Are feminists getting played?

[Maniak]

It makes me sad that feminists are spending so much time banging on about bathrooms in a world that has women still working for no pay, old women still more likely to be poor, surrogacy, underfunded maternity care, and poor support for carers. And other stuff.

Yes, the trans thing is annoying, but have you noticed how it always fires up before major elections? It's like Afghanistan in the 80s when the US provided just enough weapons to keep the war going so Russia would use all it's energy and get weak.

I feel like feminism is getting distracted with the trans stuff. At most, it should take up 10 percent of our feminist attention. But I rarely see feminism these days that isn't all about trans. Seriously. Do you think we're getting played here? Is trans really such a big deal?

one way would just be to roll over on the semantic stuff, and just be womb-bearers or whatever.

What the hell? Since when has feminism been about “rolling over?”

Since when do feminists give male-born people want they want at women’s expense?

Appeasement will not work. If libfems adopt “womb-bearer,” XTRAs will start campaigning for their wombs... so they can be “womb-bearers” too.

Then the word “womb-bearers” will become transphobic - don’t assume what is in my abdomen! Why are you t*rfs so abdominally obsessed?

It is not semantic. It is about erasing our existence as a sex class.

Absolutely 2BthatUnnoticed I've seen enough TRAs refer to their penis as a clitoris, their surgical fistula as a vagina, or claim to have periods etc. If we call ourselves cervix havers, they'll start insisting the prostate is really a cervix or something mental. It will never end. We have to stand our ground from the start.

"it's a fucking dragon, just pick a bit and start fighting!"
Perfect.
And genius.

Sakura184 Maybe you should try searching for topics you're interested in or even starting a thread, before complaining no one is paying attention?

No I'm not talking about mumsnet. Im talking about the entire women's liberation movement. 90% of the focus seems to be in trans and then 10% on porn.

I have started threads on various topics. ( As an aside, I got a LOT of namalting )

What I think the problem is, is that patriarchy is just too overwhelming, and we are just too powerless, and so this keeps us all focused on something we might be able to change. But the fact that men are just watching us dance about to their tune is just a measure of their hatred of us.

I don't visit FWR much now; my life is very busy with the mundane, and much of my activism and feminist conversation happens in other places. I contribute, as I have always done, to threads in which I have something to say because of my specific life experience as a woman - so, sexuality stuff, 'gender confusion' in children, abortion, religiously motivated misogyny, rape and male violence.

If I had not been galvanized by one of my children being drawn into the cult of trans, I likely would have bumbled along in the same vaguely unhappy ignorance, putting up with the way things are.

So, to me, the fight for women to retain our language and the rights hard won is part and parcel of my desire to centre women in my politics and energy. As it so happens, I agree with the analysis that the Genderism is one of the most dangerous threats women, and the trans cult is a powerful wedge part of that.

And, as I am an intelligent woman, I am perfectly capable of having a number of different concerns running concurrently.

Maybe it's just simply a case of it being that trans affects all women, whereas other issues only affect some women. That must be it I suppose.

Then again there are so many other issues that affect all women, like what men are doing to the environment, to our food and so on. But to take on men on these issues is very overwhelming. Like try explaining to the women who support Extinction Rebellion that the problem is patriarchy, always has been. Watch the blind fury as you dare point the finger at the precious men... When who the hell else has been in charge and in power while the world turned to shit

I'm not sure I do agree that genderism is the biggest threat.

I think the biggest threat is what they have done and continue to do to the environment, as well as what they have done and continue to do to the food supply chain system.

Possibly, sakura. Environmental issues could certainly be an existential threat, undoubtedly. Btw, that's another discussion we've managed to have on FWR - some really interesting conversations about green issues and the burden which disproportionately falls on women in those issues.

But I think in terms of retaining rights, Genderism, by which I mean the broad sweep of what our cultures expect women to be, which includes the madness of the trans movement but is not confined to it, drives a great big juggernaut over what has actually been achieved in recent decades.

ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving:

"And what we're saying is "it's a fucking dragon, just pick a bit and start fighting!""

Brilliant, exactly!

I agree genderism is imortant, I just don't think it merits the energy and attention it has been given. But then women's energy is finite. And like I say, trans is something to grasp and possibly even do something about.

Where do you even begin with nuclear disarmament, or basically men blowing people up here there and everywhere? Or the male CEOs and male governments who are fully responsible for the plastic in the sea problem. Or the male- run, male- organized international food supply chain that is so inefficient that it depends on the increasingly exploited women in the third world. It is an unsustainable food system.

And yes as an aside, I've noticed how women are expected to be better in the home by going plastic free while the bloody men who own the companies that make the products, as well as the government who could easily regulate these companies if it wanted to, are let off the hook

sakura184: women seem to be picking our own battles, according to our own individual thoughts and circumstances. And that is our right.

The battles that you mention are all, certainly, valid. But you cannot insist that all women must campaign for what you believe - because we're not all puppets to be controlled by you.

I do think there are bigger issues, globally, than genderism but in terms of issues that I think - with all the other demands on me - I can realistically do something about, then genderism is up there. Also surrogacy, not least because there is a consultation. The consultation around the GRA is also partly why I educated myself as it was an opportunity to actually influence - if they read my response of course...

