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.

Hyperbole detected. No apparent terror evident.

One example might be the argument made by some feminists that if you say you don't think trans women belong in women's spaces you might as well say you don't think black women belong in women's spaces.

Well not only is that argument 'othering', which makes it pretty racist itself, it's a stupid strawman of an argument.
Enough black GC feminists have put paid to that one. Of course the people that argue it think all feminists are white(crime) middle class (worse crime).

@Signalbox

I'm interested in examples of UK racist feminism please

One example might be the argument made by some feminists that if you say you don't think trans women belong in women's spaces you might as well say you don't think black women belong in women's spaces.

Sorry, but WHICH feminists? I read a lot of feminists and I have NEVER heard that. Can you quote?

TRHR said yesterday at 22.38 Re comments on defining gender identity quickly - perhaps the issue is you expect this to be simple when it's not.
The claim "it's not simple" is disingenuous and lazy.

Claims of a "gender identity" are based on stereotypes leading to thoughts and feelings, legitimate to the person but not required to be acknowledged or agreed with by others.

Sex remains immutable, but insisting that stereotypes be applied to all "because I say so" is not going to achieve the outcome you think it will.

I neither have nor need a gender identity. I'm not sure what it is to "live a a woman" because it's not quantifiable or necessary to know what that is; my destiny was set at conception. I am GC because I will not lie about reality or deny my existence in the world.

Agreed @Signalbox.

I don’t think I’ll ever be unsurprised by the audacity and hypocrisy of people who self-ID as anti-racist, but point out that because black women are women, some males are too. From the people who also brought us: “women and girls in developing nations need single-sex facilities such as toilets because of sexual assaults in unisex facilities, but we don’t need that in the West”, “no-one knew what sex or rape was, until Europeans arrived” and similar culturally superior hot-takes.
When are practices and ideology not imperialistic? When they’re Woke pursuits of the racism of low expectations.

This biggest problem of UK feminism is it's always been elitist and racist.

Just chucked in with no examples, no nuance, no acknowledgement of the fact that obviously not all feminists in the UK are white (!) I mean that in itself is a bit racist surely?

And just casually dismissing the gains that women have fought for in the UK in the past and to the current day.

EG
Equal pay act
Criminalisation of rape in marriage
Changes to strengthen law around DV, recently closing gap around 'upskirting'
Getting 'revenge porn' made illegal
Reclaim the night as response to Peter Sutcliffe
Recently abortion law relaxed in NI (although a way to go getting it available widely in practice)
There's loads more.

What's elitist about those things? They are not only for certain women.

Of course there are plenty of people about who are racist/ elitist etc including women and including women who describe themselves as feminists.

To dismiss feminism in the UK over the last what 100+ years as a racist elitist movement kind of just. Can I say pisses over the hard work, risk taken, and gains made by an awful lot of women who just said no. I'm not having this. And fought for change for all women.

And to do this in order to justify a change in the meaning of the actual words that we used to fight all through history is just insult to injury.

I dont think you know what terrified means op.
You're also getting confused about who are the 'regressive modern feminists'
Or do all words only mean what ever you want them to mean now?
I'm sensing a pattern.

I've not read a vindication of the rights of women, I ought to.

This quote seems apt at the moment though:

'A virtuous man may have a choleric or a sanguine constitution, be gay or grave, unreproved, be firm till he is almost over-bearing, or weakly submissive, have no will or opinion of his own; but all women are to be levelled, by meekness and docility, into one character of yielding softness and gentle compliance'

AKA be kind. Men can be full people. Women must conform to gender role. Written 1792...

@Signalbox

I'm interested in examples of UK racist feminism please

One example might be the argument made by some feminists that if you say you don't think trans women belong in women's spaces you might as well say you don't think black women belong in women's spaces.

That's an example of racist transactivism though? I particularly see it being made by male activists.

See now, I get incredibly busy at work and come back online to find you've all been YET AGAIN kindly, patiently and methodically schooling yet another hapless young person who blazed in here looking for a scrap.

I love you vipers. (Sniff.)

Really that quote shows nothing has changed.

How many times have I seen recently that being a woman means being submissive? Often meant sexually now but also in our day to day lives. Shut up. Toe the line. Shut your mouth. Etc etc

On submission an author was mentioned earlier who wrote this:

'Femaleness is a universal sex defined by self-negation… I’ll define as female any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another…[The] barest essentials [of femaleness are] an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes (Andrea Long Chu, American transwoman and author)'

Erm Signalbox that argument is made by transactivists and their supporters though.

I suppose yes actually many of the supporters would describe themselves as feminists often intersectional feminists.

Feminism has different meanings to different people. There's no law in who can use it and when.

So yes I suppose that argument could well have been made by people who describe themselves as feminists, it's an argument that seems to have come from USA and has been widely used to argue that transwomen should have access to all spaces and things that used to be single sex- facilities, prisons, women's awards, sports, orgs/roles around intimate procedures (doing smears/ medical exams of women who report rape, where the woman has asked for a female doc) etc etc

There is a lot of reversal in this it's fascinating.

