My daughter just told me I am a bad feminist.

[Duffmcstockings]

I am not intersectional enough.

I try so very hard to celebrate the fact that so many young women haven't had the shit kicked out of them by the patriarchy yet, so have the energy left over to correct all us old crones.

I cannot ask her to define what a woman is because it gets sticky.

Presumably because she thinks men can be women

Many teenagers think their mum is wrong about everything. Most (of the girls at least) eventually come to realize that she was right all along.

If you wanted to try to hash it out you could point out what when Crenshaw wrote about intersectionality she was talking about black women, not rich white men who pontificate about how women should do feminism on the telly.

I no longer talk to my dd about twaw. She got her feminism from me and is ardent in it - and I know she admires me and my friends for our beliefs etc. and we are in agreement with so much but we cannot agree on this one thing that TWAW. So I just refuse to engage. She came down to me recently saying "Omg JK Rowling has done it again" and I said "I agree with everything she said so let's not discuss it because we will just fight"

I think things will sort out eventually. I hope so.

Intersectionality is the most misused word in feminism imo. Crenshaw brilliantly pointed out that a company where white women were promoted and black men were promoted could refuse to promote black women and get away with it. nothing to do with twaw.

btw, dd and I did agree recently on applauding the SC decision on workplace rights for gay and trans. I have no wish for any trans person to be discriminated against at work or in renting an apartment etc. I would fight for that not to happen.

I have a woke teen dd. An autistic woke teen. She knows we disagree on this topic. It's frustrating.

But, to be an intersectional feminist, to fight for equality of sex, race, abilities, ethnicities, sexualities, classes, etc., I have to support trans rights too because, as I said before, if I validate oppression of one group, I validate oppression of any other group.

Talk about disappearing up your own arse in a cloud of cognitive dissonance.

Ask her why transactivism doesn’t consider the needs of female people, if intersectionalism is so important?

Or point out that ‘intersectional feminism’ is about black women, not white males, regardless of how they identify.

I've decided to try to be more sympathetic. Now her degree is finished it is the first time in 7 years that she hasn't got more exams and assignments around the corner.
She's obviously bereft.
Writing TEN PAGE lectures on Instagram with orders that we should read, learn, engage.

I'm ignoring it.

Nowt more pompous than teenagers.

My first reaction was "try telling that to Kimberle Crenshaw."

My second reaction was to suggest you give her this rule to live by: Never set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

I think I might’ve been similarly fervent about vegetarianism/glass recycling when I was a teenager? I still practice both 30 years later but I’m definitely not as annoying about it

Arrgghhh my sympathies

I would ask her why does feminism have to fight for everything else whilst other political movements are allowed boundaries 🤔

I got through to DSD by saying if her idea of feminism was being celebrated by men who are demonstrably trying to sabotage and undermine women's rights then she needed to consider if she was a feminist at all....

Tell her to read Kimberly Crenshaw's original article. I don't think intersectionality means quite what she thinks it means (channelling my inner Inigo Montoya).

This.

If your feminism includes men, it's not FEMinism, which is about FEMale liberation. I opened my daughter's eyes to the transgenderism when I showed her the terf is a slur website. Before that she'd gone along with all the bollocks about feminism being 'inclusive'. Mind you, she was older and had been through uni by this time.

Me and my daughter have butted heads on this subject too, she identified as non-binary for a while but thankfully grew out of that fad when she left the college class where a few of them identified as trans or NB.

I've also been accused of being too white and a white feminist, thankfully she sees how damaging pornography and prostitution is so I'm not a SWERF as well as a TERF in her eyes!

What I find disturbing is the brand of feminism where they say it is about uplifting everyone, including men.

Every teenager knows better than their mum, hopefully you can keep things civil between you.

I’ve just read this brilliant medium piece by Cherry Smiley.

I suspect (hope?) it will be favourably received by younger women (and older girls) too!

medium.com/@clsmiley/transwomen-are-women-or-else-a996e4ac02c5

She’s 18 ? How has she done a degree already ???

Mine is 20. She is also a transphobe. Meaning that she is now in a sticky position with regard to one of her high school besties, who has come out as non binary and got secretly married to an opposite sex non binary person in a joyous union of conveniently heterosexual queerness. We bonded over mutual eye rolling and emphatic dramatic gesticulations of voiceless rage. And huffing.
The 16yo is an athlete and was uber intersectional and welcoming of ladies with penises. Until I pointed out that she would be competing against them. There are apparently tentative limits to intersectionality now.
It’s a lovely idea but I’m a fan of laying out reality. At volume. Such a spoilsport. So hard to argue with reality.

Cherry Smiley's piece is a 'gotcha' because you can't out-woke an indigenous person. They're at the top of the poor-me pile. So whatever they say, goes. If it's offensive to indigenous peoples to say TWAW, then, okay, let's go with that.

It's all nonsense. Chattery nonsense. My nan would not be amused.

She’ll learn, bless her.

Dududu have just read the article you posted - thank you for sharing.

Op I feel your pain. My teen DD was taught at school about feminism. There were more image of men on the slide showing modern day feminists including (and this now fills me with rage) Daniel Radcliffe. So men can be feminists too and I am someone who hates men if I disagree.

Ahhh I wish I was as clever as I was when I was a teenager! I knew everything then.

What's that famous Twain quote, Dick? Something along the lines of When I was 18 I couldn't believe how ignorant my father was. By the time I turned 25 I was astounded by how much the old man had learned in the intervening 7 years. (Twain of course puts it much more pithily.)