Terrified of regressive modern feminism

[TRHR]

By saying "you can't be a woman if you're born without a vagina, and if you're born with a vagina you must be a woman" you're making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman. This attitude was used to oppress women for centuries. We were baby makers only, and hormonal and chromosomal differences were used to say that we were too "emotional " for public life, education and jobs. Only over the last 100 or so years have our minds and emotions been rightfully recognised as just as important as our vaginas. GC is now going back to seeing our sex organs as our most important identifier and as a feminist and a young woman this really scares me. It is playing right into the traditional patriarchy, is sexist, regressive and oppressive. The fact its being done in the name of 'feminism ' terrifies me. The recent historic implications of insisting women are defined by their bodies scares me. These views are still held by conservative (often religion based) communities and we've all seen how easy it is for these groups to gain power - feminists shouldn't be helping them justify their attitudes or behaviour.

If you've seen/read the Handmaid's Tale you'll know what attitudes I'm afraid of. GCs ironically tell TRAs they are 'handmaids' when actually it is their attitude that has historically led to the oppression that Attwood (who is trans inclusive) bases her books on.

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex. It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman" and takes account of each of us as individuals not just bodies, which is what feminism up until now has fought for.
As an example, many trans women don't wear "girly " clothes, they identify as "masculine/butch" lesbians. Many trans men still like wearing make up and dresses e.g. in drag.
Many people would say the world shouldn't be defined as 'male / female' at all. But it always has done, that won't be changed in our lifetime. So seen as that is our social structure, it's oppressive to police how people choose to move through life under this structure based on bodies.
Thanks for reading this far and if I get one extra person to consider the harm that GC is doing, especially to young women of child bearing age, it'll be worth the condescension and vitriol that this post will inevitably receive.

Mocking other women for learning, university education and discussing ideas seems profoundly anti feminist / 'get back in the kitchen dear ' which brings me back to my first post of concerns.

Now I know this is a pisstake.
If you think you're being mocked it's because of the things we took time to point out are factually wrong. You know this, yet you chose to say that it was about university education.

Look, if you're genuine, I recommend you start a new thread and assert as your argument only things that are true and evidenced.

And then if you're responding to a specific post or sentence, quote that rather than rephrasing it in a way that completely changes the meaning and thinking we won't notice.

I also appear to have read far more feminist literature than most of the posters asking me. More than Invisible Women, or K Stock. May I also recommend reading Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville West, the Pankhursts, Gloria Steinam, Judith Butler (please read and understand the difference between 'performative' and 'performance '), Deborah Frances White, Lyndal Roper.

Is that so.

There must be 30 or 40 women on this thread and you've assumed they are all

Not university educated
Disapprove of girls going to university
Believe young women should stay at home doing housework
Don't know anything about feminism
Etc etc

You really do love stereotypes even though you claim not to. And are comfy applying them across the board to groups.

Interesting.

To be honest the Pankhurst were brilliant campaigners but I don't rate any of them as writers. I gave up on page 481 of Sylvia Pankhurst's memoir (I've just checked and the bookmark's still there 30 years later) and 'Unshackled' (Christabel P) was even worse as I remember.

How can you be a feminist when you don't even know/acknowledge what a woman is? How silly.

The day that one of you lot can tell me what a woman actually is (without using a circular definition to explain yourself), I might be interested in your opinion. Until then, the whole thing is such patent nonsense that I won't engage.

I stand by what I said. Saying you are terrified of gender critical women is hyperbolic nonsense.

There are lots which is unfair to women (in terms of sex organs and social standards)

Hang on a minute - OP, I think you might be gender critical.

@NiceGerbil

'Mocking other women for learning, university education and discussing ideas seems profoundly anti feminist / 'get back in the kitchen dear ' which brings me back to my first post of concerns'

So many many mysoginist ageist stereotypes about the sort of women who post on MN!

You might want to examine your biases OP.

Indeed on "university education." I (in the US) have 10 years of it I'll be paying off until I die.

So just to be clear, OP, you don't actually have anything to say, just name dropping writers?

Which is a conversation-stopper in a conversation you started.

No one gets mocked here for discussing ideas. They do often get mocked for being unable to.

