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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:
Thread gallery
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GoingThruTheMotions · 10/05/2021 21:04

Womb
Ovaries
Menstrual cycle
And
No balls?

Minezatea · 10/05/2021 21:05

OP I've been away too so sorry for the delay. You have not defined gender. Could you do so? I don't have time to read the literature that has interested you and it's clearly different than the literature which has interested me, but that's beside the point as we need to have a coherent and simple definition of gender which everyone can understand. So in a few words, and without reference to any regressive stereotypes, can you tell us what it means to you?

Can I also ask how people will know they have a cervix if we carry on down this path? There was a thread a while ago where a lot of parents shared that their teen daughters did not know. What language will we use to communicate with them that they a cervix and other body parts which only females have and which they might need to be alert to (ovaries for example)? Do you just want to replace the word 'woman' with the word 'female' and if so does that not make it subject to your critique in your first post?

This is a genuine question. I am baffled by all of this and think it all hinges on some notions of identity which are not things which fit with most people's thinking, so would be genuinely interested to hear your answer to this. Genuinely it seems to me, and I think some others here, that the person being regressive and sexist here is actually you. But I think you feel differently and I would be interested to hear more.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 21:09

What fucks me off massively is the total illiteracy when it comes to the terms we're supposed to use instead of women/ girls. They ignore how our bodies actually work and how we experience the various processes.

Eg
Menstruators. A girl who is 3 days from her first period is not one. Women in peri menopause don't know if they will have another one. Periods are affected by doing lots of exercise, certain types of birth control, pregnancy, breastfeeding. And some illnesses.

Unless a woman is having a period right at that moment then none can say with 100% confidence that they will have another one. Or when it will be. The term menstruators is biologically ignorant.

R0wantrees · 10/05/2021 21:10

Nevertheless, you persisted!
Wine

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 21:16

The other thing that angers me is that even orgs that use this language for women and girls in some places, they don't in others.

So in one article people with a cervix etc etc

And then in another it's women/ girls meant as sex.

With covid I did not see a single news org say that people with penises/ ejaculators had a higher death rate.

With charities they will say people who menstruate on the one hand but on the telly adverts they will talk about girls missing out on education for example, and mean female juveniles.

I find this utterly dishonest. Hypocritical.

Either use the new language consistently, or not at all.

Of course they don't because the general public would not be at all happy.

They don't because they don't really believe that girl means anyone who says they are one.

They don't because saying things like. Children who menstruate usually stop going to school at the onset of menstruation sounds awful.

Or young people with vaginas subject to sexual violence and rape in x.

TalkingtoLangClegintheDark · 10/05/2021 21:17

My god, I’m so tired of this straw person so beloved of those who seek to dismantle the category of woman. Can we put it to bed for once and for all?

you're making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman

No, TRHR. We’re not. You’re pretending that we are so that you can knock down our supposed argument, because you don’t have anything with which to knock down our actual arguments.

You are suggesting here that defining entails a sense of limitation of the people being referred to, as if by saying that only biologically female adults are women, we are saying that ergo women are nothing but their reproductive capacity.

I think we all know that’s bullshit, but I see this argument rolled out again and again, with “define” sometimes replaced by “reduce to” or similar.

The thing is that when we say the definition of “woman” is “adult human female”, we are not talking about limiting the actual people included here in any way, shape or form.

We are not reducing those women to any set of characteristics or personality attributes, we are not setting any expectations of behaviour or dress or feelings for these people, we are not proscribing what they cannot or must do to be seen as women. We are most certainly not saying that their reproductive potential is their most important characteristic, as you falsely claim we do.

We are recognising that in terms of personality, preferences and abilities there are infinite ways of being a woman, with the only guaranteed commonality being our shared biology (whatever state of functionality or health that biology may be in).

This is the bit you need to try and understand, TRHR; this is where your linguistic sleight of hand comes completely unstuck:

What we are limiting is not the people themselves, but the category. We are defining which group of people exactly fall under the heading “woman”, which people can and should reasonably and justifiably be included in that category, and which people can and should reasonably and justifiably be excluded.

That is the limit.

Not the people themselves.

The category.

Which people may reasonably be considered as belonging to that category.

Is that clear enough for you? Do you understand the difference between limiting people and limiting categories?

Will you now stop lying about what “GCs” think and say, tell all your friends that YOU GOT IT WRONG, stop spreading your misinformation all over the internet?

Or were you never interested in the truth anyway?

FML. To think this has to be said over and over again. I have had it up to HERE with the lies, the misrepresentations, the projections.

