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.

In practice i think if anyone woke up in someone else's body they'd have a total mental breakdown on the spot.

I am a person first and always have been.

It's always got on my nerves that so many people see female first, apply a bunch of stereotypes, and proceed from there.

That's why I was a feminist from before I knew the word. I couldn't understand why people usually didn't see me as a person first and I found it confusing and frankly just stupid.

Just wondering what OP’s thoughts on race and ethnicity are. Are my white skin and Anglo-Irish ethnicity as reductive as my sex characteristics in my categorisation as a white woman? Can I be freed of all of these?

@timeisnotaline

Is there anyone who doesn’t come from a privileged background who thinks everyone knows if they have a cervix or not? Or is it just naive privileged middle class people who think such a ridiculous thing? No matter whether English is someone’s first language?

I think it was posted up thread. A recent survey done in the UK resulted in 48% of females not knowing what their cervix was.

It is pretty clear that there are many 'allies' who like to think they are representative to the entire female population of the UK.

@timeisnotaline

Is there anyone who doesn’t come from a privileged background who thinks everyone knows if they have a cervix or not? Or is it just naive privileged middle class people who think such a ridiculous thing? No matter whether English is someone’s first language?

I have been thinking about this since OP posted about it. I was born and still live in a very working class area. Not everyone finished school and lots of people missed a lot of school. I spent a few years working in adult social care too. One thing that taught me is anyone can suffer an acquired brain injury that can profoundly affect your cognitive abilities.

I know and have known plenty of women who don't know what a cervix is but know exactly what a woman is, anyone who thinks otherwise is naive in the extreme.

Oh wow, I was not familiar with Loevinger's Stages of Ego development. Thank you, that is a fascinating read.

" I wonder whether strong identification with gender at the level of self might be an immature developmental stage of ego integration or a defence mechanism to protect from an undeveloped sense of self. "

I think it is a bit of both? And also... to open it even further: a result of how power acts, and of a liberal ideology.

In an individualist, capitalist, liberal society we are subject to an ideology that says the following things:

• that there is a "true inner self" that needs to be brought out and expressed. This is present everywhere and can be found in slogans such as "following your dream", "living authentically", "expressing your truth" etc.

• that "you can be who ever you want to be"

At the same time people are put into certain subject positions by power, based on their characteristics, such as race, sex, gender sexuality etc.

People who aren't white/heterosexual/male and middle/upper class, are usually reduced to the one defining aspect that put them into that specific relationship to power, because they are treated differently based on their divergence from the "standard".

This is how identity politics gets born. People mobilise under the banner of the category that leads to their oppression.

And combine this with the first section, the "live your authentic self" part..people are compelled to attach their sense of self to their defining "difference". Be it sexuality or gender identity, or whatever.

Personally...

I am bisexual and I circled through a few labels in my 20s.

Both my parents and at least one former partner had their own hangups and I was made to feel inadequate as a woman, and as a result I did not integrate "being a woman" until well into my 30s.

Ironically it was because of my very womanly traits, such as big boobs. I struggled a lot with the reproductive aspect of straight sex- I felt it was oppressive, and icky (not least because my ex had a pregnancy-fetish, and it put me the idea of heterosexuality and been seen as female.)

And people like my ex have the tendency to act as if they know exactly what "being a woman" is like, and I did not fit that, and did not want to fit it. This person, and the ideas of female gender, femininity really put me off "feeling like a woman". This combined with being bisexual really made me cling to the label of "lesbian" or "gay", or even "queer". Because I felt like I did to fit into being a woman, and I also did not like the idea of being in a relationship with a man.

But things have changed. I have accepted myself as also a woman and the fact that I am also attracted to men. I have a husband, who treats me with respect and with whom I have never felt inadequate as both a human and a woman.

I think reclaiming sex/biology has been an incredibly powerful thing, because.. it is basically is a method of standing up against gender/based oppression. It's about saying "I am a woman because I have a vagina, don't you dare questioning that I am a woman". It eliminates the permission for people to make each other feel "not a real woman/man" because of their behaviours and personality.

Removing that basis, opens a massive worm hole of gender-policing... because if you aren't a man or a woman by virtue of your sex... then stepping out of the gender-conforming line carries bad consequences.

@CloudyMoment

I think your analysis is really interesting. I would hazard a guess that the people who consider their gender to be the most important context of their selves are fewer in number. I also wonder what experiences might lead you to fix on that and how they don't experience that as constraining? The rest of us can feel freer to be anything we want whereas if a narrowly defined (which it has to be?) sense of gender means you are boxing yourself in. I wonder what the gain is from that ideology?

You said For those who are in the second camp (they at their core feel like a man or a woman), saying "biology matters", is terrifying because it puts their internal sense of self at the whim of external circumstances, and ties it to reproduction. It can feel reductionist.

I don't know what this means really. How does biology tie a sense of self to external circumstances? Can you say more about this?