How about taking on @WeeBisom's post? It's an excellent place to start.

OP, is Rachel Dolezal black?

I don't think that daft twitter thread is much like the OP's posts tbh.

OP, I am delighted that you were called to a smear for people with a cervix.

Now imagine a migrant woman who cannot speak English very well... Would she understand what she was invited for? Would she understand the word cervix?

@Erikrie

I also appear to have read far more feminist literature than most of the posters asking me.

Do you think so dearie? 🤣

Hilarious, isn't it? The arrogance of youth. I'm cringing for the OP.

@SelfPortraitWithEels

No one gets mocked here for discussing ideas. They do often get mocked for being unable to.

How about taking on @WeeBisom's post? It's an excellent place to start.

I agree, and I'm guilty of unnecessary posts here myself. The OP has returned to discuss. I think the OP should be given a chance to catch up in all the responses.

Re cervix screening, OF COURSE everyone who needs one should have that clearly communicated - but on my NHS letter it directly tells me I need one because I have a cervix - it never mentions being a 'woman'

It is sent out to female patients within the age range determined by NHS.
The cervical screening program is managed centrally and is automatic. GP practices can remove women from the list as I was when my cervix was removed as part of treatment for gynae cancer. I had to request to be removed from the list though having received an invitation despite not having a cervix at that point.
The NHS patient records were supposed to record sex and gender identity as separate fields. This would have meant that all women eligible would have been called for cervical screening regardless of their gender identity and no invitations would be sent out to male patients.
Unfortunately this system has been disrupted and now female patients who identify as transmen and request their NHS data marker is changed will not be called for cevical screening. This puts those women at risk.

Worse still, all patient records may be affected with female/male sex having being populated in the gender identity field. This article by Anne Harper Wright is important reading:
medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-bb86b0c3ebb

@MrsWooster

I just read a fascinating thread on Twitter

twitter.com/jlmasterson/status/1391759039042883592?s=21

responding to a Twitter thread astonishingly resident of the Op’s posting…

What a complete load of bollocks on that thread

Not mastersons replies

Are people honestly that....dense

This has to be a piss take. Screeds of intelligent replies, some evidently rooted in detailed feminist teaching and philosophy, and OP is suggesting we need to read more?

Mocking other women for learning, university education and discussing ideas seems profoundly anti feminist / 'get back in the kitchen dear ' which brings me back to my first post of concerns

Have you read any of the thread OP?

Its a shame if you haven't because you've prompted a really interested profoundly feminist discussion.

My feminism is more basic its centres women and girls, simple as that.

@Floisme

I knew it

I'm sorry this is not kind of me but I am dying at the reading list.

I’m very disappointed with hellofabore

She did not mention reading lists...

Now imagine a migrant woman who cannot speak English very well... Would she understand what she was invited for? Would she understand the word cervix?

In addition imagine that she goes out to buy sanitary products for women, but they're called those products for "menstruaters" and when she gets pregnant some of the literature and signposting refers to "birthing parents" and then when she goes through the menopause the support on offer is for "menopausal people". Then imagine that she is a women whose religion and culture means she needs single sex spaces but over time those spaces have disappeared. What you are asking is for that women to give up one word which has a clear meaning and navigate her way through a world in which not only does the meaning of that word frequently change, but she is now expected to understand that a whole host of other words and phrases also mean that one word, or certainly what it used to mean. How would that feel?

I've done enormous amounts of reading (including many of the literature you've mentioned). I know my interpretation of what gender is. What is yours.

This is a discussion board after all.

I'm very surprised the OP thinks she is being told to get back into the kitchen by a group of feminists. I'm not sure how she has come to that conclusion.

I'm also not sure why she seems to think that most of us are past childbearing years. Many of us are definitely of an age to bear children. Shocking on a site named Mumsnet, I know.

on my NHS letter it directly tells me I need one because I have a cervix

How do they know you have? Why hasn’t my son had an invitation?

So many interesting writers not on that reading list: No Mary Wollstonecraft, no Mary Seacole, no Betty Friedan, no Camille Paglia, no Maya Angelou. Not even Germaine Bunbury.