JUST STOP IT ALREADY

Final word to @NoDoublethinkXX, awesome black radfem lawyer, formerly of the parish of Twitter, because she phrased it so elegantly and succinctly:

Imagine lacking the intellectual capacity to understand having a class defining characteristic is not a reduction thereto.

PaleBlueMoonlight · 10/05/2021 21:19

@NiceGerbil

What fucks me off massively is the total illiteracy when it comes to the terms we're supposed to use instead of women/ girls. They ignore how our bodies actually work and how we experience the various processes.

Eg
Menstruators. A girl who is 3 days from her first period is not one. Women in peri menopause don't know if they will have another one. Periods are affected by doing lots of exercise, certain types of birth control, pregnancy, breastfeeding. And some illnesses.

Unless a woman is having a period right at that moment then none can say with 100% confidence that they will have another one. Or when it will be. The term menstruators is biologically ignorant.

It’s also the fact that not all women will have all the body parts that they might expect to have and it is really important that we know what each of the sexes is expected to have, as the absence of that body part may well be a sign of some greater health issue or problem with fertility.
GoingThruTheMotions · 10/05/2021 21:20

Star Gold star for TalkingLang

YoBeaches · 10/05/2021 21:21

Dear OP,

Why does being female scare you so much?

In all your arguments, the female body equals oppression, why?

Why do you want to reduce women and their bodies to their medical diagnostics (smears for cervix havers)?

Why do you want to remove the existence of a 'woman'?

YB

Waitwhat23 · 10/05/2021 21:25

Langcleg, I had to stop myself standing up and applauding that! (it would have scared the cat Grin)

TalkingtoLangClegintheDark · 10/05/2021 21:26

@Iamanaubergine

I thought this thread was going to be about the twaw, sex work is work liberal feminists & I was going to agree. In my opinion it’s these liberal feminists who are reducing women to the sum of our body parts by redefining us as people with cervix’s or people who menstruate not the gc feminists.
Me too!

OP is a perfect example of those regressive modern “feminists”. The ideology they advance certainly terrifies me - or the hold it has taken on our Establishment does, for sure.

PaleBlueMoonlight · 10/05/2021 21:26

@Waitwhat23

Langcleg, I had to stop myself standing up and applauding that! (it would have scared the cat Grin)
Same.
HecatesCatsInFancyHats · 10/05/2021 21:28

👏👏👏 Talkingto

CardinalLolzy · 10/05/2021 21:31

TalkingToLang you said it better than me.

I do like to think that if I was arguing something and found myself resorting to deflections and falsehoods, just to make some kind of point, I might at least question to myself why I couldn't do it truthfully. There are lots of tricky points around all this that I concede are difficult, but I'm happy to try and work out my POV by questioning and testing myself, and I don't pretend I have all the answers that suit everyone.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 21:33

I find it properly hilarious the idea that people who don't see redefining words like woman, girl and reducing us to descriptors based on our reproductive biology, are accepted by so many are right wing religious types.

I think this idea comes from the USA.

And there's a special name for women who are feminists who argue it's extremely regressive. But not one for all the men who know what sex is. Or all the women who do but don't see themselves as feminists.

It's the men who are actually going to be the ones being violent and aggressive and insulting to men and women they see as gender non conforming. Yet they don't get a mention as a problem. It's women's words that are apparently literal violence. I've seen it argued as well that men who are awful to trans people have got the idea from feminist women. ???!!!. Since when did men like that listen to women, let alone feminist ones!

The fact that in the UK those speaking against the move from sex to gender in everything. Are very often old school feminists with years of activism behind them. Often GNC themselves. A fair amount are lesbians. A left leaning bunch. Have suddenly turned into right wing Christian zealots. It's not very likely is it! But that's ignored.

I also find it really interesting that an area which is absolutely based on the differences between men and women and their sexual organs- porn- is never mentioned. There is no fuss that the word woman (girl.. and lots of offensive ones of course) will always mean a person with a cunt. Why is there not a storm if protest at that?

And etc etc etc.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 21:34

And of course porn is racist and misogynistic as well, the vast vast majority of it.

Funny how racism bad except when it's in a porn title isn't it.

Delphinium20 · 10/05/2021 21:37

@TRHR

I'm thrilled you are reading feminist literature. Of Woman Born by Adrienne Rich had a profound impact on me when I was young like you and getting my feet wet in feminist ideas. One argument she made didn't resonate with me until much later in life, that our anger and dismissal of our own mothers' experiences was rooted in patriarchy. In other words, I was annoyed Rich was trying to tell me to take my mother seriously. But now I find that Rich was on to the idea of internalized misogyny. I missed that then, but it is clearer now.

I hope you too will keep reading and continue stocking up on feminist thought. One day, you may be like one of us on MN.