I can imagine that boxing yourself in would be secure, you can't make the wrong choice

That's why I was a feminist from before I knew the word. I couldn't understand why people usually didn't see me as a person first and I found it confusing and frankly just stupid

Me too! When I was in elementary school I was often flummoxed when a certain boy would say what I JUST EXPLAINED and somehow get credit for it. I would try it again on another day (it was me and another smart boy in my small school always raising our hands with answers-yes, I was that kid). But somehow he'd get fawned over, given academic prizes, etc., DESPITE my grades always a tad higher. Halfway through high school, I gave up competing with him and comparing myself to him. I stopped caring about completing classwork and just read the material i thought was interesting, and my grades suffered. Five years later he and I chatted at a school reunion and he was disappointed I "gave up on our friendship because he always saw us as friendly competitors and he credited me with his drive to push himself."

That was a peak moment for me in my feminism. Looking back I wish I'd asked him to try and make it up to me with cold, hard cash equivalent to the male/female pay gap , but I was too nice as he actually seemed sad. I wish I could say I'm over it, but, like all you witches, I can't lie about the obvious.

That's why I was a feminist from before I knew the word. I couldn't understand why people usually didn't see me as a person first and I found it confusing and frankly just stupid

Same. I've felt like this for as long as I can remember, I'm still forced to think about it in certain situations unfortunately.

Magical thinking, Crazy neighbour. 😳

I know that this is quite a while back in the thread, but I'd like to come back to something the OP said:

As I said before, seen as we wont move away from that in this lifetime, why not let people move through the world without distress caused by imposing a purely sex based identity?

The OP isn't actually making an appeal to the truth. Not saying "Trans women are women and here's the evidence and reasoning."

The OP is making an appeal to sympathy - "Why can't we just pretend that males are actually female if they say so, and rearrange society in order to best accommodate that."

We don't normally seek to alleviate people's distress by pretending. We don't tell terminal cancer patients that they're in remission.

Partly that's a matter of practicality - nature doesn't care to play along and there's no guarantee every person will either.

Partly that's a matter of ethics, informed consent and so on.

But also there's the people who aren't the ones in distress and how pretending may affect them.

Is it ok for a woman to miss out on a gold medal that she should have won, in order to alleviate someone else's distress?

I don't think so and I think the view that we should is incredibly myopic in its sympathy.

@InspiralCoalescenceRingdown

I know that this is quite a while back in the thread, but I'd like to come back to something the OP said:

As I said before, seen as we wont move away from that in this lifetime, why not let people move through the world without distress caused by imposing a purely sex based identity?

The OP isn't actually making an appeal to the truth. Not saying "Trans women are women and here's the evidence and reasoning."

The OP is making an appeal to sympathy - "Why can't we just pretend that males are actually female if they say so, and rearrange society in order to best accommodate that."

We don't normally seek to alleviate people's distress by pretending. We don't tell terminal cancer patients that they're in remission.

Partly that's a matter of practicality - nature doesn't care to play along and there's no guarantee every person will either.

Partly that's a matter of ethics, informed consent and so on.

But also there's the people who aren't the ones in distress and how pretending may affect them.

Is it ok for a woman to miss out on a gold medal that she should have won, in order to alleviate someone else's distress?

I don't think so and I think the view that we should is incredibly myopic in its sympathy.

Excellent post.

Very true @InspiralCoalescenceRingdown. The use of the phrase "imposing a purely sex based identity" shows that the OP does not understand what people are saying. We are clearly saying our identities do not have to relate to our sex. OP is actually trying to force a gender-based identity on others.

I've been wondering too whether there is any actual evidence of significant and persistent harm caused to people because of their gender identity? There is much suggesting sex-based oppression and harm. This 'letting people move through the world' removes the protection required due to sex-based oppression. Letting some people move through the world in the way the OP suggests both hides and reinforces sex-based oppression and to suggest that it's alright to cause distress to others in that way is unethical.

I don't know what this means really. How does biology tie a sense of self to external circumstances? Can you say more about this?

I guess the easiest way to explain it would be to say that culturally certain personality traits or ways of expression are coded as "feminine" or "masculine". Certain ways of speaking or dressing would be read as "feminine", regardless if they are exhibited by a man or a woman.
GC view perspective would most likely claim that this is just a cultural product, and that these are just "human traits" that everyone should be free to express anyway. Which is true in my view.

However these "masculine" and "feminine" traits are so strongly associated with being either male or female, that they are synonymous.

From the GC perspective no sex has a monopoly on the traits coded as masculine or feminine. Everyone should be free to express themselves any way they want to. However in the real world the traits categorised as "feminine" reside with the category of women, and the traits categorised as "masculine" reside with the category of men.

This has the effect that you cannot be a fully and legitimately feminine person without also being a woman. In other words, unless you present as a woman, you will not be be seen for your "most authentic self".

(The notion of "authentic self" has to be questioned most likely, together with the need for external validation of it, but I will leave it here as part of the argument).

