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.

Pulling up the names of two women who may or may not agree with you doesn't engage with the argument. You need to actually use your words to explain why your position is correct and other positions are wrong.
Using scientific or academic studies can help, but generally you should be able to either quote or summarise their position and how it bolsters your argument you don't just name books.
This is English 101: You get a question like Do you believe women are adult women human. Discuss.
You set out your position, add academic voices and sources and go from there.

Because Emma Watson says so is a piss poor argument. It shows:
Contempt for your audience that you can't even be bothered to explain why you think they're wrong.
Unable or unwilling to set out your own ideas
A lot of faith in a person because they have fame and money

It also encourages your audience to consider what they know of that person and equate you with it.
I do consider Emma Watson to be a poor feminist and not the most intelligent actor in the world. I based this on her speech for hetoshe, which read like a wordy eleven year old wrote it. I've based it on interviews where she's said her bit for feminism involves not wearing a corset. It's hardly surprising an actor (billionaire) thinks clothes are the most important part of feminism, but it shows how narrow her thinking is.
I don't generally think celebrities are any better or worse than normal people. They're just people who often have a particular talent in one field. I'm sure there are plenty non GC voices you could have picked, like the author of the Golden Compass, but possibly you wanted a woman for optics. It's not like there aren't any highly intelligent female GC voices though.

Do you know what?

To be fair to Emma Watson, when I was her age, that's probably how I would have thought.

Now I'm in my 40s and I have more close friends who've been physically and mentally abused by ex male partners than not, given birth to two boys, dealt with the sexism young boys get (why I believe some later ID as girls) the sexism around breastfeeding, and being a working mother, read and seen more of the world, not to mention taught a young boy with asd who thought they were a girl as they liked pink and long hair, and done endless safeguarding training as well as work around DV coercion, and now dealing with ten crap around peri menopause, I see it differently.

None of that was in any of the books I've read.

Somehow though, many young women do really get it, as demonstrated by some young posters on this board. Without having to have had all those experiences.

I was naïve and assumed feminism had been won in the 90's.

Apparently there are a lot of young radical/gender critical feminists on Tumblr, of all places, I've seen TRAs disparagingly refer to it as "Terfblr"

Clinicians were worried that some homophobic parents were pushing their children down this path. Another had concerns because one dad in particular was really pushy, desperate for his daughter to get puberty blockers. The clinician said that looking back, she's worried that he may have been a paedophile.

An open letter to Dr Polly Carmichael from a former GIDS clinician
Kirsty Entwistle

Jul 18, 2019

(extract)
I was also shocked by the complexity of referrals. I read many referrals of children who have been sexually abused and many children have witnessed and/or been subjected to domestic violence.
I also felt that was an overrepresentation of the young people who were living in poverty. I had a young person whose family were living within such extreme financial constraints that he considered it a treat to buy a can of pop. I also had another young person who was living in a very complex and unstable arrangement who arrived to sessions in a poor state of hygiene and said that there wasn’t money for hygiene products. How is it ethical to undertake a gender identity assessment with the view to a medical pathway when there are children and young people do not have their most basic needs met?
In terms of complexity I also had on my caseload several young people who declined to communicate verbally or communicated verbally to a very limited extent. I think that at GIDS verbal communication difficulties are often minimised as transmales being afraid to speak because they have a ‘feminine voice’ but in all of these cases I believe that there was something more complex than that going on. Again, it’s very difficult to undertake a gender identity assessment with a young person who struggles to communicate verbally, especially within the time constraints of the service.

Failure of support from CAMHS and Social Care
One of the other major factors that meant that I could not sustain working at GIDS was the failure of social care to provide support to the young people I referred. As the children come from all over the North of England I was dealing with several different social care teams trying to get support for my patients who were either doing risky things, living in risky situations or in contact with risky people. In none of my cases was input from social care secured." (continues)

medium.com/@kirstyentwistle/an-open-letter-to-dr-polly-carmichael-from-a-former-gids-clinician-53c541276b8d

It's not like there aren't any highly intelligent female GC voices though.
Like JK Rowling, for example. Her body of work speaks of far greater intellectual capability and more nuanced, incisive thinking than that of the child actor who gained a platform by speaking words and representing characteristics created by JKR.

Now I'm in my 40s and I have more close friends who've been physically and mentally abused by ex male partners than not

Resource thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness

yourhairiswinterfire

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-conversion-therapy-for-gay-children-say-clinicians-pvsckdvq2

Quite. I'd be quite interested in any thousand words or so any of the Harry Potter cast produced, as it would be interesting to read a thoughtful analysis showing how they arrived at their position.

So far though they've disappointingly but predictably shouted slogans than centre trans male people, not even trans female bodied people.

Apparently there are a lot of young radical/gender critical feminists on Tumblr, of all places, I've seen TRAs disparagingly refer to it as "Terfblr"

I've noticed they're moving on to twitter.

I was thinking about this thread and wanted to say ...

I'm not an academic, and my knowledge of theory and feminist literature is patchy to say the least.

For me, feminism is useless unless it addresses the real issues that affect me as a woman.

I just don't have time to spend reading dense, impenetrable texts to win arguments on the internet (although I enjoy a bit of theory, I don't have the knowledge or education to discuss it at length).

What I would like to know is what use is gender theory if one can't discuss it until we have read a list of dozens of books? What use is all this education if we still can't recognise what a woman is, actually address rape culture, help girls overcome stereotyping, give women the tools to avoid and escape damaging relationships?

Feminism for me isn't just about theory, it's about practise, too.

I really appreciate the input of lots of highly educated and intelligent women on this board, but feminism is for all women, not just those who know the right words/terms/theories.

