Discussion thread - GC? Radfem? Terminology we use, and does it matter?

[xxyzz]

Just this. Sparked by a slight bicker between two people I follow on Twitter, both of whom I generally agree with, with one saying the other 'wasn't really GC'. It reminded me of other discussions I've seen between people arguing over whether they'd call themselves radfems or GC or neither, and that I wasn't (truth be told) that sure of the difference.

So - what is the difference, assuming there is one? I often call myself GC but probably my preferred term would be 'feminist' - I stand up for equal rights for women, in a long tradition of other women doing the same. It's a widely-understood term, in the way that radfem and GC aren't.

So what do you call yourself? Does it matter? Would a different or new term do better?

NB Please note this is not a thread for swords to be crossed at dawn with political enemies, just a gentle look at terminology for that slow period in the run up to the new year... :)

What are the central tenets of your feminism Chestnut?

There's actually quite a lot about biology in there, and plenty of things innately connected to it.

What kinds of things are you thinking of? Where Chestnut talks about "it will include almost nothing as innately connected to biological sex", I assumed what was meant is that men/women don't have innate personality traits, abilities, interests, etc. That those things are learnt from the way we are socialised. I've always believed that was where radfem analysis sat too?

Biology has always been in implicit.
Rape
DV
Prostitution
Abortion
Pregnancy and childbirth
Etc etc etc

It was never considered that women would have to be explicit about the differences in biology. Reproduction, size etc. It was felt these things were self evident.

The we can do the things/ equality was about male structures that women were excluded from.

Does anyone seriously think that feminists through the years forgot or didn't recognise that men tend to be bigger, stronger and (for whatever reason) more violent than women? I can't believe that anyone really thinks that was what was thought.

That's exactly what I've said, though. Radical feminism typically has an extremely limited - not nonexistent - list of things that it sees as biologically based. Half of the things discussed on FWR, or more generally in feminism, come down to questions around how much biology influences things like social structures, or behavioural choices. It's common to see those with a radfem perspective basically mock any suggestion that some group social phenomena might be rooted in some kind of physical or chemical or behavioural difference between women and men.

I'd agree that properly understood patriarchy should be the description of an effect though I'd say I rarely see it used with that level of discipline, and plenty of radfems talk about gender as existing to oppress women as if that's the point, why those ideas/social structures were developed.

Many other feminists are much more open to the possibility that biology has a more widespread or broad set of effects. You see the difference in viewpoints in questions around motherhood, breastfeeding, or different distributions in employment sectors, among other things.

I'm fairly surprised that people wouldn't see that there is a difference in thinking around this, though as some seem to think that the radical feminist tradition is the only "real" feminism, I guess maybe I shouldn't be.

How would you describe your feminism Chestnut?

I guess that difference may be strongest in those who have had to battle most against sexist assumptions that have held them back. When you have had to fight so many incorrect assumptions you really start to reassess every assumption

I would prefer to start from a position of no innate differences unless proven otherwise

As it is the world we live in happily ignores real differences, as evidenced with shocking lack of knowledge of female biology in medicine, yet still there is a widespread belief that men make more natural scientists, that men are better suited to leadership roles in business, that men are more rational and less emotional

Both funnily enough to the detriment of women

I'm a feminist who centers women and girls issues in my feminism. I appreciate men have issues and so I work with some mens mental health charities. I am supportive of trans rights for those who accept biological sex is real and understand that women's spaces are important.

I saw recently a blog post from someone saying that GC trans people aren't allies to women and I don't really agree with that, I feel as an adult you can choose what you want to do with your body etc and people like Rose of Dawn are people who provide a calm and reasonable voice to this mess. I'm happy with men standing for women's rights too as long as they actually are standing for women's rights and not the weird patriarchal lib fem pretence that I tend to see from my FB friends where its seems men are just getting what they want and women are lining up to support :sex work is work", "porn is great", "I love being strangled", "twaw" etc

@midgeghost

I guess that difference may be strongest in those who have had to battle most against sexist assumptions that have held them back. When you have had to fight so many incorrect assumptions you really start to reassess every assumption

I would prefer to start from a position of no innate differences unless proven otherwise

As it is the world we live in happily ignores real differences, as evidenced with shocking lack of knowledge of female biology in medicine, yet still there is a widespread belief that men make more natural scientists, that men are better suited to leadership roles in business, that men are more rational and less emotional

Both funnily enough to the detriment of women

All of this.

plenty of radfems talk about gender as existing to oppress women as if that's the point, why those ideas/social structures were developed.

What other function do they serve other than keeping women in their place? As midgeghost pointed out, so many of the apparently innate differences seem to result in men retaining power and women providing a service, which seems awfully convenient.

I call myself 'gender critical' because I criticise the concept of gender. That's pretty much it. It's a Ronseal description.

I don't call myself a radical feminist, because it's a particular theory of feminism, and in all honesty, I don't know enough about it to say whether I am a radical feminist or not.

Really I don't think that anybody has to call themselves anything. An argument should stand or fall on it's own merits. When people on mumsnet started the 'let toys be toys' campaign they didn't have to align themselves with a particular philosophy.

When people on mumsnet started the 'let toys be toys' campaign they didn't have to align themselves with a particular philosophy.

As far as I remember there was a very conscious decision to make LTBT single issue, and not to get into the politics around it directly.

I understand this is probably not the core aspect of what you're referring to, but FWIW:

I'm male. I call myself GC as a descriptor of my intellectual viewpoint. It means (to me) that I don't believe gender is innate, or that gender identity is a robust, proven or coherent enough concept to meaningully define people by. No particular social or political attitudes necessarily flow from that, it's just application of logic to the evidence available. It's like the fact that I call myself an atheist.

I don't call myself a feminist. Not because I don't believe in the ideas and changes that feminists propose (on a case by case basis, I generally do), but because I'm skeptical of people from outside of disempowered groups co-opting the identity of those groups and indulging in the language of disempowerment when they don't share the experience. It's for women to decide what feminism is and what it does.

Thanks for the discussion.

Has helped make me more conscious of and question some of my own views, particularly around gender, which as both a term and concept, seems so key to the debate.

I was having an interesting conversation today with my teen dd, who is the most 'woke' of my dcs, about the importance of visual culture to young people = the selfie generation. I have almost no photos of me and don't post any on social media. Whereas for my dd and her friends, it's as natural as breathing. Being very aware of how you present and consciously curating that image at all times is just what you do. So it's natural to judge a book by its cover. The assumption is that anyone who changes the cover has put a lot of thought into it, and that is how they want to be seen. Whereas I would see that as fairly superficial, and just a costume, that can be changed at will.

So I wonder how much social media, camera phones etc have changed young people's view of the significance of visual culture in identity. Has this non-stop focus on the superficial made them view appearance as (the only) reality, to the extent that (visible) gender is seen as more real than (largely hidden) biological sex? Does this explain all the bizarre (to me) comments about needing to show genitals to prove one's sex, as though if a bloke was wearing a dress, his sex was somehow magically invisible to all women??

Thoughts, anyone?

Yup the emphasis on the external appearance on social media and perhaps also the blurring of reality and make believe