Are women discriminated against due to their biology?

[Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud]

Kirsty Blackman MP doesn't think that there is much discrimination occuring to women due to biological differences. Do women ever get discriminated against due to issues such as pregnancy?

This - women's oppression due to biological sex - is the inescapable and underlying reason for so many of my political views. It would be amazing if it wasn't true and there was no power imbalance, no abuse, no discrimination, and if people from one of the two groups weren't killed at a rate of two a week by members of the other group.
I'd love it if that wasn't happening but I can't somehow... pretend... that it's not and that it's not important.

I was reading about the forced sterilisation of Uighur women earlier, I guess that's on the basis of perceived sex too?

And let's not forget that the forced sterilisation of black women used to be legal as well. I'm sure I've read that Planned Parenthood are more likely to set up clinics in black neighbourhoods as well, and that black women are more likely to be offered sterilisation. Conversely black women are less likely to be taking reversible user controlled contraception. Guess that's all based on perceived sex.

When we go to the hospital with heart attack symptoms that are non standard for males and don't get diagnosed correctly, I suppose that's all about our perceived sex?

And all those women who have been wearing ill fitting ppe all these years because they're designed for a male body?

Girls being married off as soon as they're old enough to menstruate?

Those areas in India where women are forced to have hysterectomies in order to work because they aren't allowed to have periods at work?

Basically everything in the book "invisible women"?

Seriously, does she even have a brain? I was able to come up with that list in 5 minutes off the top of my head.

Every example I've seen of people claiming discrimination happens on the basis of perceived sex its always things like street harassment, things like "they weren't cat calling my chromosomes". And whilst street harrasment clearly sucks its hardly the life or death deeply embedded structural discrimination that is based on actual sex. I've had homophobic abuse in the street for holding hands with my female friend, but that doesn't mean I'm actually a lesbian or that the LGBT movement should center my experiences. The idea that the experience of a person mistaken for belonging to an oppressed group should be taken more seriously that the experience of people actually belonging to that group is so mind blowingly stupid and offensive that it's hard to believe she isn't trolling tbh.

I also suspect KB will soon fall foul of the though police for putting forward a theory of gender oppression that doesn't include non passing and non transitioned transpeople. How does her theory that women are discriminated against on the basis of perceived sex marry up with the insistence that someone like Alex Drummond also experiences misogyny? She'll be driven out by her own side soon enough.

She's lost the plot. So desperate to be inclusive that she's gone full weapons grade batshit.

I also had the pregnancy question at a job interview with some utter dinosaur where the establishment was less than clean (which was important) and the accounting ledger was still done in a big dusty book so I wasn't bothered about getting it anyway but besides the point.

But sure, that question was nothing to do with my biology, it's cause I wore a dress to the interview obviously! Should have worn a suit and tie, then my perceived gender would be male, and Mr Dinosaur employer would never have asked about pregnancy - I'm sure of it 🤦‍♀️

I also suspect KB will soon fall foul of the though police for putting forward a theory of gender oppression that doesn't include non passing and non transitioned transpeople. How does her theory that women are discriminated against on the basis of perceived sex marry up with the insistence that someone like Alex Drummond also experiences misogyny? She'll be driven out by her own side soon enough.

Yep. She's too stupid to see this.

So desperate to be inclusive that she's gone full weapons grade batshit.

But it's not really "out there" at the moment, is it? It's the prevailing view.

Either you think women are a distinct sex class that sometimes need to be treated like so - with protections and things made to accommodate or even, God forbid, prioritise this biological difference from 'default male' where necessary -

• or you don't, and 'women' is anyone who says they identify as feminine, female, or whatever definition that person chooses to use, regardless of biology.

The second view is very popular and many people in power claim to believe it. The first has had people fired for believing it. The two can't overlap. You can't think 'woman' is both a sex class and an identity because those can be in conflict.

You can think that for some situations we treat people who identify as women as biological women, and for some - where appropriate - we don't, but even that is deemed transphobic.

The debate gets twisted, turned, constantly brought round to 'toilets' and chromosome disorders, but this is what it is, to me.

How does she explain then that in some regions in China 100% of women had their feet mutilated and none of the men?

Her tweet clearly implies that inaccurately perceiving a male child for a female one is common, else why stress the perception part of this. And yet, none of these apparently frequently but wrongly perceived to be be female males in China had their feet bound. I would like her to explain to me how those carrying out this practice unerringly chose only female children to inflict this horror on.

I also suspect KB will soon fall foul of the though police for putting forward a theory of gender oppression that doesn't include non passing and non transitioned transpeople. How does her theory that women are discriminated against on the basis of perceived sex marry up with the insistence that someone like Alex Drummond also experiences misogyny? She'll be driven out by her own side soon enough.

Indeed. Is it Jane clare Jones who calls it pretzeling? See also those who insist gender dysphoria is a pre-requisite and those who don't.

She's bonkers as conkers. I thought that my MP was bad, but this just goes to show that there are worse examples out there. Some people have absolutely no shame.

I was asked if I was planning to have a baby, during an interview in 1998. I knew the interviewer as it was an internal vacancy. I pointed out to him that he wasn't allowed to ask me that. Luckily I didn't want the job anyway.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I also suspect KB will soon fall foul of the though police for putting forward a theory of gender oppression that doesn't include non passing and non transitioned transpeople. How does her theory that women are discriminated against on the basis of perceived sex marry up with the insistence that someone like Alex Drummond also experiences misogyny? She'll be driven out by her own side soon enough.

