The cognitive dissonance from 'TWAW' women

[CheeryTreeBlossom]

I've seen a few things today on social media which got me thinking: How do "liberal" feminists square up the argument that being a women is a feeling vs the experience we all know?

1. The awful disappearance of Sarah Everard has led to an outpouring on twitter of women highlighting how they are essentially bound by a curfew all the time (and not just when the police "helpfully suggest" it) and feel the fear of being followed/harassed/assaulted by men in public constantly.

2. Kamala Harris posted a video on Instagram about the 2.5million women how have left the workforce in the US (similar stats on Guardian about the UK) and it's driven by women being in lower paid work and not having access to childcare when schools close.

3. This scene from Fleabag appeared on my Facebook feed where Kristin Scott Thomas gives a powerful speech about how women are constantly affected by their bodies through the start of menstruation to menopause. Lots of positive articles from the time it aired:
   www.refinery29.com/en-gb/fleabag-season-2-episode-3

And yet these same women would call others bigots for saying biology matters and instead that feelings are more important to being a woman than anything else?
That to dislike finding myself in an enclosed public space with someone visibly male is phobic, and that our reproductively system has a huge impact in our lives and why women are still discriminated against?

Argh. I'm just sick of being the only one in my friends group that seems to see the hypocrisy.
They say JKR is a nasty transphobe but equally complain about the patriarchy and how childcare costs put women put of work

Oh FFS this is exactly what I was thinking about when I started this. It is not transphobic to point out that our reproductive capability is what makes women vulnerable and disadvantaged in this world.

It is why women have been sold/forced into marriage throughout history - to provide children.
Women were kept on a short leash so that the men could be sure the offspring were theirs.

It is why women still end up doing the majority of the childcare, and are therefore forced out of the workplace or into more precarious employment to work around a lack of affordable childcare. Which then makes them more at risk when recessions come around, leads to poverty, lower pensions, and being trapped in relationships because they can't afford to leave.

It is why women are on average physically weaker, we have less muscle mass and more fat mass in order to support that reproductive capability. It makes us more vulnerable and less likely to be able to fight off a male attacker.

It is why women are left out of pretty much all phase 1 drug studies and women's health issues ignored as their cycle is too 'complicated' and will mess up the results. Or the teeny chance that a participant is pregnant.

It is all bloody linked! Women are not structurally oppressed because of internal feelings. It is their sex. You cannot separate sexism from sex.
Transwomen face their own struggles and discrimination but it is not sexism, because it isn't caused by their sex! Stop trying to centre them in every fight for women's equality.
Women are already told to shut up about health issues /not use their chosen words for fear of offence. We can't fight sexism if we can't name it.

Rooty is the perfect example of the type of person the OP is taking about. She has no argument against many of our concerns and has admitted that on here before. She knows there is an issue deep down but her barrier is the Trans people that she knows. They are forefront in her mind during these discussions. Just a shame the women in her life aren't. Particularly if they are from a minority that will be excluded from their own single sex spaces if males are allowed in.

Instead of fighting against regressive stereotypes, this generation has wholesale bought into them - is this what our generation has done wrong? We have been so progressive in our lives, that the next generation has to rebel against us in this way? Bring on that pendulum to smack them in the face as it swings back.

At DD's school, all the girls have long hair, they all wear skirts, most of them very short skirts. The boys have a variety of haircuts and styles. But the girls pretty much only one look. It's bizarre. We fought to wear trousers at school (and never won that fight whilst I was there) and we had a variety of looks (it was the 80s after all). It's like a cult of femininity.

It is understandable if you know and love someone suffering from gender dysphoria that you might be willing to advocate for things that might make their lives " easier"
without considering how that might affect others. For example, If your child had to use a wheelchair and can't access the playground you'll fight for ramps and no raised areas but you'll not fight to ban kids using skipping ropes or running around because your child can't do this. However, you might try to devise games everybody might play and enjoy but again you can't force them not to do other things.
In the same way, much as you might want other people to see your friend/ relative as they wish to be seen, this is not something that can be compelled and expecting another group to give up their safety, dignity and or privacy to accommodate them is wrong.
Be kind yes. Allow people to dress as they like, provide third spaces as needed but compromise others' rights and safety, no

One set of questions I would want to ask a room full of people male and female including trans people is this:-

How often are you the smallest or physically weakest person in the room?
Are you the smallest and/or physically weakest person in your household?

My DH and sons are bigger and stronger than me. I am average height for a woman but both my sons passed me by the age of 13. My eldest is a 6’2” rugby player who is probably double my strength or more.

