An inclusive way to be gender critical?

[pensivepigeon]

My thoughts on gender and sex are thus:

Gender is a social construct. It is how society and individuals view the presentation of the sexes - in fashion, interests and work roles. Whereas sex is biological, we cannot change it even though we might surgically change our appearance and take artificial hormones which affect our bodily functions.

However because gender is a social construct and we are part of society we can define it. I define gender as

Female = adhering or not adhering to traditional stereotypes regarding names, fashion, interests and work roles.
Male= adhering or not adhering to traditional stereotypes regarding names, fashion, interests and work roles.

If everyone took this on board it would mean safe single sex spaces could be preserved, as people could present themselves however they want, wear what they want but use the single sex space appropriate for their sex without conflict. Uniforms would offer everyone both traditional female and male options which either sex could wear. Ditto with sports, competing takes place within the appropriate sex classes but competitors can wear either the traditional male or female competition uniforms. There would be no confusion and need to agonise over language when providing medical care.

Taking this stance stance means I have no problem when it comes to saying I am of female sex with a female gender.

So am I gender critical? Is this inclusive?

[BreatheAndFocus]

There would be no perceived need for single sex based rights to be eroded if society really accepted the real fluidity of gender as a social and cultural concept along with the binary nature of sex in human beings

I think I partly get what you’re saying. Are you saying we broaden the gender stereotypes and then eventually no-one will think about gender because it will be meaningless. That is, gender now says ‘women’s work’ is housework/childcare etc, but you’re saying broaden that to be ‘women’s work’ can be any kind of work?

TBH, I don’t see the point. I do educate my children to reject stereotypes but I do that by telling them stereotypes are stupid and we can wear and do what we want. I don’t need to have the middle-man of gender to do that.

Moreover, I don’t think accepting regressive ideas (gender stereotypes) and trying to redefine and broaden their definitions will work because it doesn’t address the underlying discrimination against women. To me it’s like being ‘colourblind’: ie if we just ignore people’s race, racism will magically disappear.

[pensivepigeon]

That’s reinforcing gender stereotypes but with a caveat. "
But our cultural norms are more varied than the 1950s for instance. Gender stereotypes are fluid,

[pensivepigeon]

To me it’s like being ‘colourblind’: ie if we just ignore people’s race, racism will magically disappear.

It's not ignoring though so doesn't compare. It's reflective and promoting discussion rather than shutting it down

[Doyoumind]

We're not shutting down discussion though. You're talking to the wrong audience.

[Gerla]

A classroom learning resource would be anatomically correct dolls which the child/teacher could add clothing and wigs and makeup to with different 'settings' where the dolls could be placed in different societal roles.
So saying sex exists but you can dress how you like and do what you like? I think you're trying to reinvent the wheel. This is basically what happens already (at least up until recently when certain people have tried to push for a return to gender roles).

[Puzzledtenant]

@pensivepigeon

That’s reinforcing gender stereotypes but with a caveat. "
But our cultural norms are more varied than the 1950s for instance. Gender stereotypes are fluid,

Why do you feel we need stereotypes though? Why does my child have to wear a skirt to school just because lots of other people think girls should wear skirts? Fair enough she has to wear clothes and smart ones at that for school because the whole of society as a majority has agreed that's fair but why does she have to fit rules for videos that are nothing to do with her sex? Why not skirts or trousers for anyone? That's the problem with gender stereotypes, even fluid ones that we can openly discuss - they put unfair restrictions or judgements on different sexes and allow this grey area about what sex you are based on what stereotype you meet.

[pensivepigeon]

@Doyoumind

As I said, this is not intended to be accusatory only exploratory. You are not my audience, we are all participants in a discussion. (At least that is my hope).

[Puzzledtenant]

*rules for stereotypes

[pensivepigeon]

Why do you feel we need stereotypes though?

Stereotypes seem to be how the human brain organises what they know about the world. We make connections look for patterns. Doesn't mean the patterns cannot evolve or be broken.

[Gerla]

It's not ignoring though so doesn't compare. It's reflective and promoting discussion rather than shutting it down
Are you confusing abolishing gender with shutting down discussion? Feminists are not shutting down discussion of gender. We are recognising it as instrumental in the oppression of females. And yes we are talking about it!

[pensivepigeon]

Anyway off for a run now. Be back later. It's been good. Thanks everyone.

[AradiaGC]

@pensivepigeon

If I invented a new word and defined it as referring to things that were either green or not green, it wouldn't be a useful word.

Yes, but we are not talking about new words. We are talking about words which have a more defined meaning historically and talking about what they mean now (because they reflect culture). It is useful to be able to know this in order to reflect on our past and current times.