Yep. She's too stupid to see this.

Doesn't this assume some sort of logic and reasoning skills?

Imagine even thinking that women aren't discriminated against because of their biology.
How do you get there? This keeps coming back to boggle me today.

True Stealth, I mean imagine the level of wilful stupidity required to claim that people are oppressed if they actually have characteristic x or if they are perceived to have characteristic x and yet still try to claim that characteristic x was not the cause of the oppression. You'd have to be an actual half wit.

With no due respect, what a moron.

@merrymouse

It's not a dissolvable category in the same way a socially constructed one is

Agree - and the pandemic showed this.

The situation changes, it impacts women and men differently, and we have to renegotiate. I think the most clear recent example is access to the MAP when Covid restrictions were introduced.

Yes, just this.

And it's not necessarily anyone's fault. If we found 50 years from now out industrial systems no longer functioned, and we didn't have access to much of the technology of the 20th century, that would make a huge huge difference to the lives of women, in ways that would simply not apply to men.

So - we'd have to figure out how to best manage that. One hopes it would be done with respect and a sense of the dignity of all, in good faith. But the solutions wouldn't look anything like the solutions of 20th century feminism.

The same apples for whatever social and technological and environmental changes happen. And they will happen.

@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog

Imagine even thinking that women aren't discriminated against because of their biology. How do you get there? This keeps coming back to boggle me today.

I've been thinking about this.

I think it may come out of the same thought processes which were pretty common from the late 80's onward, that says that the reason sex discrimination is wrong is that there are really no substantial differences between women and men. They will allow for actually gestating and birthing a child, but that is it.

It's the kind of thinking where you have people, including may women, who honestly don't realise that there are different outcomes in sports for men and women, or think that there is no physical explanation that there might be fewer women in certain kinds of very heavy work, etc.

A lot of these people will also tend to believe that having kids doesn't really affect women that much (unless they are silly and want to be SAHMs or something, or are unlucky enough to have bad husbands.)

If you really believe that, and a lot of people were taught that way in school, then maybe you just aren't going to see that there would be much real sex discrimination. It would explain too why they might think of the word woman as not being very much to do with the physical body.

Oh FFS.

Discrimination against, violence towards, structural issues that work against cunty people are just so fucking boring aren't they.

Cunty people have been going on and on forever and who wants to hear it? They need to STFU. one way or another.

A woman genuinely, honestly asking whether there is any evidence that cunty people are oppressed etc because of their biology.

I mean just fuck off.

I'm afraid my brain went twang and decided I was done with to continue trying to raise Major Tom on the radio. Those tweets were bonkers.

KB asked "Is there research showing that discrimination happens on the basis of actual sex rather than perceived [sic] sex or gender?"

Rather than research, how about the evidence of the discrimination of millions of women and girls every day around the world, will that do? Is that a problem that "exists" enough for you or is your perception a bit skewed by the vacuum between your ears?

What an unbelievably dimwitted woman. The fact that she's an MP is frankly depressing.

The cognitive dissonance must be absolutely howling in her ears, though, surely?

fb.watch/4u7Nsuhyp1/

I wonder if she applies this same "logic" to other groups. If she thinks that women aren't discriminated against for actually being female but only for being perceived as female then does she also think that trans people aren't discriminated against for actually being trans but merely for being perceived as trans? After all we hear all the time that butch lesbians are being mistaken for transwomen and thrown out of public toilets. It's apparently a super common problem. So surely by KBs reasoning this proves that it's perceived trans status that causes discrimination not actual trans status. Better run and tell all the passing transmen who have experienced discrimination in health care such as HCPs not believing them when they said they were pregnant because they looked like men, or developing vaginal atrophy because the effects of testosterone on the female body weren't fully understood. That had nothing to do with them being trans because they pass so cannot be perceived as trans and perception is all that matters.

But hey now, hold on a tick... Vaginal atrophy? Medication not being properly tested for female bodies? Poor care during pregnancy? Those things sound a lot like the kinds of sex based discrimination that women face. But it can't be! They aren't perceived as women so how can they possibly still be facing the same forms of discrimination? If only there was some clear and common factor which linked trans men and women. Something grouping us together in a way that isn't shared by men and transwomen. It's a real head scratcher.

@Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud

Kirsty Blackman MP doesn't think that there is much discrimination occuring to women due to biological differences. Do women ever get discriminated against due to issues such as pregnancy?

It’s not pregnancy but the after-effects that get women. Eg birth injuries, trauma, a longer than typical time to recover. Periods can also be a big problem for some women. I often need a day or two at home after heavy periods - I could manage this with roles that offered wfh but not in male centric teams that required office presence 5-7 days a week & often fainted in the office

What kind of research does she want?
Some dry paper put together by a man?
Is our word not enough?
If not, why not?
Ive seen more women speaking out and naming the abuse, violence and discrimination we face in the last two weeks than ever before.
Does she wanna know if my friend who threatened to rape me and then sexually assaulted me did that because he percieved me to be female or because he knew I am?
She would have to ask him about that.
How does his answer affect what happened to me?
And how could I ever be percieved as anything other than female?
Give me a clue?
If there's a way I can move through the world without being threatened, abused, minimised, laughed at and talked down to I'd like to know about it.

@MrGHardy

With no due respect, what a moron.

Isn't she, though.

She needs to resign. This is outrageous.

Ffs I lost a job for each of my pregnancies...