A TW will be bigger and stronger than the vast majority of women. TW have genuine fears for their safety, that is accepted. However, TW also have to recognise that women grow up and live with a degree of physical vulnerability that they don’t. Women need spaces where they are not reminded of that physical vulnerability, where they can relax their guard and just be. If women lose single sex spaces then they lose that psychological sense of safety - not because any individual TW is a threat nor because TW as a class are a threat - but because women know that someone from the set of people who are bigger and stronger than them are in the same space. The psychological safe space has gone - the sub conscious risk calculations kick in - is this person genuine or are they a Karen White. Women live with a real consciousness of their own vulnerability (too many women aren’t even safe at home) and so the impact of losing single sex spaces is psychologically significant not just physically important.

And I would add, that single sex spaces are also a refuge from the male gaze when women and girls are feeling vulnerable at their most vulnerable and self conscious. Women are also conditioned not to take up space in mixed spaces.

@DialSquare

Rooty is the perfect example of the type of person the OP is taking about. She has no argument against many of our concerns and has admitted that on here before. She knows there is an issue deep down but her barrier is the Trans people that she knows. They are forefront in her mind during these discussions. Just a shame the women in her life aren't. Particularly if they are from a minority that will be excluded from their own single sex spaces if males are allowed in.

You know a lot about me for someone who doesn't know me.

Trans are not at the forefront of my mind. Nobody is. Because I don't put one group before another.

Good point. If every man could think back to their 11 ayear old physique and imagine spending their whole life with that body, how safe would they feel walking home late at night?
Mind you my son was almost 5ft 11 at that age so maybe not a very good analogy but you get my drift

If women lose single sex spaces then they lose that psychological sense of safety - not because any individual TW is a threat nor because TW as a class are a threat - but because women know that someone from the set of people who are bigger and stronger than them are in the same space. The psychological safe space has gone - the sub conscious risk calculations kick in - is this person genuine or are they a Karen White. Women live with a real consciousness of their own vulnerability (too many women aren’t even safe at home) and so the impact of losing single sex spaces is psychologically significant not just physically important.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, it's very well expressed.

@Kit19

no Rooty the weaponising of infertile women and twisting it to equate to it being somehow like a TW inability to get pregnant is utterly and completely offensive

TW are less at risk because they are male and have male biology otherwise they would be 'women'

I didn't twist it or equate it though.

My point was , using fertility is not on.

We should not be using fertility in any argument or manner, full stop.

@CheeryTreeBlossom

Oh FFS this is exactly what I was thinking about when I started this. It is not transphobic to point out that our reproductive capability is what makes women vulnerable and disadvantaged in this world.

It is why women have been sold/forced into marriage throughout history - to provide children.
Women were kept on a short leash so that the men could be sure the offspring were theirs.

It is why women still end up doing the majority of the childcare, and are therefore forced out of the workplace or into more precarious employment to work around a lack of affordable childcare. Which then makes them more at risk when recessions come around, leads to poverty, lower pensions, and being trapped in relationships because they can't afford to leave.

It is why women are on average physically weaker, we have less muscle mass and more fat mass in order to support that reproductive capability. It makes us more vulnerable and less likely to be able to fight off a male attacker.

It is why women are left out of pretty much all phase 1 drug studies and women's health issues ignored as their cycle is too 'complicated' and will mess up the results. Or the teeny chance that a participant is pregnant.

It is all bloody linked! Women are not structurally oppressed because of internal feelings. It is their sex. You cannot separate sexism from sex.
Transwomen face their own struggles and discrimination but it is not sexism, because it isn't caused by their sex! Stop trying to centre them in every fight for women's equality.
Women are already told to shut up about health issues /not use their chosen words for fear of offence. We can't fight sexism if we can't name it.

I wouldn't even have thought about transwomen in the current debate giving the appalling murder.

It was you who connected them.

You can't raise it and then say stop trying to talk about them.

I'm only going by your previous posts Rooty. And you are putting one group before another. Do you not agree that transwomen should be able to use women's single sex spaces? That's putting them before women and girls. Particularly ones that won't be able to use those spaces any more .

OK, here's where I sometimes come unstuck, as someone who was a liberal feminist until about a year ago and is still working and thinking through this stuff (with the help of this board):

I accept the importance of biology. TW are not biological women. Sex and gender are different and shouldn't be conflated.

I believe that biology is at the root of sexism. We are oppressed because of our sex and because of gendered expectations and limitations heaped upon us (and on men) from an early age based on our sex.

I'm on board with the need to distinguish between biological women and trans women in certain circumstances, and to reserve certain spaces for biological women.

I agree that we need to fight the erasure of the word 'woman' and of words describing our sexed bodies. We need to be able to talk about menstruation, breasts, pregnancy, menopause etc. as women's issues, because (even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that TWAW are women and TMAM) they are issues that overwhelmingly affect and unite us as women. We need to continue to exist as a sex class, and we need to retain the ability to organise politically to fight oppression.

