Young women don't know what a woman is

[BlackForestCake]

This is absolutely staggering.

The latest poll commissioned by Wings over Scotland on the subject of self-ID, finds that all demographics in their majority believe a woman is an adult human female.

Except young women.

"The 16-34 female demographic actually voted by a narrow six-point majority that a person’s sex has absolutely nothing to do with biology. Even the next-closest group (young men) was a staggering FORTY points adrift from that view (net -34), and middle-aged women were close behind them at a net -36. Among women over 55 the margin against self-ID was a crushing 62 points (over 4:1 against), with older men at a breathtaking 10:1."

wingsoverscotland.com/abolishing-women/

I do wonder if a significant factor in all of this is that so many young people don't read books. They read facebook, twitter, instagram, maybe magazines and the books they have to read for GCSE / A levels. I wonder how many, even reasonably well educated young women have read any decent literature.
Who we are is so heavily influenced by what we read and the people we mix with. These things have changed so much and so fast in recent years. My house is full of books, but even I don't read as much as I used to.
I read George Orwell at school. I don't think they do now.

To this question, a majority (53%) of women aged 16-34 agreed,
"Anyone who says they're a woman, regardless of their biology."

If biology is irrelevant, I wonder how they will know, if they ever want children, which will be the set of people who will conceive, gestate, and give birth to those babies: the set of people who have penises, or the set of people who don't?
And whether there is an actual name for this set of people? Or do we always have to describe them as "people with" or "people without" penises? Or maybe both sets of people can? Or maybe it doesn't matter? Maybe we just assign someone to do the job?

Scrolling is Freedom

I wonder how they will know, if they ever want children, which will be the set of people who will conceive, gestate, and give birth to those babies: the set of people who have penises, or the set of people who don't?

Don't be silly, no one will have their own babies in the future. You just buy all the bits and get a doctor to shove them in a poor woman who'll do the hard work of carrying the baby for you.

to shove them in a poor woman

implant into a low socioeconomic gestator for a limited term contract, you mean. Please don’t use plain language, when obfuscating terms muddy the waters for everyone quite nicely, thank you .

I think it’s because the survey respondents gave what they knew to be the [politically ] correct answer to the first question.

Whereas they actually though about the answer to the second question, the “ correct “ answer wasn’t so obvious.

53% vs 62%

I think it shows that for many people, their views are not based on particularly robust or in-depth thinking. Most people understandably don't have the time for that. They parrot what they think is the appropriate response. People look at what others around them are saying, either explicitly or implicitly - friends, family, colleagues - and reflect that. It's not a particularly conscious decision.

Based on my personal observations, it seems trendy to be an 'intersectional feminist' especially among the younger crowd. Feminism is meant to be for everybody apparently. Mantras like TWAW are frequently seen on social media and there is evidence that social media affects young women a lot. So it's not surprising that they will initially agree with the arty farty definition of a woman being whoever feels like or identifies as one (how mystical!). All about being kind to everyone, it's about happy, nice feelings, we should be accepting of everyone. All fuzzy concepts that don't translate well in the real world but makes a person feel like they are so amazing and progressive for stating such things.

However, when you ask clear, detailed questions that force an individual to think about a situation in concrete terms - that's when rational thinking sets in. The fuzzy, kumbaya, let's all hold hands and say how much we love transwomen disappears. When young women are actually allowed to think through the implications, all of a sudden their profound love and acceptance for transwomen evaporates - a male with a penis in changing rooms? 62% said No thanks, Right Side of History.

This is exactly why the trans lobby have tried so hard to implement #NoDebate. Detailed discussion and debate is what allows most people to rationally and critically examine issues and decide whether they really agree with it or not. Hence why there is so much opposition to discussing these things in the public sphere, either online or on radio or TV etc. Because they know when that is allowed, they lose.

I came across this article today, and thought this quote, in particular, was very pertinent.

“But there comes a time when you should put away childish things and think and speak and understand as an adult. When you come to understand that telling stories might be pleasant and entertaining, but happy endings are only for Disney movies and sitcoms.

The truth can hurt. It’s often unpleasant and harsh, and even a little gross.

It’s also a reminder of the great unimpressed indifference of the universe. The physical laws of nature don’t care much about what you wish or might want to be true. They just are.

thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/05/08/The-World-Is-A-Burning-Ring-of-Liars/

I do wonder if a significant factor in all of this is that so many young people don't read books. They read facebook, twitter, instagram, maybe magazines and the books they have to read for GCSE / A levels. I wonder how many, even reasonably well educated young women have read any decent literature.

This is something I think about a lot. I work in a primary school in a literacy program, and I'm continually noticing how little the children who come to us read. Not only at home which might be expected with many kids with reading problems, but in the elementary school. Most of the reading they do is paragraphs and little stories meant to test comprehension, it's not good literature. Even when the teachers read a story, the choices seem to be low quality and have very little content. My supervisor who has been in the job for years says it's always a real problem when they are asking the children to contribute their thoughts and experiences - they seem to have so few frames of reference.

It doesn't seem much better with the older children, my daughter in grade 7 had one novel in English for the year, which the teacher read out loud to them. In grade 8 they read two books.

It's startling how little cultural capital these children have when I speak to them. My sense is that education in the UK is a little better, but I think the general trend is similar across English speaking countries.

My dc were exceptionally good readers, but really weren't encouraged at primary school. It was more a case of dumbing down to make sure nobody got ahead of anyone else.
My late son continued reading all his life and was a great writer and thinker. He would have been in his 30s now.
My youngest is 22 and in spite of being an enthusiastic reader up till GCSE, she now lacks the time and enthusiasm. She said GCSE English destroyed her love of books.
I can't discuss the current identity ideology with her because she wants to be kind. I skirt around it by mentioning domstic violence, child protection etc and hoping the penny will drop.