Any woman who supports those born with a penis in their quest to be allowed to

compete in women's sports;
to be named business woman or any woman of the year;
to serve time in women's prisons;
to use women's public changing or lavatory arrangements
to be called by female pronouns
to be called a woman in any context

is a dangerous, sleep walking fool. Sex is not fluid-what nonsense!

But you cannot insist that all women must campaign for what you believe - because we're not all puppets to be controlled by you.

I'm really not saying that at all. If that's what you read then clearly I need to work on my writing skills, or you need to work on comprehension skills, I'm not sure which it is.

I'm questioning why women aren't organically taking on other issues and I've also thrown up a few reasons and suggestions why.

How you read from that that I think people need to be puppets controlled by me is really beyond me: this is a discussion about why trans predominates in feminism at large . That is the topic under scrutiny. I'm just responding to the OP

I think you need to work on your writing, sakura184. Please don't sneer at women.

Well, one way would just be to roll over on the semantic stuff, and just be womb-bearers or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I hate all that language, but it is just words.

Doesn't work because it obscures the issue - if we are womb-bearers in one circumstance, menstruators in another, mothers in another, be-breasted in another, sit-down wee-ers in another, eostrogen dominant in another then it hides the fact that all of these things are things that women are.

That there aren't 10 groups of people with 10 different needs being subjected to discrimination for 10 different reasons, but one group of people being subjected to discrimination for 10 different reasons with one root cause.

I agree OP.

There's a lot of 'echo-chambering' going on here. It's all on Twitter and MN.

A bubble.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to use normal words like man and woman. I had a baby not too long ago and did not come across 'womb-bearer' or 'cervix-haver' or 'chest-feeding' once.

It's all so ludicrous that it just won't take.

Meanwhile, the continued misery of millions of women is ignored in favour of a pseudo-academic fight about toilets.

So I'm imagining the teenage girls I meet who tell me they are boys and all the adults seem to take this seriously and call them he?

I am not prepared to go along with this as they may well end up on completely unnecessary damaging lifelong medication. All because adults wanted an easy life and didn't help them learn to live in the body they have.

That's pretty damn important in my opinion and it's happening in schools all over the country.

Meanwhile, the continued misery of millions of women is ignored in favour of a pseudo-academic fight about toilets.

First of all, nobody is ignoring other issues affecting women. That’s simply not true & is just hyperbole.
Secondly, this is about more than toilets, although you’re clearly not very informed about issues affecting women and girls globally if you don’t understand the importance of safe toilets. If you aren’t aware of the numbers of assaults in mixed sex toilets, that is your ignorance. Beyond toilets and changing rooms, this affects our political roles and positions, which should be important to you. It affects data collection which affects crime stats and health provision. It affects women receiving interval examinations who prefer females. It affects us in hospitals, remember Karen White’s autistic victim in a mental health ward, and in prisons- or do you not care about female prisoners? Many of which are abused women.

To reduce this to toilets, and dismiss the importance of those even, is to be ignorant of feminist issues and women’s rights to a pretty extreme degree.

Well, if it makes anyone feel better, I rarely comment on toilet threads, though I did enjoy a link from the last one I read that talked about how important single sex public toilet provision has been to female liberation.

It's emblematic that the AWAs desperately want to get in to female toilets, and yet manage to both dismiss the significance of that for us, and dismiss how important public toilet access has been to women over the last century and continues to be in the developing world.

I don't think it's an especially central issue - but it does serve to illustrate the way Anti women activists belittle the things which have meant women can approach a level playing field in most cultures.

As an aside, I think some people might read me using 'Genderism' and think I'm just referring to the trans issue. Actually I contend that surrogacy, and the use of fertile women as a cattle class for breeding is part and parcel of 'Genderism', because it both exploits women's natural biology and manipulates ideas about what a woman is so that this exploitation can happen.

I think some people might read me using 'Genderism' and think I'm just referring to the trans issue. Actually I contend that surrogacy, and the use of fertile women as a cattle class for breeding is part and parcel of 'Genderism', because it both exploits women's natural biology and manipulates ideas about what a woman is so that this exploitation can happen.

Seconded.

Yes, toilets are important. There was that recent report about how many girls had experienced period shaming in school and how many had stayed off school because of it. If anyone thinks unisex toilets (or allowing boys who feel like girls in with the girls) will help that situation they're idiots - and this is in the UK.

Interesting thoughts about Genderism Floral

I am of course now, whenever I'm thinking about rights of women and girls, thinking about fighting a dragon. :)

Good time to bring out my favourite 'Spritual warfare' icon...

Oh, and I'm probably using Genderism the way feminists have often used Patriarchy, except that Genderism sort of covers the 'how' of the oppression rather than just the fact of it. Which, for me, cuts out a stage of conversation, because I usually have to explain the word patriarchy because of all the misconceptions and work round to how gender is a tool of the patriarchy.

I'm far too lazy and bloody minded to keep explaining the patriarchy, so short cuts work for me.