Best of luck and don't forget to keep an open mind.

Thelnebriati · 10/05/2021 21:43

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"

It may well be more freeing for you, only time will tell.
In the meantime, please leave our culture alone, we are still using it - cultural genocide is not OK just because its you doing it. Not even if you are just trying to make the world a ''better'' place.

YellowPenPinkPen · 10/05/2021 21:48

What an interesting thread. Can this go in classics? So much fantastic information here.

CrazyNeighbour · 10/05/2021 21:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 22:00

'Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex.'

I've seen very different explanations of what gender ID is, if you mean that rather than the other meanings of gender.

And I mean fine. Have whatever identity you wish. Everyone can and should if it's something important to them. My identity (how I think of myself/ the things that fit me etc) does not have man/ woman in there at all. In fact I've actively fought all my life for women to be seen as people first. That's what I've always wanted, to be treated as an individual, a whole person. Not as s woman/ girl first and foremost and all the stereotypes and rubbish that brings.

But in the end ok fine. But that doesn't explain why gender id needs to take primacy over sex, why well understood words have to have their meaning changed, or why things that women and girls used to have to give us privacy/ protection etc have to be removed.

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 22:02

What is the psychology of a woman?

How are cultural, historical ideas of what a man or a woman is, anything except sex roles? And often very narrow and oppressive ones?

ThinkIveFoundYourMarbles · 10/05/2021 22:03

*You are suggesting here that defining entails a sense of limitation of the people being referred to, as if by saying that only biologically female adults are women, we are saying that ergo women are nothing but their reproductive capacity.

I think we all know that’s bullshit, but I see this argument rolled out again and again, with “define” sometimes replaced by “reduce to” or similar.

The thing is that when we say the definition of “woman” is “adult human female”, we are not talking about limiting the actual people included here in any way, shape or form.

We are not reducing those women to any set of characteristics or personality attributes, we are not setting any expectations of behaviour or dress or feelings for these people, we are not proscribing what they cannot or must do to be seen as women. We are most certainly not saying that their reproductive potential is their most important characteristic, as you falsely claim we do.

We are recognising that in terms of personality, preferences and abilities there are infinite ways of being a woman, with the only guaranteed commonality being our shared biology (whatever state of functionality or health that biology may be in).

This is the bit you need to try and understand, TRHR; this is where your linguistic sleight of hand comes completely unstuck:

What we are limiting is not the people themselves, but the category. We are defining which group of people exactly fall under the heading “woman”, which people can and should reasonably and justifiably be included in that category, and which people can and should reasonably and justifiably be excluded.

That is the limit.

Not the people themselves.

The category.

Which people may reasonably be considered as belonging to that category.

Is that clear enough for you? Do you understand the difference between limiting people and limiting categories?*

OP, please read the above response to your post very carefully. Your flawed understanding of GC feminism is precisely your problem. Hope this helps and that you now feel less terrified.

BTW, out of curiosity, how would you have defined 'woman'?

cakedays · 10/05/2021 22:04

[quote ArabellaScott]For anyone who is interested in Butler, btw, I found this essay was spot on.

newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody[/quote]
Yes - I’m not always and everywhere a fan of Nussbaum, but she knows her stuff and her characterisation of Butler is absolutely dead on.

Of Butler’s work, I tend to like Bodies That Matter more; I like the (better articulated) argument there, but it remains esoteric when brought into the realm of real feminist political action.

It’s fine to say that if gender is socially constructed, then the ways in which we modify and construct our bodies according to gender show that there is no easy or clear dividing line between “natural body” and “social action”, sexed body and gendered construction. (Not a new point of Butler’s either, tbh.)

But that’s not at all the same as saying that the body is radically socially constructed and therefore materially unimportant; and that’s where both Butler, and those who mistakenly derive “gender identity theory” from her works, expand what was originally an interesting (if slight and not that new) point into an ideological edifice that is incoherent overall. To say that “gender” shapes how we treat male and female bodies is something that GC feminists were always saying. It’s a very long step from that, to imagining that there is no body, or that we can pretend there is no body, or that we have the agency to radically remake the body out of social constructions and performances, which a lot of gender identity theory seems to believe.

(And it’s also inconsistent with Butler’s own work, which is actually pretty pessimistic about the possibility for transforming the social world through gender “performance”: in fact lots of critiques of Butler very early on pointed out that what she thought of as “subversive” forms of gender performance actually reinforced cultural stereotypes of sex and gender rather than liberated them - drag, in particular.)

NiceGerbil · 10/05/2021 22:07

OP any further thoughts? There's a lot of questions on this thread! A lot to plough through but hope to see you back soon.

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