Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Why some young women are so Woke

135 replies

lucasthecat · 21/07/2019 10:51

I am very gender critical - and the bollox of TWAW and the idea of a female penis makes my head spin. My eldest daughter totally disagrees and we have reached a mutual agreement not to discuss the topic. She is a physics graduate quite cool and has a busy social life. She has recently stopped working in a bar in a northern town after 18 months because of the non stop Pervy comments from blokes exacerbated by a leachorous boss. During her degree some of her male classmates constantly dismissed her as thick - but fit - because of how she looks ( she got a 2.1 with some distinctions) in her world the problems are traditional masculinity - the support she gets from LGBT friends and the Woke feel like the solution - I saw the world through her eyes in a way I hadn’t before - I still don’t believe TWAW etc - but it was a different conversation . I don’t think she is stupid or unquestioning - she is judging the world on her experience and at the moment the threat of Trans does not register compared to old school mysoginy

OP posts:
teflontania · 22/07/2019 11:32

Maybe people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the attitudes and beliefs of the younger generation as woke or naïve. Maybe they're a reflection of how society develops with each generation a little less racist or homophobic than the previous one to use a comparison.

Endofthedays · 22/07/2019 11:38

I agree Goosefoot.

The trans ideology partially came from a very popular kind of feminism that was interested in minimising the impact of having a sexed body.

Endofthedays · 22/07/2019 11:42

Teflon, racism and sexism seem to have increased over the last twenty years.

MaeWest1890 · 22/07/2019 12:02

"I've always felt slightly uncomfortable about the whole focus of the women's movement being on 'equal rights' - rather than on equal value. Aligned to this, for me, is the 'rejection' of menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth - whereby they are always seen as negatives, or as medical issues."

That is what the Patriarchal Narrative has HIGHLIHGTED as what feminism is saying.

If for 2000 thousand years men have been oppressing women and have been telling every woman that she must produce my baby! It is not surprising that the first of sentence any women will utter in fighting back is that they reject your demand that I produce your baby.

This is what the Patriarchal Narrative Highlights as way to divide women.

Please do not still fall for this false narrative.

Feminism values all women's work. Has argued that it is wrong that Patriarchy recognises only the work, men do / did as being the GDP Economy.

Women's role of creating babies, caring for family etc is not recognised as GDP Economy.

Feminists are against this sexist view of the Economy.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 13:16

I think the question of why women are so resistant to feminism is an important one. It could be that it's because fighting men and male agendas is ultimately futile and stupid, because they're too powerful and women are too weak, and young women can feel this futility. Trans is a men's rights movement. If you can't beat them join them.

Goosefoot · 22/07/2019 13:20

Your comment seems a little confused MaeWest, like it's saying two different things. On the one hand patriarchy claims that women want to avoid having babies, on the other naturally that is what women want because men say they have to have babies? Which is it?

I am not particularly comfortable laying the fault of women having wombs at men's door. "Men" did not tell women they had to have babies, nature did, and railing against that as unfair is like railing that we can't breath water and live under the ocean. You can choose to view it as a kick in the pants by the cosmos but it will only drive you crazy and make you unhappy.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 13:23

MaeWest1890

It's true that feminism has done that. But I think it's also true that feminism has very much been about getting men to be equal in the division of labour. Women are paying for this dearly in the family courts, where men who have chipped in a bit are arguing that they've carried out 50% of the childcare, whereas women know the deal of creating a life in pregnancy and the care that comes after means that this isn't possible. Women's work is undervalued and devalued so that the man, the family court, and society at large, thinks his contribution is equal.

I know a woman on Facebook who is getting help from a rabbi in her divorce because the secular courts would see her and her daughter homeless. Women are turning to religion ffs! Because religion ensures them at least some provisions based on the traditional division of labour. She is being criticized by feminists for going about it the religious route. I told her this radical feminist gives her my blessing.

Goosefoot · 22/07/2019 13:27

Teflon, racism and sexism seem to have increased over the last twenty years.

I think this comes down to id politics mostly combined with a nice dose of economic uncertainty.

Under the old approach the basis of equality was rooted in a view of all human beings having equal and intrinsic dignity. Not only despite things like sex or race or age, but also in spite or real measurable differences, like being attractive or ugly, smart or slow, kind or unkind, even a good person or a social liability. While it was recognised that probems like racism needed to be opposed the ideal outcome was that those kinds of differences would become invisible or unimportant.

