though not all women are transwomen.
I don't really see how it would serve their purpose to claim they were lesser or different kinds of women.

A social assumption is present whether or not it is correct, or whether or not you like it.

The presumption that "women" refers to "white women" is the reason "intersectionality" is helpful. Once you address that that the whole set means more than just white women, you've done the deed and you can move on.

But you have to address it first. This is a societal issue. Fuzzy studies, social studies, people things.

People don't think math. They think socially.

*implying that

" it would be racist to say that black women, though a subset of women, are not real women. Similarly, it would be bigoted to claim that transwomen are not real women, even though not all women are transwomen."

It would indeed be racist and a lie to say that black women are not "real" women, but did you not read upthread how racist it is to compare the situation of black women to that of trans women? Trans women are men. Black women have no more in common with them than any other woman does.

Can they be a superset?

Mathematically you're right but the word subset is emotionally charged. "Sub" conjures up an image of inferiority as it often means "under" and the choice of using black women, who are humans often considered "less than" white women is inappropriate. Black women don't need TRAs to keep them in their place with their divisive language. Women do not need TRA to divide and conquer them full stop.

I think we can all agree that black women are definitely women.

Trans women, however, are men who want to be seen as women. In other words, not women.

The presumption that "women" refers to "white women"..
Referring to the Venn diagram used earlier I think that illustrates the point as regards racism (although not intended!). The region representing black people is some fairly small little circle within the greater area that is supposedly non-black (i.e. read white) people, and the similar circle representing women is within the same outer region (the largest area), which represents, frankly, white men..............Not intended, but that is what leaps out of the diagram for me.

So, whilst the usage is mathematically correct, the real question is why these terms from maths are being used when they are not really needed. They give the statements an illusory air of scientific respectability, whilst actually being used in a way that puts certain groups (used in a non-mathematical sense, but works perfectly well, it is an everyday word) as immediately othered and 'less than'.

Ditto the usage of axes of oppression -- First, as regards sex, creates the impression that sex isn't binary but somehow a continuum. Second, once you add extra axes, you create the impression that sex is just one of many things, and add enough 'other' things as seemingly 'equal-weight' axes, and sexism begins to seem like one (fairly small) issue amongst many others.

If I was trying to explain some concepts to someone who already knew maths, then I might use an analogy to multidimensional axes, or talk group theory or set theory. When someone uses these analogies outside of that, then we can only assume the aim is not to clarify, but to distort in some way.

"It would indeed be racist and a lie to say that black women are not "real" women, but did you not read upthread how racist it is to compare the situation of black women to that of trans women? Trans women are men. Black women have no more in common with them than any other woman does."

Sure, I read it, but I don't particularly agree that feeling of offence tells us accurately what is going on in a particular comparison. There are all kinds of reasons people have that kind of response, and it isn't always useful to stop there. It's one thing in a personal discussion about personal issues, when talking about theoretical frameworks or arguments, or the basic principles of a question like who is a women, it is damaging. It makes it seem like the problem is not being nice, it becomes an emotional problem, not a problem of facts or the logic. And it can seem manipulative even if it is honest emotion, it reads as saying, I am stopping you from making that (possibly true) point because it hurts my feelings.
UNless they are being a liar on purpose, the person making this argument believes that transwomen are in fact women. There are lots of people who do, so that is going to be the case a lot of the time. They are mistaken - but that isn't offensive, it's incorrect. There isn't an implication that any subset of women aren't "real" women - they want to show that they are real women, just like the other real women. That's why they use the language of set theory, there are no "not real" anythings as part of a set. If you are in the set, you have to be a full, real, complete, member of the set.
I would guess the reason they use black women frequently as an example is because they are a commonly discussed group in intersectional feminism, compared to others like Asian or even elderly women. So they think it has rhetorical power.
For someone who thinks that transwomen are not women, yes, it would not be particularly nice to feel compared in terms of your womanhood. But I do think it is a good idea to try and reframe that to see that the comparison is because they think that womanhood is indisputable, not because they think it's questionable.

When the discussion becomes about offence, that is putting the ball right back in their court, where have to say TWAW, or can't mention women having vaginas, or you must use the pronouns people want, because not to makes them feel lesser. That's not the point. The point is that what they are saying is false, no matter how anyone feels about it.

Can they be a superset?
Not unless all women are black.

Subset is such a standard logical term, it has no emotional baggage, it's never been used as an insult. Subclass I'd avoid but not the entire sub prefix, it's everywhere. I can't think of any word to succinctly describe a group being contained within another group that doesn't use sub. Sub-category, subdivision, ... what?

'People don't think math. They think socially.'

I'm a person. But I'm an autistic person. I think math and I can picture venn diagrams more easily than other ways of negotiating social structures.

I do think it's interesting that the woman who coined the term intersectionality does use the word subset.

I think it might be a social sciences thing.