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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Terrified of regressive modern feminism

1000 replies

TRHR · 10/05/2021 13:14

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.

OP posts:
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justawoman · 10/05/2021 19:46

Four degrees here, three of which involved reading gender studies material. Definitely including Judith Butler. Am also in a professional career which is going well and in which i work very hard; still in my childbearing years; have no children and do not expect to. Live alone and my house is a mess. You only need to look at my kitchen to know I don’t think women belong there.

stonecat · 10/05/2021 19:46

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SelfPortraitWithEels · 10/05/2021 19:47

Incidentally I think OP's getting a bit of a hard time for "terrified" - without disrespecting things that are genuinely terrifying I'd probably say the same about the implications of gender ideology. It gives me the heart-racing need-to-take-a-deep-breath adrenaline response when I think about losing single-sex spaces etc. It's an exaggeration, I guess I mean passionately concerned, but I hope it isn't an inherently blameworthy word to use. Flowers to pp who have undergone real terror, though.

OvaHere · 10/05/2021 19:48

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' .

That's interesting OP because my letter a couple of months back from the NHS Cervical Screening Administration Service explicitly mentions that it's women being invited.

"We invite women aged 25 to 64 and registered with a GP"

Terrified of regressive modern feminism
justawoman · 10/05/2021 19:52

@OvaHere

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' .

That's interesting OP because my letter a couple of months back from the NHS Cervical Screening Administration Service explicitly mentions that it's women being invited.

"We invite women aged 25 to 64 and registered with a GP"

Yup, I got a letter the other week. Just checked and it’s exactly the same as yours (‘women aged 25 to 64’)
Ereshkigalangcleg · 10/05/2021 19:57

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/03/23/leftist-women-uk-refuse-accept-labours-attempts-silence-critiques-gender-identity/

But during a discussion with Goldsmiths students about a community housing project, things blew up. Mcdonagh was verbally attacked by students after rejecting the new language being imposed on her community, called a “white cis woman,” then a “bitch and a “cunt.” A young male student tagged her in a post online arguing that the Women’s March should not allow women to focus on “the vagina” as it was “transphobic.” When Mcdonagh asked how he was defining “woman,” the man responded, “Anyone who says they are.”

This is when, she says, it all fell into place. “That’s what ‘self-identify’ means: anyone can say they are anyone… So, rich, privileged people can claim to be marginalized.” Beyond that, she asks, “How can we keep working class women safe if anyone can be a women legally?”

R0wantrees · 10/05/2021 19:58

‘women aged 25 to 64’

Adult human females.

LumpySpacedPrincess · 10/05/2021 20:02

That doesn't mean that sex should be the ONLY indicator of female identity.

Why not? Why must women come with two definitions, one which benefits males and harms women?

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 20:03

My letter says that as well.

The thing I wonder is how you're supposed to know if you have a cervix or not. I mean rather than assuming that you have one because you're female.

Do we need to teach kids to check which bits they have somehow?

And things like menstruator, ovulator. Are not ongoing. Don't always happen. Stop and start etc.

It's all nonsense.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 10/05/2021 20:04

@R0wantrees

‘women aged 25 to 64’

Adult human females.

I've just checked mine and it has those exact words too.

Not a cervix haver in sight. 😊

GoingThruTheMotions · 10/05/2021 20:04

I'm not generally encouraged back to the kitchen.
That's where we keep the biscuits.

CharlieParley · 10/05/2021 20:06

That doesn't mean that sex should be the ONLY indicator of female identity.

OP could you please, in your own words, explain what you mean by "female identity".

Because I don't believe I have one. My sex being female tells me only that I belong to one of two human sex classes, and which biological functions my body has that my husband's doesn't. And which health issues I may experience due to my sex being female and what I have to do to avoid falling pregnant.

FAOD, I fully understand your insistence that a female identity is not defined by sex alone, which is on par with the doctrine of gender identity. I understand what you are trying to say with that, too, and why according to your belief system a male person can have a female identity and thus be accepted as a woman by you.

But what is that male or female identity if it can, as you believe exist independently of the body it inhabits?

Do you believe this identity has a material origin which means it stems from a sexed brain that can occasionally arise in an opposite-sex body, or does it have an immaterial origin which means it stems from a disembodied but sexed metaphysical entity that can also occasionally inhabit an opposite-sex body?

And how is it defined as male or female if this is not based on inhabiting a male or female body?

I understand myself as a woman, because I am female. I am not stereotypically feminine and first took a public stand against stereotypes when I was nine or ten and realised that I was being discriminated against at my school because I am female.

I was dysphoric as a teen and sought to identify out of womanhood, but of course I was no different in that to many of my peers. In my considered view, it was a logical, natural, defensive and arguably healthy reaction to the sexism and male sexual violence prevalent in the society I grew up in. (And yes, I did meet both the old and new diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria.)

I learned to manage that dysphoria over time, and eventually reconciled with being female. Without ever accepting the stereotypes imposed on my sex.

I have taken various tests that purport to ascertain whether I have a male or female brain or whether my personality is shaped around masculine or feminine traits or more recently, what my gender identity is. All of these tests tell me I have a very male brain, I favour masculine traits, my gender identity is apparently that of a man etc etc.