We seem to have moved instead to a kind of view that sees all these groups as actually different, that continually highlights their difference, and involves a kind of battle to assert power and claim resources through hierarchies of oppression and privilege.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 13:27

Goosefoot,
I say this to the antinatalist feminists. That although it's true that many babies are raped into being ( it was legal to rape your wife until quite recently- I believe my grandma was married while this was legal and she has 7 kids: it doesn't bear thinking about), but it's also true that women want babies and I don't know to what extent women's desire for babies is nature or nurture

Keeptrudging · 22/07/2019 14:59

My heart broke a little when my friend's lesbian daughter, early 20s, who I've known since she was tiny, posted on fb that 'as a white cis-woman I have privilege over my trans and BAME sisters'. This was posted in amongst a whole spiel about being kind to trans people as they were more at risk, and that she stood in solidarity with them against bigots and terfs Hmm. I did respond, after careful consideration. Someone else also responded in the same vein. I wasn't mean, but it was certainly unexpected on her part that anyone would question her.

Goosefoot · 22/07/2019 15:03

sakura

Keep in mind that while the law didn't recognise that rape happened within marriages, it doesn't mean that it was inevitable, it's entirely likely that your grandmother didn't experience it unless you have some specific reason to think she did.

MaeWest1890 · 22/07/2019 15:08

As a new member I hope my reply, is not seen as derailing the thread, I am happy to post this reply, elsewhere on a new / another thread.

Goose
" ... it's saying two different things. On the one hand patriarchy claims that women want to avoid having babies, on the other naturally that is what women want because men say they have to have babies? Which is it?"

For 2,000 years Patriarchy ONLY recognised women for the ONE JOB of producing babies, it is then not a surprise, when women say to patriarchy - No I will not have your babies! - as the FIRST response, ON THE WAY to demanding recognition for other jobs!

The Patriarchal Narrative CLAIMS, this first response as the Feminism's WHOLE aim - to divide and rule women.

Feminism says, do not recognise women ONLY for having babies but demand that there be other choices including having babies - but by choice - not by force!

To think Feminism does not value having babies is falling for a false Patriarchal Narrative.

I hope my reply is better than before in explaining my point.

Sakura - totally agree

It was / is women's hope that men will help overthrow Patriarchy if women pointed out to men that Patriarchy also oppresses MEN because men - can not cry, take care of the baby, be touchy feely or wear women's cloths - well that has obliviously backfired !! - Hence this thread and the recognition by Men / Police / Government that a man in a dress is literally a woman.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 15:29

Yeah like Dworkin said it's not terribly important to us that men are able to cry, it's important to us that they stop killing us.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 15:34

well that has obliviously backfired !! -

I read one anonymous feminist say that feminism itself always backfires because men have thousands of years of practice, first of all, and secondly because the fight excites men, galvanized them and gives them energy and power. Like they're playing a cat and mouse game with us.

The JY thread is just and example of men fucking with us for fun.

merrymouse · 22/07/2019 16:12

Maybe people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the attitudes and beliefs of the younger generation as woke or naïve. Maybe they're a reflection of how society develops with each generation a little less racist or homophobic than the previous one to use a comparison.

History shows you that each generation is not necessarily less racist or homophobic than the previous generation. The most obvious example is 1930s Berlin.

Another example of a liberal society regressing would be the current demand for legislation that forces people into gender boxes and the idea that it is heretical to suggest that Trans women are not women.

merrymouse · 22/07/2019 16:22

We seem to have moved instead to a kind of view that sees all these groups as actually different

I think it's essential to acknowledge difference to enable equal participation in society e.g. when you design a building you have to make it accessible for people who can't use stairs.

The problem would be classifying 'can't use stairs' as an identity, then saying that it's bigoted not to include people who can use stairs in that identity, and then designing loads of buildings that can only be accessed by stairs, because after all people who can't use stairs can use stairs.

BickerinBrattle · 22/07/2019 16:28

Frankly, I think the inability to think through to logical conclusions reveals itself every time a young woman says, "What difference does it make what the definition of "woman" is? Why does the word even need defining?"

I hear that a LOT. They don't seem to understand that the law operates based on definitions. There are many laws and regulations which reference "women." If the definition of "women" includes "men," then the law has been changed without actually going through the process of creating a change in law or regulation.

This is what is at the heart of the JY case, and they can't see it. They see only a one-off, a predator the law shouldn't apply to. But law doesn't work that way.

The level of critical thinking is abysmal. But standing in front of that lack are huge defense mechanisms around cognitive dissonance.

The Social Justice project has taken on a religious natiure, with overtones of Calvinism. To not be of the elect is to be exiled. And Calvinists can never know who is actually of the elect, so all must act as if they are, just in case, and all must police all, just in case.