There's something useful on reflecting on how gender roles have changed over time and culture. That's an interesting part if feminist history that actually proves that these roles are cultural and not innate. I'm really not seeing the logical leap you're making after that, though.

It seems as if you're saying that at one time femininity was defined in a particular way - passivity, emotionalism, dresses, makeup, pick your stereotype - but now you want to redefine it so that it also includes traits it didn't before - action, logic, monster trucks. Certainly women can have any or all of these traits and interests, but if femininity ('female' gender) is defined as anything a woman could possibly be or like, stereotypical or not, why is the word needed? Isn't that just personality?

[AdHominemNonSequitur]

It's a calm discussion but I still get the sense that you are feeling defensive of your idea OP because people in this discussion can't see it's merit.

[Puzzledtenant]

@pensivepigeon

Why do you feel we need stereotypes though?

Stereotypes seem to be how the human brain organises what they know about the world. We make connections look for patterns. Doesn't mean the patterns cannot evolve or be broken.

An individual might make stereotypes for themselves to understand the world but that's totally different to allowing stereotypes to become a joint social idea, that raises a lot of dangers and no positives. Just off the top of my head;

"Black people are more violent" - police brutality to black people
"Women will go off to have babies" - gender pay gap
"Men have high sexual needs and women lie" - sexual assaults/murders excused

There is no advantage to clinging to stereotypes as a society even if you're willing for them to be fluid.

[Biscuitsanddoombar]

Wondering how many TRA are sat around this morning wondering how to be inclusive of GC feminists

I’d bet none at all

There still seems to be this idea in some quarters that it’s just because the discussion hasn’t been held in right ‘inclusive’ way and that somehow if it was then we’d all find a happy middle ground and all would be well. That’s not the case at all. It was made clear to us there was to be #nodebate therefore no compromise

I would imagine the GC women here are already doing a brilliant job talking to their children about gender being a reductive and constricting social contract

[Biscuitsanddoombar]

Construct!

[Puzzledtenant]

My mum thinks all French people are rude because of her personal experience and won't go to France, she isn't rude or abusive to them though and society wouldn't allow that. I'm sure no French people have lost sleep over her views but if that was allowed to be a social norm that would be horrific, that's the difference between stereotypes for one person to make sense of the world and allowing them to become an expectation for society.

[CoffeeTeaChocolate]

OP, I used to think like you. I posted along those lines only a few months ago.

I have since read a lot on this board and also followed discussions about this.

TRAs do not want this. They want to be accepted as women. The slightest sense that people not view a trans woman exactly the same as a biological woman is triggering for them as it breaks their illusion.

Examples:

Old ladies forced to accept intimate care from trans women or being labelled bigots.

Trans women working at rape centres and forcing women to accept counselling from them or refuse help.

Girl guides forced to accept trans women as guides and trans girls as members without being allowed to take safe guarding into account.

Trans women on single sex psychiatric wards and the patients there forced to accept them as women.

A trans woman GP writing an article about how validating it felt that religious women let them do intimate examinations after transitioning.

It is literally all about the feelings of trans people and for them to be accepted as “real” women. They did not need to put themselves into any of these roles, they wanted to.

To be honest, if you can make any definition that TRAs accept - which doesn’t result in labelling biological women - and that makes them stay out of single sex spaces indefinitely, I am sure the women here would be completely on your side.

[NonnyMouse1337]

I would be in favour of changing 'gender reassignment' in the Equality Act to be 'gender identity'. Sex should be left alone and we shouldn't pander to those wanting to deny its existence. Women's rights remain sex-based.
I would define gender identity as varying levels of personal adherence to cultural stereotypes around the two sexes, rather than some vague, subjective soul thing that some people claim to possess.

I personally don't think the idea of gender abolition is feasible or realistic. I don't mind if that doesn't make me a feminist. There has never been any human society / culture / civilization that functioned without gendered roles or stereotypes. In my view, 'gender' or gendered stereotypes will always develop in any human society, like music or language / dialects / accents.

