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.

too*
My kingdom for an edit button.

Young people are especially prone to the idea that newer is better and automatically more “progressive”.

Whereas history is littered with examples of faddish ideas and movements that turned out not to be as great as they seemed. Heck, I’m only 42 ffs but even in my lifetime there have been plenty of “movements” that want to think they’re progressive, but are actually profoundly regressive and reactionary. It might help to wonder if some of us ancient withered crones might just have a point...

@cakedays

Young people are especially prone to the idea that newer is better and automatically more “progressive”.

Whereas history is littered with examples of faddish ideas and movements that turned out not to be as great as they seemed. Heck, I’m only 42 ffs but even in my lifetime there have been plenty of “movements” that want to think they’re progressive, but are actually profoundly regressive and reactionary. It might help to wonder if some of us ancient withered crones might just have a point...

Yep. Remember Minidiscs?

Ask yourself: in what university disciplines are men taught to disparage the writings of their “forefathers”? How many times do you hear your male counterparts talk about that old Marxism that must be disparaged ....
Male precursors are talked and written about with reverence even when disciplines have moved on. Male academics are respected and listened to even when people disagree with them ... as men are generally in society. It’s only young women, in my long experience, who are encouraged to believe that they must junk all that nasty old women’s thought in favour of shiny new transfeminist thought.
The last couple of posts reminded me of this comment way back in the thread. It's an interesting point and I'm struggling to think of any other rights movement that is so dismissive - contemptuous even - of its history and its predecessors.

And to be fair to the op, I don't think it's only this generation. I think every generation does it.

All these supposedly intersectional feminists never seem to consider the intersection of ageism with sexism. Generally because they're guilty of the ageism themselves. Sadly for them it'll take them getting older themselves before they get it.

I've been thinking recently how times and contexts change but the pattern repeats of men devaluing older women by reducing them to stereotypes, and how this separates young women from the guidance of older women's experience, especially when it comes the difference between what men say to younger women and how they treat them / think of them in practice.

And I wonder if men do it cynically or if they are just blind to their own motivations.

Ah minidiscs! The Nick Clegg of audio formats 🤣

And it took me so long to find cake's post that the point's already been made But never mind.

To expand on my post a bit, I'm thinking of the way older women are often portrayed as either out of touch out, out of place or out to stop the fun, and we'd all be better off if they just got out of the way.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

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.

Indeed. I am in fact younger than Jameela Jamil and the nature of linear time being what it is, I will always be younger than Jameela. So if Jameela isn't too old to have an opinion, then neither am I.

I think you'll find that the nature of celeb time being what it is, you will eventually be older than Jameela Jamil.

I used to be younger than Caprice Bourret and a whole load of others.

I'm finally moved to post. Recordable minidiscs were great. That is all.

I do think every generation has been guilty of it though, I've been thinking recently about all the great female crafts - those making and mending and nurturing skills that were handed down, mother to daughter for generations, and how it was young women like me in the 70s who let the rot set in by refusing to learn to knit and sew because they were 'girls subjects'. And now those skills are almost lost. So I don't want to be too harsh on the op even though I did take the piss.

@Blibbyblobby

To expand on my post a bit, I'm thinking of the way older women are often portrayed as either out of touch out, out of place or out to stop the fun, and we'd all be better off if they just got out of the way.

Yes - and what it does is really sinister, because it erases a huge amount of the history of women’s writing about oppression and how to address it. It’s not women thinking that the patriarchy - doesn’t like. It’s when they start getting close to power and change. So what could be more effective than to convince young women that all of that is nasty, hateful and outmoded - and even better, instead why not adopt a set of ideas that instead of addressing oppression, just pretends that the source of that oppression doesn’t exist?

Butler’s work got rightly criticised by Nussbaum for essentially saying that there was little we could really do to address oppression, so why not just enjoy subverting the system a little bit by playing around with the tropes?

That’s all that gender identity theory is -- we don’t like gender-based oppression, so if we all ignore it and treat it as fluid and performative, hopefully it will just eventually disappear on its own through the magic power of the mind.

Exactly OP it is about culture, history, psychology and what ever else you said as well as genitals. That's why you can't just decide you are a woman and share the same understanding and feeling as a woman even if you change your appearance and pronouns because if you have been a man you've not experienced the impact of these
and other things on your development and sense of self.

@Floisme

I do think every generation has been guilty of it though, I've been thinking recently about all the great female crafts - those making and mending and nurturing skills that were handed down, mother to daughter for generations, and how it was young women like me in the 70s who let the rot set in by refusing to learn to knit and sew because they were 'girls subjects'. And now those skills are almost lost. So I don't want to be too harsh on the op even though I did take the piss.

My grandmother was a brilliant seamstress and I wish now I'd paid more attention instead of wanting to listen to my Sony walkman and writing it off as boring! She did attempt to teach me some skills but I considered it too old fashioned and a bit pointless.

My grandfather was a joiner and he also tried to teach me woodworking which I was a bit more interested in at the time but again I just didn't have the patience or ability to see the value in it.

@Floisme

Ask yourself: in what university disciplines are men taught to disparage the writings of their “forefathers”? How many times do you hear your male counterparts talk about that old Marxism that must be disparaged .... Male precursors are talked and written about with reverence even when disciplines have moved on. Male academics are respected and listened to even when people disagree with them ... as men are generally in society. It’s only young women, in my long experience, who are encouraged to believe that they must junk all that nasty old women’s thought in favour of shiny new transfeminist thought. The last couple of posts reminded me of this comment way back in the thread. It's an interesting point and I'm struggling to think of any other rights movement that is so dismissive - contemptuous even - of its history and its predecessors.

And to be fair to the op, I don't think it's only this generation. I think every generation does it.

Yes! I agree with this wholeheartedly. I tried to go there with my comment on Adrienne Rich, but this is much clearer.

why not let people move through the world without distress caused by imposing a purely sex based identity?

People can identify with that they want. Someone who is white can identify as being black if they want. But can that white person then say ‘let’s end discrimination on racism because race is just an imposition from the outside’?

OP would you be prepared to tell black people that they don’t own their own identity of blackness, and that white people can not only be black, but be indistinguishable from black people?

They see attraction and want to wield power over female gender - Katy Montgomery and Shon Faye have v insightful experiences they've shared on this if you want further examples.

No, they don't have first hand experience of how women experience it, or understand that dynamic. Because they are male. Hope that helps.

@Delphinium20 I was so pleased to see your post about Adrienne Rich. I love Of Woman Born!

Did age become unfashionable at the same time as paragraphing?

Paragraphs are for boomers. We're queering text.

Exactly @stonecat

There are white people who have an affinity with black culture, and black people who have an affinity with white. However there is an acknowledgement that it is massively disrespectful to just appropriate it and wipe out the person who is born in whatever’s race’s experience. Especially the race that experiences inequality, that has fought hard to regain some ground. What is the difference between sex difference and race difference? They are both biological and cultural.

I'm millennial. Can I bring a nice indented paragraph with me?
They're just so damn good to navigate. Lending a dash of style to prose.
However, I would not recommend indenting the first paragraph, it just looks so good if the opening paragraph stands out.
I never cared for double spacing, but surely paragraphs take priority over pronouns?

Oh how cruel. Mumsnet got rid of my carefully placed indents.
Most invalidating.