Witness what happened to Emma Burnell, after she retweeted a “wrongthink” tweet suggesting women who’d been banned from Twitter shouldn’t be banned when men weren’t banned for stating the same supposedly “wrongthink”: she was asked, in a threatening manner, by Open Labour, after they’d apologized FOR her, “Emma, do you believe transwomen are women?”
And she answered, “Yes, of course.”
Most dutifully. And so was, for now, forgiven her lapse.
No gulag, as Goldsmith’s suggested was the appropriate punishment for “wrongthinkers” for her, at least not yet.
No similarities to a cult? Okay, if not to a cult, then to Maoism?
And should I, who is of the age to have, and in fact did, participate in marching for, fundraising for, agitating for, and creating female-only refuges and female-only support programmes, NOT feel angry watching younger women, hand those over with both hands to males?
Why should I NOT feel angry when younger women, who know nothing of the Second Wave, as evidenced by their complete unfamiliarity with Second Wave history, literature, or thought, make all sorts of disparaging and dismissive comments about older feminists — from platforms they wouldn’t have were it not for what WE fought for — and then open up refuges, crisis centres, sport, awards, even language around our on bodies — to males who, while claiming oppression, make the exact same demands upon women that required the Second Wave fight in the first place?
I teach younger women. One of the lessons requires that they make a clear statement of want. It is shocking how many cannot do it. They cannot say, “I want ...” and fill in the blank with something they want for themselves. Though they can do it for other people. “I want John or Mary to have...” is something they can speak.
When we discuss this, what comes forth is that they do not feel entitled to want something for themselves. It feels to them that they are crossing into forbidden territory, even to formulate a meaningful want of their own beyond trivial wants for chocolate, a day off work, etc.
This is female masochism, something Freud though was innate to women. It’s not. Not every woman experiences it, but for those who do, it can take decades to unlearn. And while enmeshed in it, it can be infuriating to observe women who aren’t.
For women I know who are Butler devotees, this is what Butler’s notion of gender as performance gave them: the chance to act as if they hadn’t been socialised female, and in that performance, unlearn female masochism. Faking it till they could make it. Individually, of course, and to greater or lesser extent, because Butler was never about women as a class.
It’s striking to me, though, that young female adherents of genderist thought are now doing the exact opposite — just as female socialisation requires, their performance of gender is in service of others — males — and not of themselves.
This is of course what power does: it takes what was a revolutionary threat to it and flips it inside out. Liberalism becomes neoliberalism. Unions become management. Deconstruction of gender becomes the enforcement of gender. Feminism becomes male-centrist.
While whatever will soon be revolutionary is germinating.