For example, take clothing - The male and female body are, overall, very different. This is because we are a sexually dimorphic species, so its rooted in evolution and biology, and it would be foolish to deny this. Men's bodies are generally more angular while women's bodies are generally more curvy due to breasts and body fat around hips. Yes, some men might be more curvy and some women might be quite lean, but they are exceptions not the norm.
Therefore in any human society, the clothing that each sex tends to wear will be based around the realities of the differences between women's and men's bodies. A woman's shirt is not the same as a man's shirt. One needs tailored to accommodate breasts while the other doesn't. No amount of activism will abolish this.
As time progresses, the evolution of culture and tradition means the clothing that each sex wears in any human society becomes more differentiated, with certain styles, fabrics and patterns associated more with one sex rather than the other. It's not a planned or conscious development, it's just how these things develop over time. Which is why each culture or nation ends up having distinct clothing for men vs women. It's not necessarily a negative thing per se. Yes there are some awful practices like corsets or foot binding that arise from sexist and patriarchal frameworks that blend into 'fashion'.

The problem, then, comes when society imposes these stereotypes with an iron fist - insisting that everyone must adhere to these unspoken 'rules', rather than accepting that while many people might be ok with the clothing practices that evolved for their sex, there will be many others who don't care much for such rules / stereotypes or who actively prefer the clothing and fashions associated with the opposite sex. The issue is with society labelling anyone who doesn't like the gendered clothing for their sex or who prefers the gendered clothing of the opposite sex as somehow weird or deviant, and other forms of stigmatisation.

I'm all for breaking down stereotypes or rigid rules around clothing, but I do think there will always be distinctions between clothing and fashions for the sexes. You can't stop humans from wanting to look different from each other and you can't stop humans from wanting to signal their difference to the opposite sex.
I'm also for challenging illogical or harmful rules around clothing - for example, a woman shouldn't be expected to wear a dress on a construction site; she should be allowed to wear trousers and jackets just like the men because it's practical and safe.

I have a similar approach to other types of gendered stereotypes and arbitrary rules - challenge the really regressive and harmful ones, allow people to conform to or reject stereotypes as they wish, and accept that these stereotypes will stick around because unless you engage in some form of totalitarian control, you will never get 100% compliance from a human population.

Sorry for rambling.

[Shedbuilder]

Maybe I've got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, but as someone who's been a gender non-conforming lesbian and has fought all these years for the rights of women to dress how they want, do what they want and be who they want only to see the advances we've made over the decades threatened by transgender ideology, this thread is getting right up my nose. The OP seems to think that on the long protest march to something approaching equal rights we haven't tried to accommodate or thought about this long and hard before adopting our position. Like most people here, I regularly ponder about what we could do better or differently and always come back to the fact that this is a war on women and there's no room for compromise. We need firm boundaries that allow us to say no to men in whatever guise they present themselves.

I'm guessing you're young and idealistic, OP, and you were probably pro trans until something happened to make you rethink. You've got trans friends and you want everyone to be reasonable. You don't want to be full-on GC like us nasty fierce old feminists, you want something better, more 21st century, more inclusive and accommodating than what we propose.

You try your way. Start by selling this idea to the men and the TRAs, not to women.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Fighting gender stereotypes is exactly what feminism is about.

So saying that someone is female because they conform to feminine gender stereotypes is not feminist.

[andyoldlabour]

Female and male have absolutely nothing to do with gender stereotypes, they are descriptions of the sex you were born as. They cannot change.
Gender is a social construct and can be anything to anybody.

[aweegc]

I'm GC and inclusive.

I include all humans in the category of human. I include all women (adult human females) in the category of women and all men (adult human males) in the category of males.

I do not include cows in the category of human and I do not include men in the category of women.

In order to have some kind of categorisation of animals, human and non-human, exclusion is necessary. That isn't mean, or clique-y, or exclusionary in any way. I don't feel guilty about not including zebras in the category of rabbits and more than I feel like I should be including men in the category of women, or vice versa.

I don't understand why I'm supposed to be "inclusive" other than someone told me to "Be Kind". I am kind. I have empathy and compassion too, hence I think it's terribly unkind of men to support the idea that a member of their own sex is no longer a man because he wears woman's clothing and has plastic surgery. I think it's horrific that men would attack a member of their own sex for those reasons too. I think that inclusion needs to be worked on so that ALL MEN feel safe in male spaces and can partake in men's sports.

[BernardBlackMissesLangCleg]

Sex is also a social construct founded in biological differences in appearance- secondary sex characteristics

jesus fucking christ that's decadent @PlanDeRaccordement

where do you think babies come from? the habitat catalogue?

[Gerla]

Nonnymouse - nobody is saying that clothing would have to be the same for men and women. Of course due to physical difference there will likely always be differences in clothing between the sexes. What I see as preferable is the abolition of arbitrary judgements on clothing choices for each sex e.g. high heeled shoes are expected for women, men can't have long hair.

I would be in favour of changing 'gender reassignment' in the Equality Act to be 'gender identity'
How would that not conflict with sex-based rights?