I do think the recent education system is a big part of the problem. For the last 10-15 years at least the focus has been on league tables and results leading to an almost learning by rote system. This has discouraged critical thinking and research and instead has just made a generation of young people reliant on being told what's true or not.

Fiction is one area that is not at all "contaminated" by gender ideology. Readers still want to know whether characters are male or female, and there is no push to change that. A quick search on Amazom shows that there is no market whatsoever for transgender literature.
Thank goodness.

It's noteworthy that in every other area of life, we try to find words that are more precise in describing things, not less. Think of how many words there are for the colour white when repainting your home!

My own stock in trade are words, and precision is what makes communication clear. The more precise, the better. The thesaurus is my best friend. Yet now we are expected to not see any difference? Not name them?

Why would anyone think that removing the names for the biological distinction between males and females is a good thing, a progressive development? A distinction so essential to the very continuation of the human species?

GCSE English destroyed her love of books

Off-topic, but me too! Studying books instead of reading them for pleasure turned it into a chore. I also hated Shakespeare until I saw it at the RSC for the first time, Shakespeare should be performed and watched, not read.

This is something I think about a lot. I work in a primary school in a literacy program, and I'm continually noticing how little the children who come to us read. Not only at home which might be expected with many kids with reading problems, but in the elementary school. Most of the reading they do is paragraphs and little stories meant to test comprehension, it's not good literature. Even when the teachers read a story, the choices seem to be low quality and have very little content. My supervisor who has been in the job for years says it's always a real problem when they are asking the children to contribute their thoughts and experiences - they seem to have so few frames of reference.

It doesn't seem much better with the older children, my daughter in grade 7 had one novel in English for the year, which the teacher read out loud to them. In grade 8 they read two books.

You're in Canada, right? Never went to school there but I was briefly in an American school age 8 and remember them having a book club for us, it was through one of those order a few to start with and they'll send you more monthly old school book clubs that you used to see ads for in magazines, so reading for pleasure was actively encouraged and the school was helping to facilitate it for the kids. There was also a small library that we could go hang out in whenever we weren't in lessons with age appropriate books, and of course when we got to secondary school we were required to read at least one book per term in English lessons and then talk through it during lessons. It's really sad if schools aren't doing that any more, and is obviously going to have a cumulative impact on kids as they grow up.

It’s not new that women will believe things that completely contradict their lived experience and knowledge about their bodies. I was brought up to believe that a virgin could become pregnant and give birth. Millions of women all over the world still believe this.

It took a religious education to teach me that people will believe almost anything if they want to.

As a man attempting to educate myself on feminism I've found mumsnet both scary and enlightening in equal parts. With young women leading in education and pay you would have expected them to be less naive than several decades ago or at least no more so. It is absolutely crazy to think that women in their 20s in our modern society don't know the difference between a man and a woman and that some even think virgins can have babies and people can just magicly change sex by the power of thought. The female students I speak with seem so much more switched on and adult than either gender were growing up in my generation, but I struggle to look at them in the same way knowing that some I've spoken to probably didn't even know how I'm different from them.

My 12yo nephew no longer believes in the stork and knows how babies are made and that men have willies etc. I think twelve is quite late to understand this but he's twice the age of some of these women who think men and women are the same!

They do know though. They are just having to pretend.

Half the age not twice the age!

Everyone knows what an adult human female is, it's just that some young women have been won over by the pomo arguments about words not really mattering and therefore if it makes some people feel better to pretend that woman means something other than adult human female we should just do that. They haven't yet made the connection that allowing words to be manipulated in that way has a goal, and that goal is the removal of the boundaries that allow us to create single sex spaces, say that lesbians don't want to engage sexually with cocks, etc. They don't realize that agreeing to use woman to mean "and some males also" has as a consequence not then being able to say "but some people in the group we're now calling women can't be in the changing room at the swimming pool".

I think it could be partly down to the question. It presented two extremes - XX chromosomes only, vs female identity only.

Your wellmeaning young woman who has heard about DSDs with different chromosomes, and also knows at least one female friend who defines themself as a trans man or non binary, thinks the first answer can’t be right.

So they pick the other one, without considering that it’s even more of an extreme.

but I struggle to look at them in the same way knowing that some I've spoken to probably didn't even know how I'm different from them.

Do you believe for a second that those young women who you recognise as intelligent really think that you could be one of them? If so, you are more foolish than they are.

Women will tick that box either because they don't understand the consequences yet or because they dare not speak the truth because they know it involves either deletions online, abusive language, social outcasting, a disciplinary at work or a visit from the police.

Still wrong, but a much more reasonable response when you factor that lot in.

They're trying to square the circle of "but if I say they can't be called women that will upset them" and "but I don't want anyone with a penis in spaces where I'm naked and vulnerable" while not realizing that conceding on the first makes it close to impossible to achieve the second. They're playing along because they think it doesn't matter and won't have any real consequences.

Which is why "be kind" is so dangerous in this context - being kind to transwomen means being deeply unkind to women and girls.

Exactly - why ‘be kind’ to those who are being exactly the opposite? It actually meant ‘be a doormat’.

Great PR through - make people do what you want by making it seem like they are being hideously horrible and absolutely unreasonable if they don’t.

I think the question might well be the issue. Being GC, I would choose the first option but would feel a bit uncomfortable because I do count women with CAIS as women albeit that they are genetically male. I couldn't describe them as men.