So all the people who strongly identify with their traits commonly coded as "feminine" or "masculine" will feel threatened if the categories of of "man and woman" are hinged on biology, because they will not be able to inhabit the only categories where they can legitimately be "themselves" on the strength of their gender-coded characteristics alone.

And outside of that category they will feel illegitimate/invalid, because only being in the category "woman" makes ones "feminine" expression valid.

It's a little bit like the obverse side of the "you aren't a real man because you behave in an unmanly way". It is "you cannot be true to yourself and express it in away that is perceived as valid, unless you are a woman".

These personality traits are valid in themselves, and they are independent of sex. And they exist.
But because they are socially coded in a gendered way, and because the person having them identifies with them in a gendered way, they can only be expressed in a way that the person feels is legitimate in the gender that is the "home" of that code.

If we then say that being a woman or man hinges purely on biology - this threatens all those who view themselves as essentially feminine or masculine at their core.

They have learned that their personality is gendered. They feel they cannot express their personality outside of the gender category to which similar personalities are assigned culturally. And then that category gets defined purely on who has which genitals. I think it can feel like a really strong attack on their sense of self, because it is saying that they lack the physical trait necessary for them to be able to legitimately live out their authentic self.

And then the people who grew up with the gendered view of their personality traits, who are at home in the sex they are born in, will feel that they are a man/woman at their core (because of course their personality exists). This will lead to a feeling of reduction, and also invalidation, because they will feel that their inner sense of self is also invalidated through them being seen as a man/woman purely on the basis of their sex.

I mean... we all try to conform to these expectations, and people actually put a lot of work into it. Men try to "be a good man", to be "strong and honourable" and whatnot - to do all this work to be seen as a "real man".

To say that a "you are a man if you have a penis", will feel invalidating to them too.

That's how I understand it anyway.

There’s a great You Tube video by some Dutch lesbian talking about a bike. Does anybody know the one? It addresses the OP’s points perfectly.

@BellaTheDog

There’s a great You Tube video by some Dutch lesbian talking about a bike. Does anybody know the one? It addresses the OP’s points perfectly.

Sorry, it should be:

I think it can feel like a really strong attack on their sense of self, because it is saying that if they lack the physical trait necessary for them to be they will not be able to legitimately live out their authentic self

Did anyone else, when they joined Mumsnet, realise they would become part of a top notch, intellectually rigorous, feminist discussion group that, frankly, has caused me to think harder and better than I ever did in any of my formal education?

I only came for the pregnancy board and cake.

I love her!!

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/yNIHdWyUsEY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>

'As I said before, seen as we wont move away from that in this lifetime, why not let people move through the world without distress caused by imposing a purely sex based identity?'

Just seen this quoted and have something to add.

The issues that are faced by women around the world, and through history. Are based by others perceiving our sex and then imposing a gender on us- these are the ones to sexually harrass, the ones who are prone to emotion rather than logic, the ones who are for the cooking and the cleaning and the caring and the fucking, and around the world so much more. The ones who are worth less, the ones who are at fault if a man attacks them, the ones who must be obedient to male relations, etc etc etc

So yes it would be lovely if everyone could go about their lives without distress caused by imposing a sex based identity.

On the face of it, that statement shows both a total lack of ?... Thinking about, caring about, knowing about..? How the gender imposed on girls and women around the world 'distresses' us. It also kills us, mains us, imprisons us in various ways, means that sex offences against us invite questions about what we were wearing etc etc etc.

I would be really interested to something from the OP (it was the OP who said it) to let me know if they really meant it, or if they didn't think of it.

@CloudyMoment this issue is that many like the OP, insist that gender identity is not a set of stereotypes, although they can’t tell us exactly what an identity based on culture, history, society, psychology and often (but not always) sex is, or how it differs from stereotypes. Indeed, stereotypical expression of gender identity is ‘forced’ by “cis women” according to the submission by a transwoman in today’s WESC hearing (which begs the question: if you want to be treated like a woman, get used to the expectation of performative femininity. And maybe have a word with the others who view their own feminine gender identity as a pursuit of degradation).

The many posts by the umpteen brilliant FWR regulars here are indeed impressive. However what really sticks out to me is the almost complete absence of logic or intellectual rigour in the content provided by OP and those endorsing her.

The fact that we're 670 posts in and OP has failed to answer any of the simple questions asked or define the foundational claims of her proposition is very very striking.

This has the effect that you cannot be a fully and legitimately feminine person without also being a woman. In other words, unless you present as a woman, you will not be be seen for your "most authentic self".

Oh wow! I thought we were 100 years past this sort of thinking (well, 50 at least). That is soooooo old-fashioned! So you're only allowed to present as a woman/ feminine if you are a woman? My gosh, even my granny, would now be 115 if she were still with us, would have thought that old-fashioned!

What does feminism even mean then to people who buy this? (btw Cloudy, I know you are trying to explain a POV which is not yours and thank you for that).

Whew! The modern school system with it's reliance on standardized testing and lack of emphasis on critical thinking and scientific method has a lot to answer for.

I'm tired of intellectually deprived 14 year olds telling me what to think on the internet.