What I'm unsure about is this: Why is it necessary to always and exclusively define the word 'woman' based on sex? 'Woman' is a word that carries multiple layers of meaning, including aspects that relate to gender (by which, again, I mean the expectations and limitations placed on us based on our sex). It is perfectly normal to me, as a linguist, for words to have multiple, sometimes overlapping, meanings depending on context. I know that this will sound like 'ceding language' to some, but honestly, I think 'woman' and 'man' have always had gender-related meanings as well as sex-based ones. If you'd asked someone in the 15th century to define 'woman', I'm sure you would have got all kinds of shitty gender stereotypes as well as biological facts.

Basically, I don't know if arguing about the definition of the word 'woman' is all that constructive. In the circumstances where you need to limit its meaning to biology, surely you need to specify that anyway, given the scope for confusion and equivocation if you don't? Why can't we say that TWAW, in a certain sense of the word?

@Bearlet

OK, here's where I sometimes come unstuck, as someone who was a liberal feminist until about a year ago and is still working and thinking through this stuff (with the help of this board):

I accept the importance of biology. TW are not biological women. Sex and gender are different and shouldn't be conflated.

I believe that biology is at the root of sexism. We are oppressed because of our sex and because of gendered expectations and limitations heaped upon us (and on men) from an early age based on our sex.

I'm on board with the need to distinguish between biological women and trans women in certain circumstances, and to reserve certain spaces for biological women.

I agree that we need to fight the erasure of the word 'woman' and of words describing our sexed bodies. We need to be able to talk about menstruation, breasts, pregnancy, menopause etc. as women's issues, because (even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that TWAW are women and TMAM) they are issues that overwhelmingly affect and unite us as women. We need to continue to exist as a sex class, and we need to retain the ability to organise politically to fight oppression.

What I'm unsure about is this: Why is it necessary to always and exclusively define the word 'woman' based on sex? 'Woman' is a word that carries multiple layers of meaning, including aspects that relate to gender (by which, again, I mean the expectations and limitations placed on us based on our sex). It is perfectly normal to me, as a linguist, for words to have multiple, sometimes overlapping, meanings depending on context. I know that this will sound like 'ceding language' to some, but honestly, I think 'woman' and 'man' have always had gender-related meanings as well as sex-based ones. If you'd asked someone in the 15th century to define 'woman', I'm sure you would have got all kinds of shitty gender stereotypes as well as biological facts.

Basically, I don't know if arguing about the definition of the word 'woman' is all that constructive. In the circumstances where you need to limit its meaning to biology, surely you need to specify that anyway, given the scope for confusion and equivocation if you don't? Why can't we say that TWAW, in a certain sense of the word?

I do see what you're saying here and it does make sense on the face of it. My problem is it's a slippery slope and we're already half way down on our arses as far as I can see.

I would accept "Transwomen are transwomen." And I would even accept knowing a transwoman on a personal level and referring to them as "she" out of kindness and respect. I would agree that transwomen and transmen have a legitimate cause to fight to make sure they aren't marginalised or discriminated against in society.

But I cannot lie and say they are women. They are not. I cannot concede that language. It is too important. I don't understand why the trans community (or rather, why some in the trans community) are so insistent on removing the term "trans" and claiming that they are in fact women.

From the other thread on Owen Jones, I think the poster who said Jones' TWAW is such a shallow belief, he doesn't really believe it, he thinks it is the correct mantra to chant and that it doesn't matter if he says something that is logically nonsense. I think this cognitive dissonance is common to many. I think part of the thinking fills in with silent qualifiers:

'of course when I say TWAW I don't mean it literally, I mean that we should care for the feelings of a marginalised and sometimes vulnerable group, and respect their lived experience, but it's okay to say TWAW because it's so clearly not factually or literally true that nobody would actually think that I meant it that way'

Fine. I can understand that and extend sympathy to a marginalised group and of course trans rights are human rights just like all of us and trans people should be protected and free to live free of harm or abuse.

The problem is that so many people have now said TWAW so passionately and vociferously that they now can't retract, even as certain factions say: 'Okay, TWAW therefore sex doesn't exist, single sex spaces can be scrapped and there is literally no difference between male bodies and female bodies'.

So TWAW is being written into law, the difference between W and TW has been erased, in policy and law, with the only difference being something like the new hate crime law in Scotland affording greater protection to TW than to women, result that women are 2nd class citizens.

Everyone is still aware of course that TWANW. But it's too late.

From the other thread on Owen Jones, I think the poster who said Jones' TWAW is such a shallow belief, he doesn't really believe it, he thinks it is the correct mantra to chant and that it doesn't matter if he says something that is logically nonsense. I think this cognitive dissonance is common to many. I think part of the thinking fills in with silent qualifiers:

'of course when I say TWAW I don't mean it literally, I mean that we should care for the feelings of a marginalised and sometimes vulnerable group, and respect their lived experience, but it's okay to say TWAW because it's so clearly not factually or literally true that nobody would actually think that I meant it that way'

Yes exactly.