Those who deviate go into the stocks to be humiliated and must forevermore wear the Scarlet T stitched onto their clothing.

What woman wants to be a sinner held in the hand of an angry god over a lake of fire? Or, like Anne Hutchinson, exiled to some place like Rhode Island?

And like all religions, Social Justice requires an ever-expanding list of sins to police because there must always be sinners to serve as object lesson to the rest.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 16:43

The Social Justice project has taken on a religious natiure, with overtones of Calvinism. To not be of the elect is to be exiled. And Calvinists can never know who is actually of the elect, so all must act as if they are, just in case, and all must police all, just in case.

Love this. Can I also just say that when I had my feminist blog I got rape threats of varying degrees of nastiness but the transwomen were the worst, in terms of the heinous death they wished upon me.

So there's a real possibility of the element of fear

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 16:47

The threats wouldn't have been a big deal to me if women weren't actually subjected to heinous deaths by men on a daily basis

BickerinBrattle · 22/07/2019 16:57

Yes, I think the fear component is high and very unstated.

On a cost-benefit analysis, I can well see young women deciding it makes more sense to go along to get along.

It really does say something when, in San Francisco of all places a city that calls itself the American City of Love transactivists are able to rough up lesbians in their own Dyke March while marching with barbed-wire wrapped baseball bats and t-shirts spattered with simulated blood proclaiming they punch terfs and NO ONE will publicly say this is wrong. (The police, however, did take away their axes they weren't allowed to march with those. Many cries of unfair oppression ensued.)

MaybeDoctor · 22/07/2019 17:04

Responding to the OP, surely this has happened before in terms of radical social movements: young women break away from conservative structures to join a radical movement, only to find that they are expected to make themselves sexually available in a way that they had not anticipated.

The English Commonwealth of the 17thC - weren't some of the sects sexually radical?

Socialist and fascist movements of the 20th C?

The hippie movement in the 1960s - young women left the oppressive model of marriage/suburbia but found that 'free love' in the communes involved a lot of cooking, dogsbody work and pressure to service men that they did not necessarily like.

New Age travellers - there was a very interesting thread on here about the sexism of male New Age Travellers, which culminated in one poster's description of a near-naked pregnant woman slaving away to cook a meal over an open fire while two men sat smoking spliffs nearby.

Goosefoot · 22/07/2019 17:26

I sometimes think an element of the problem may be that when people rebel against these oppressive structures, a lot of the time they are imagining that there could be a society without oppression and structures, and it's just not true. But if you think that, you willingly run after an ideology not having stopped to see what the functions of these different structures were. Because they do often have functions around controlling or mitigating or channeling socially negative or dangerous impulses that won't ever be completely subdued.
So you are an idealistic young hippy girl and discover that having left the oppression of marriage and prudishness behind, there really doesn't seem to be a good excuse not to have casual sex or to get upset about people taking liberties, and your boyfriend expects that you won't care about his dalliances, and when you are pregnant he decides maybe it is time to split. So back home to mom and dad to help take care of the baby.
A lot of the time it's not until we leave something behind that we suddenly realise it actually had some use we took for granted.

Goosefoot · 22/07/2019 17:35

I've thought that the progressive left reminds me of Calvinism as well, but one thing about the real Calvinists is they usually were very logical and their leaders were typically very well educated.

merrymouse

That's an interesting example because so far, disability remains fairly firmly rooted in a material condition in the mind of the public. You have some physical ailment or characteristic that affects your abilities relative to others and so there are some very specific and practical accommodations we make to try and mitigate that. Though no one pretends it can be totally mitigated, we don't have anyone suggesting someone is bling should become a naval officer, for example.

With a lot of the other identity groups there seems to be somewhat less clarity in terms of the material sense of the identity, but especially with the mechanisms of the differences we are supposed to be recognising, or the outcomes we are meant to strivefor. In some cases, with terms like systemic racism or patriarchy, there is an almost abstract entity which mysteriously transmits the problematic elements and which we are discouraged from looking at too closely.

sakura184 · 22/07/2019 17:44

The bitter pill though is that transactivism is ultimately very conservative. So the young aren't breaking away into radical structures, they're simply confirming and trans activism is floating on the coattails of lesbian and gay energy. It was quite a coup getting it integrated into the LGB when transactivism is inherently homophobic as well as misogynistic.

merrymouse · 22/07/2019 17:45

trans activism is floating on the coattails of lesbian and gay energy. It was quite a coup getting it integrated into the LGB when transactivism is inherently homophobic as well as misogynistic.

Completely agree.

Swipe left for the next trending thread