I really appreciate the input of lots of highly educated and intelligent women on this board, but feminism is for all women, not just those who know the right words/terms/theories.

Absolutely.

So, we're 21 pages in, OP has indeed returned, against the expectation of many and the prediction of a few, and still there is no vitriol to be bottled, though OP baited everyone for this in her first post.

I hope OP is heartened by this, not disappointed. Plenty for all to think about and nobody feeling the need to be offensive. Incisiveness is different; we can all take that.

Interesting comment about being proud to be a woman. I am proud of many achievements in my life (I've been around a while) and ashamed of many failures and shortcomings, too, but it seems odd to me to be "proud" of something I had no agency over, like my sex or my nationality or my skin colour, for instance. When a family member succeeds in their struggle for US citizenship, which is taking years, that's the sort of thing that will justify pride in nationality, I think, not jingoistic boasting.

Perhaps, in a world where some people believe they can literally change their sex, it could be seen as a matter for pride that such a transition has been effortfully achieved.

Perhaps it's just that the words pride and proud don't mean what they used to, but I don't have any alternative words for that feeling of successful achievement through intense effort. I certainly didn't put that sort of effort into merely being conceived and born female, or if I did I have no memory of it!

about being proud to be a woman

I'm proud to have defied stereotypes wrt being female and to have survived various things that only/mostly happen to females. Otherwise, yes, it's not something I'm proud of especially, any more than being proud of being human.

Feminism for me isn't just about theory, it's about practise, too.

I really appreciate the input of lots of highly educated and intelligent women on this board, but feminism is for all women, not just those who know the right words/terms/theories.

I think feminism is practise. There are theories which can inform and/or inspire but its about the doing of liberation for all women and girls.

@WarriorN

Apparently there are a lot of young radical/gender critical feminists on Tumblr, of all places, I've seen TRAs disparagingly refer to it as "Terfblr"

I've noticed they're moving on to twitter.

Yes there was a huge exodus on to Twitter a few years back when Tumblr banned porn.

Previously the worst of the nonsense was fairly contained on Tumblr, a site that skewed quite young and mostly doesn't have the professional class of adults you find on Twitter.

TRA HQ moving en mass to Twitter unfortunately means the craziest notions have found a wider audience. Often amongst people who really should know better that to argue gems such as 'the existence of Clownfish means that humans are not a sexually diamorphic species.'

That's the one, thanks Rowan and Purgatory.

Yes, R0, that's an excellent distinction.

Arabella your posts come across as intelligent and we'll thought through, whether you are an academic or not.

@WarriorN

Do you know what?

To be fair to Emma Watson, when I was her age, that's probably how I would have thought.

Now I'm in my 40s and I have more close friends who've been physically and mentally abused by ex male partners than not, given birth to two boys, dealt with the sexism young boys get (why I believe some later ID as girls) the sexism around breastfeeding, and being a working mother, read and seen more of the world, not to mention taught a young boy with asd who thought they were a girl as they liked pink and long hair, and done endless safeguarding training as well as work around DV coercion, and now dealing with ten crap around peri menopause, I see it differently.

None of that was in any of the books I've read.

I love this post. When I felt I had the advantages of being female, intelligent, medically in control, 'me-centric' (and young, basically), I didn't see how this also had its shadow side, and that time and what you witness surely will change things. I still feel I am one of the lucky ones but an overview of a few decades has really changed a lot of my views, and I daresay this will continue.

I was thinking about this thread and wanted to say ...

I'm not an academic, and my knowledge of theory and feminist literature is patchy to say the least.

For me, feminism is useless unless it addresses the real issues that affect me as a woman.

I just don't have time to spend reading dense, impenetrable texts to win arguments on the internet (although I enjoy a bit of theory, I don't have the knowledge or education to discuss it at length).

What I would like to know is what use is gender theory if one can't discuss it until we have read a list of dozens of books? What use is all this education if we still can't recognise what a woman is, actually address rape culture, help girls overcome stereotyping, give women the tools to avoid and escape damaging relationships?

Hear hear Arabella

I have not read any of those authors put forward by the OP. I only studied industrial relations at university, not feminism. So, the reality is that I studied how to actively support women who were being discriminated against because of their sex. And seeing what has been happening to women’s sex based employment rights because of this movement that things should be based on gender not sex should be what is terrifying OP.

The entire reason I am in this discussion is because I want my child to have that dream of equality that I though we were moving closer to when they were born. Instead, it has drifted off course and maybe further away than when they were born. Guided off course by other women deep in theories and lacking in critical thinking being applied against real world situations.

Emma Watson's been around for so long I sometimes forget how young she is. I would guess she might still have another 10 years before the scripts start drying up so maybe that will be her lightbulb moment. Or maybe not - I don't think you can predict it or rush it.

I am so thankful for the many women who post regularly on this board from so many different disciplines, life situations who add their valuable experience and knowledge. It is invaluable.

Oh in one of my other qualifications (albeit only diploma level alas) I did actually study Vita Sackville West’s work. Her garden and her life’s work in it.

She inarguably knew about how important sex categories were to life as a horticulturist. Of course, she never let herself be limited by being a female, just like pretty much all the women posting on this thread.

I'm not an academic, and my knowledge of theory and feminist literature is next to zero.

I just wanted to say this as it's important that feminism does not exclude those who, as Arabella said, lack the time, inclination or skills to wade through heavy material.

That's not to say I'm not eternally grateful to the women here, and everywhere, who do have the time, inclination and skills to do so!

@NecessaryScene1

as a feminist and a young woman this really scares me

Just stop being a woman then, and you'll be fine.

Good plan 👌. Just identify as a bloke. Insist on male privileges. Join the Freemasons etc.