Everyone is still aware of course that TWANW. But it's too late.

Well written. Or in cartoon form...

Basically, I don't know if arguing about the definition of the word 'woman' is all that constructive. In the circumstances where you need to limit its meaning to biology, surely you need to specify that anyway, given the scope for confusion and equivocation if you don't? Why can't we say that TWAW, in a certain sense of the word?

There was a good thread on this the other day:

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4182813-Trans-women-are-are-not-women-is-a-pointless-place-to-start-a-debate

Ooh that's a great meme Necessary!

What I'm unsure about is this: Why is it necessary to always and exclusively define the word 'woman' based on sex? '

Because essentially, that is what "woman" means. I don't see any benefit for women and girls to have it defined in terms of sex role stereotypes. Can I ask why you do?

Yes, that!

Almost every woman here who has trans friends, family members or colleagues will probably call them by their preferred pronouns, that's polite at an individual level, no problem. We all know that the transwomen are men who choose to present themselves in some manner of femininity and the tarnsmen are women who choose to present themselvs in some manner of masculinity, and, theones I know at least, have varying levels of bodily transformations, medications from zero to all that is currently legal and possible to have.

On a social, interpersonal level that is fine, it is the status quo that existed for decades, based on individual choices and tacit agreements.

The problem with making any of that legal is the unintended consequences. As a linguist it is possible, surely, to see the difference between the natural evolauton of a word and the enforced mangling of one? Unintended consequences including women now saying no to the transwomen they would have tacitly accepted in female spaces, beginnng to refuse those personal pronouns all the way to the incarceration of fully intact males in the female estate!

That's why so many now refuse to be nice and givethat inch, because TRAs have already stolen a mile or three. As can be seen by the recent HoL debate, the MoJ court case, Harry the Owl and other court cases.

@ArabellaScott

From the other thread on Owen Jones, I think the poster who said Jones' TWAW is such a shallow belief, he doesn't really believe it, he thinks it is the correct mantra to chant and that it doesn't matter if he says something that is logically nonsense. I think this cognitive dissonance is common to many. I think part of the thinking fills in with silent qualifiers:

'of course when I say TWAW I don't mean it literally, I mean that we should care for the feelings of a marginalised and sometimes vulnerable group, and respect their lived experience, but it's okay to say TWAW because it's so clearly not factually or literally true that nobody would actually think that I meant it that way'

Fine. I can understand that and extend sympathy to a marginalised group and of course trans rights are human rights just like all of us and trans people should be protected and free to live free of harm or abuse.

The problem is that so many people have now said TWAW so passionately and vociferously that they now can't retract, even as certain factions say: 'Okay, TWAW therefore sex doesn't exist, single sex spaces can be scrapped and there is literally no difference between male bodies and female bodies'.

So TWAW is being written into law, the difference between W and TW has been erased, in policy and law, with the only difference being something like the new hate crime law in Scotland affording greater protection to TW than to women, result that women are 2nd class citizens.

Everyone is still aware of course that TWANW. But it's too late.

exactly this! everyone knows TWANW but too many people are too invested now to have any way back.

plus there are still so many people saying "but of course no one thinks TW should be in women's prisons or refuges or play sport against women or take up spaces up on groups discussing the menopause, no one thinks that, no one is doing that.........and then when they find out they are, its either "wait what????" or "but but but its so few beeeekiiiind".

The problem with making any of that legal is the unintended consequences.

We're already seeing the unintended consequences, as recorded in Hansard in 2003/2004, that were handwaved away because the GRA was only supposed to apply to a few thousand people.

@Bearlet in a nutshell, for me, it's because defining woman as anything other than a biological sex class opens the door to a whole world of "fluffy pink lady brain Vs tough blue manly brain". A fast and slippery slope to old-fashioned sexism. I also think it's a breeding ground for dysphoria and confusion in the young - "are you a proper boy, or are you actually a bit of a girl?" (and vice versa).

Why is it necessary to always and exclusively define the word 'woman' based on sex?

It isn't. Words can and do have multiple meanings, some more literal than others.

But it is necessary for people of the female sex to have a word which can be used to exclusively specify them for when they want to talk about themselves.

Or even just being able to state definitions would suffice - "for the purpose of this book/bill/survey, we use 'woman' to mean human female of any age".

The objection is not so much to other people using woman for whatever purpose they want - it's to people stopping women from using the word (or any word) to mean "adult human female". It's not the word they're objecting to, it's the definition, regardless of word.

If we invented a new word ("womyn", "superwoman", whatever) for "adult human female", they'd be just as upset.

You've got it the wrong way round - ask them "why is it necessary to never have a word to exclusively denote 'human females'"? And "why is it necessary to never have anything specifically for females without including any male who wants in?"