I am most decidedly neither a man in body - the children I grew and birthed and nursed with my female body can attest to that - nor in spirit. Leaving aside my militant atheism that means I do not believe in metaphysical entities, I wouldn't know how a man feels because I am not a man. My brain is a woman's brain because I inhabit a female body. My feelings are a woman's feelings because I am a woman. My thoughts are a woman's thoughts, because they happen inside a brain inside an adult female body. My interests are those of a woman because I am one. Even if society ascribes them to the male sex.

By the way, all of these assessments, every single one of countless tests available come to the conclusion that my brain is an extreme male brain because the parameters assessed are sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes and the tests seek to gauge to what degree I conform or do not conform to them. Nothing more, nothing less. Stereotypes, hundreds and hundreds of them.

(If you have a link to such a test that isn't based on stereotypes, I would be interested to see it.)

I am asking because I want to understand you. Because I believe we cannot meaningfully engage without understanding each other.

Christmasfairy2020 · 10/05/2021 20:07

Gender is based on sexual organs. A man cannot wake up and think he is a woman as he doesn't know what been a woman is like. Vice verse for women.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 10/05/2021 20:07

From a recent interview with Owen Jones and Judith Butler

The definition of "taking one for the team", I think R0 WineWineThanks

R0wantrees · 10/05/2021 20:10

That doesn't mean that sex should be the ONLY indicator of female identity.

Of course it should. Female describes sex eg

"of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes"

R0wantrees · 10/05/2021 20:12

The definition of "taking one for the team", I think R0

I needed X 4 Wine Eresh to get through it. Two sittings!

IWantT0BreakFree · 10/05/2021 20:14

Some questions I wish people like OP would answer (without the word salad)...

What is a woman?

Should a biological female who is a rape victim be entitled to medical care/police support from a doctor/HCP/police officer who is a biological female? Why?

Do you believe that male on female violence is real? Or do you (as one of my acquaintances recently told me they believed) think that this is a myth and that there is only "human on human violence"? Why?

Should biological women who have been abused by biological males be entitled to access to safe spaces (hospital wards, shelters, refuges) that are only open to other biological women? Why?

Should biological males (some fully intact) who identify as women be imprisoned alongside vulnerable women? Why?

Should biological males who identify as women be allowed to compete in women's sports? Including boxing, MMA etc. Why?

Should people be legally entitled to identify as whatever age they choose? I.e. should a 47 year old man be able to "identify" as a 6 year old girl and have all documentation legally changed, making him entitled to attend school with his "peers", use the same bathroom with them etc. Why?

Is Rachel Dolezal black? Why?

Fernlake · 10/05/2021 20:14

Op, how does a human know whether they have a cervix or not? What's the criteria? I'd be very interested to know how you would tell people to identify which sort of humans they are in terms of if they need a smear test. What would you actually say?

And, like everyone else, you keep using the word woman in your posts to mean adult human female.

My point was about women being defined as baby makers

Was your point about men being defined as baby makers?

This attitude was used to oppress women for centuries.

Explain how men who identify as women have been oppressed for centuries. Oppression being a concept that requires some kind of benefit for the oppressor.

harm that GC is doing, especially to young women of child bearing age

How do feminists harm men of childbearing age?

You can't even use the language that you advocate for, because you realise how offensive it would be.

You use the word woman when it suits you, and tell women to not use it when it suits you.

I'm not sure, and this is just a hunch, that feminism is your bag.

CrazyNeighbour · 10/05/2021 20:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PaleBlueMoonlight · 10/05/2021 20:16

I feel like I am going back about four years in discussion terms, but I am interested if the OP would mind there being a word that describes the group of people who have vulva, vagina, cervix, uterus, Fallopian tubes etc and who would be expected to get breasts, periods, for their voice not to break etc during puberty?

Are we expected to educate children by explaining to them that if they have one body part (presumably vulva) they then can also expect to have various other body parts and, in time, secondary sex characteristics, but not expect there to be a short hand word that describes those people, despite the fact that all the children with a vulva would be taught the same thing? If so, am guessing there would have to be mnemonics taught, so if a someone asked “are you an ovary haver?”, the person being asked the question would only have to run through through the mnemonic in their head to check if they might indeed have that particular body part.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 20:17

I think you have to see if you can feel something right up there that feels like 'the tip of your nose' if I remember correctly from ?mizz or something.

Seems like a big ask and not at all sure how you know for a fact if you ovulate or not. I don't think there's always an egg released is there?

I mean this is quite a lot of knowledge women have to have. Sorry people with vaginas.

BluebellTimeInKent · 10/05/2021 20:21

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.

Read the Judith Butlers. Read them and understand them.

Y0YO · 10/05/2021 20:26

@LostToucan

I’m sad that my uni education didn’t require a feminist reading list. I feel like I’ve been left out.
@losttoucan the feminist module on my degree required us to watch porn! Snow White and the seven dwarves I think it was... I can't unsee that horror
ChateauMargaux · 10/05/2021 20:27

So @TRHR... if woman is not adult human female... what is it.. avoiding stereotypes.......

and more importantly.. what is a cis woman.. if you would prefer not to use biological descriptors to determine what makes someone a woman and gender critical people prefer to avoid stereotypes.. what are we left with?

I looked on Stonewall in their glossary of terms but there was no description of woman.. but the definition of passing as a woman referred to hair clothing and behaviour which would seem to be stereotypes..

Leafstamp · 10/05/2021 20:28

@BluebellTimeInKent

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.

Read the Judith Butlers. Read them and understand them.

Grin
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