EG
Lesbians are genital fetishists
It's more inclusive to refer to people with vaginas
Penises can be a female organ
Etc

And then
OMG you want to define a female as a person observed to have a vulva at birth wtf you're obsessed with genitals

Gerbil, genderists are masters at DARVO. Just like every abuser.

The worst thing is that they have taken the arguments formed by loads of other movements, and flung them back in the faces of those who came up with them.

Just put that on another thread as well.

It's really terrible behaviour.

Erm Signalbox that argument is made by transactivists and their supporters though

I suppose yes actually many of the supporters would describe themselves as feminists often intersectional feminists

Yes sorry I should have said people who identify as feminists.

I'm waiting for the examples of elitist and non inclusive feminism that @Chev2021 was talking about.

This biggest problem of UK feminism is it's always been elitist and racist. I don’t know who said that - but when I was younger I worked a bit for the Southhall Black Sisters and I think they’d strongly disagree! They are still going strong I believe. I’ve worked with loads of women’s organisations, Somali, Chinese, Afro-Carribean older women’s group, Asian women’s group - all in the UK, all pretty fantastic and they all did great work in their communities and beyond.

It’s a real shame if people think they don’t exist, because they do.

This biggest problem of UK feminism is it's always been elitist and racist

I'm not well read enough on feminism to really conclusively argue either way, but a few weeks back the top thread on Black Mumsnetters was one about how current feminism was very white and privileged and didn't represent them.

This is a different conversation I think.

I hadn't come across so called 'white feminism' until I looked at the WEP site the other day. Fucking hell!

So in the end given that anyone can identify as a feminist, and that it's not one set of rules, and that feminists are always having arguments about pretty fundamental things. Then yes. It's a mistake to say that feminists don't say X when clearly some do!

However to state that feminism in the UK has historically been elitist and racist full stop. Is really disrespectful to all the women who have set up/ fought for things that help all women and those that have worked tirelessly for women in various groups that are often overlooked eg refugee women in the appalling immigration detention centres, women who have loads of barriers to getting help when they need it eg language, not having any freedom, women who are in prison, girls who face exploitation through the 'care' system etc etc.

I'm happy to discuss the different flavours of feminism. I'm not at all happy with this broad brush racist elitist thing. That's just a kick in the teeth for women who give their time energy resources to help less understood/ cared about/ visible groups/ those who experience racism/ oppression within their community etc etc.

@NiceGerbil it’s also a kick in the teeth to all those refugees / cultures/ races that have set up their own women’s campaigning groups all over the UK - who have been working hard in their own communities whether it be local or national, for years. I haven’t worked in this area for a while now, but it deeply saddens me that their work is going unnoticed.

I'm not at all happy with this broad brush racist elitist thing. That's just a kick in the teeth for women who give their time energy resources to help less understood/ cared about/ visible groups/ those who experience racism/ oppression within their community etc etc.

I agree it's a bit extreme but people seem to have a tendency to go a bit OTT when they care about something. To be honest, I see a lot on here with generalisations about men ("they really hate us, don't they?" etc) and often feel a similar way about it.

WEP says this:

'About the Women's Equality Party
Equality for women isn't a women's issue. When women fulfill their potential, everyone benefits. Equality means better politics, a more vibrant economy, a workforce that draws on the talents of the whole population and a society at ease with itself.'

That would be the elitist/white feminism' being referred to I think? I was WTAF when I read it.

Ironically they are very on board with self id etc. Were they the ones who said something was for non men? Or was that the greens?

So is it.. Feminists in the UK are and have been pretty rubbish because of ^that sort of thing. But. They are the ones who are bang on message with self id etc.

Soooo... ??!!

The ones who are very into supporting gender over sex are also the ones who are pretty shit. But, they're good actually because they support gender over sex. So what to do? Say that the women who think ^ is shit are actually the elitist ones. Job done!

???!!

Oh haha they have a whole section on don't worry men we love you,

www.womensequality.org.uk/intl-mens-day

Well yes it is s bit extreme given the vast range of things that women have achieved in the UK in the last 100 years or more.

Without them we would not have so many rights. As mothers to our own children (man's property), rape in marriage would be legal, there would be no equal pay act... We would have no seats in parliament. Abortion would not be legal, or maybe only under circs that suited men. We would not be able to have bank accounts. Etc etc etc and so on.

To disparage all that work and more- which have helped all women is crappy.

Not to mention the enormous amounts of women working / who have worked in specific areas.

I would say if your only experience of feminism is people like the WEP you're looking in the wrong place. Here around the world there is so much important work going on. And the best way to support it if you can is with your wallet. To enable those who know what they need to do, to get on with it.

Anyway this is an aside. There's been loads of threads on this recently!

Suffice to say without the work of women, the drive of women, the risks taken, the doors slammed in the face we would still be chattel. Make no mistake of that. In many countries things are going backwards, slowly or suddenly, for women and girls.