"Gross, reductive naturalising maternal industrial complex"

[SunsetBeetch]

Here's some TRA word salad for your Saturday night. Perhaps is will make sense if you've had a few drinks?

"Cis women confusing "erasure" with not being at the center of a discourse is fast becoming one of my pet peeves. Why not be inclusive of everyone who menstruates? There is no good reason. Obviously."

twitter.com/kate_manne/status/1187481570996830208?s=19

"Same when it comes to pregnancy and breast/chestfeeding. The truth is, we all gain when these activities aren't essentialized and made into part of some gross, reductive, naturalizing MIC (maternal industrial complex)."

twitter.com/kate_manne/status/1187483964677734400?s=19

"Being inclusive around all procreative activities is better for trans men and non-binary folks who participate in them; it's better for cis women who don't or can't; it's better for trans women who typically can't; and it's better for cis women who do, absent bad ideology."

twitter.com/kate_manne/status/1187483966137348096?s=19

"And, finally, it's surely better for adoptive parents, who are often genuinely erased in discourses of this kind."

twitter.com/kate_manne/status/1187484921142697985?s=19

Someone sounds very uncomfortable about normal female bodily functions.

I don't know how to.express this, I'm tired and a little drunk. But these people and the language they use, it's so...robotic? clinical? cold? Do you get what I mean?

Yeah but there are plenty of women who are very judgemental and hospital staff etc who accuse women of ‘not trying’ and then people on the internet who say that you’re not giving the baby the right start in life. People come out with all sorts of shit and think they are entitled to because someone’s had a baby. They will think it’s their business to ask their work colleague whether she plans to breastfeed and roll their eyes if she says no and to give unsolicited opinions about what age kids should go to nursery. I know countless women like that who think that they have a god given right to weigh in on other people’s private lives (also to ask whether other women are planning to have babies, the right age to have a baby, whether someone is in a relationship). I don’t doubt Alison has experienced that. However, the solution is to challenge gendered norms, not to say that men are women.

I must just be lucky I guess, I know it happens but I haven't experienced it directly but I don't think it's universal to experience judgement. I think it's interesting that academics are Willing to make sweeping statements based on anecdotes on social media in a way that would not stand in an academic paper.

patriarchy sets women against each other innit? women win crumbs of power and approval by enforcing patriarchal standards on other women

and yes, when I cocked up breastfeeding thoroughly with DS1, pretty much the only person expressing any judginess was me!

As a woman who has chosen not to have children I am 100% OK with the assumption that it is women who get pregnant and give birth, because it's true and also I am not the most selfish person in the world.

Removing the association between women and pregnancy/birth is only going to make it harder to fight for women's rights in relation to "procreative issues". There was already a judgement against a woman who was sacked over her needing facilities to pump and/or breastfeed at work because "men can do that too". If the link between womanhood and female biology continues to be erased we'll be seing a lot more of that.

Attempting to undermine "woman" as a legal and socially recognized category that means "belonging to the group that menstruates for a good part of their life, goes through menopause, and may get pregnant and need time of work related to that" is a supremely selfish act and nope, sorry, I will not be providing comforting headpats and soothing "yes, dear, you're much more important than all those boring, unspecial and unbrave women who acknowledge their reproductive biology" bollocks.

Well Kate Manne’s claim that males are females is clearly idiotic. But the statements that academics shouldn’t be allowed to make sweeping statements- that was one woman’s personal experience and she is entitled to say what she thinks, regardless of her profession. And you are being very disingenuous indeed if you pretend that there is no such thing as women being shamed for not breastfeeding, for having a drink during pregnancy, for working too much, for asking the state for financial support. That’s the very essence of gender ideology and what I thought we were all fighting against. If you want articles, they exist in the thousands about how women are often shamed rather than supported. Or look at the threads on the rest of the site where others feel the need to weigh in with opinions about breastfeeding and other things. Just watched a clip of a celebrity who had to have an emergency c-section because the baby’s heart rate dropped and she was told she was too posh to push. Fucking hell. And those judgements come from the media but they often come from other women. Maybe from men too, but unsolicited advice on what’s best for babies tends to come from other women.

Kate Manne and Alison Phipps have taken the wrong way to tackle it but biological essentialism needs to be tackled if women are to have equality. Why don’t we ask dads to be if they plan to give up work or go part time? Why don’t we talk about how dads are selfish if they spend too long at work?

@Pota, I'm not pretending it doesn't happen, I did say I know it happens but that I haven't experienced it ( I'm talking about direct, to my face criticism). Just trying to balance out the narrative that women judge and criticise all the time. I have had more comments from men ( thanks Dad for those comments about baby DS3 being too fat!). I still think self- criticism is a big problem, women need to be kinder to themselves.
As for the articles criticising women, that kind of article grabs attention in a way that more reasonable ones wouldn't hence the runaway success of The Daily Fail.
I obviously don't disagree with you about Dads spending too much time at work or on hobbies, and I have read many many threads discussing exactly that on Mumsnet.

I'm in no way a bio essentialist, I have several friends who don't have children through choice and circumstance and I have never started a conversation with them implying their lives are lacking because I genuinely don't think they are, I envy them sometimes, I don't know if they envy me, I wouldn't be crass enough to ask.

There's also a difference between stating the fact that breastfeeding gives baby the best start in life and asking a mother to consider it for that reason in a setting where this is appropriate (prenatal appointment for instance) and judging a woman for not breastfeeding, especially when you don't have the slightest idea about her life. I've met plenty women who couldn't breastfeed for a variety of reasons (not all medical) and am always mindful of that.

And some women mistake any raising of the issue at all as implied or direct criticism. Which is clearly not the case. I think this is a touchy subject for most of us, because whatever we have chosen or been forced to do, we get judged by some.

"And, finally, it's surely better for adoptive parents, who are often genuinely erased in discourses of this kind."

Yes as an adoptive parent when I go to my mothers group anytime the talk turns to pregnancy and birth I smugly remind everyone that “not everyone is a biological parent” and they should say “the process of becoming a parent” as that’s more inclusive. Anyone talking about their own lived experiences of pregnancy and birth is clearly doing it AT me to hurt my feelings and no other reason.

Except that I don’t, because I’m not a massive narcissistic bell-end.

As a woman who has chosen not to have children I am 100% OK with the assumption that it is women who get pregnant and give birth, because it's true and also I am not the most selfish person in the world.

This. Completely.

it's surely better for adoptive parents, who are often genuinely erased in discourses of this kind.

Speaking for my people, we've had a chat and we're fine thanks. Now fuck off.

Why do they always need to co-opt the needs of some other group to justify their misogyny? Black women, people with DSDs, menopausal women, adopters. Every time an argument is shot down there is some other insane false equivalence.

I think it's because on some level they know that what they're saying is a load of old cobblers, honestly. So they try to connect their demands to an actual disadvantaged group to make them sound more legit.

Either not realising or not caring how insulting that is to the said group.