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.

'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'

Is there a link to the full piece?

The idea that it's women and girls were the ones who have forced these roles and ways of dressing etc on us is yet another display of a total ignorance of women's situation.

So it's women who decided that women should be covered head to toe in some parts of the world and nothing to do with men.

All the women in skimpy clothes/ or less in magazines music etc was driven by women, not men.

The way a bride in a country with dowry is adorned is for women, not men.

Foot binding was a fashion for women, the men couldn't care less. Breast ironing is done because women want it. Nothing to do with men.

The male gaze, heterosexual males preferences are nothing to do with men. The reason for things like Baywatch with a certain look etc are because women and girls were clamouring for it.
The fact that female school uniforms of certain types are popular in all sorts of porn. Are nothing to do with men fantasising about sex with schoolgirls. It exists because women want it to.

Etc etc.

Add in the social reaction to girls who do not conform/ fight against looking that way. I mean what?

Short skirts and big hair and etc are for women? I mean how arse about face can you get.

Question. What do you think happens in parts of the world with morality police to a young women who doesn't cover head to toe but goes out with jeans, a vest top and not covering hair. Any guesses? And you claim this is all driven by women?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Mecca_girls%27_school_fire

'The 2002 Mecca girls' school fire occurred on 11 March 2002 at a girls' school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and killed fifteen people, all young girls. Complaints were made that Saudi Arabia's "religious police", specifically the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, had prevented schoolgirls from leaving the burning building and hindered rescue workers because the students were not wearing modest clothing and, possibly, because they lacked a male escort. '

This is the fault of women of course. Enforcing gender specific dress codes.

Everything is the fault of women right? In the end.

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 know what you mean!

@MrsWooster

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.

No, & it definitely came as quite a surprise to me. In a good way

@MrsWooster

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.

It's quite something isn't it 💚🤍💜

@thepuredrop

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?

Quite.

I also strongly object to feminism being seen as an ‘extreme’ or compared to other extremes. That’s like saying anti-racism is an extreme.

I avoided the feminism board for years after I first joined MN (circa 2005), I found the posters intimidating!

Well yeah, getting handed one's arse nicely sliced & garnished on a plate by Dittany was definitely a bracing experience back in t'day.

But a valuable one.

@NiceGerbil

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/4be7331e-4a33-4226-bd7d-d35dd55f1682

The first 15 minutes is dead air waiting for the hearing to begin. The first speaker makes the comment about women enforcing femininity onto transwomen, in the first ten minutes.

@Rejoiningperson

I also strongly object to feminism being seen as an ‘extreme’ or compared to other extremes. That’s like saying anti-racism is an extreme.

I think someone tried a drive-by gotcha with their comment that UK feminism is racist. This is ludicrous because all UK feminists identify as anti-racist, which is not a stereotype, but an identity based on culture, history, society and psychology, taking account of each of us as individuals. Who are anti-racist. Therefore, there is no racism.

I think we can learn a lot from TRAs in how to deny problems completely.

Isn’t there something inherently racist in saying that anyone can identify as any identity, even in biological terms? We are born with genes which determine many things, not just male/female but ethnicity. Isn’t this a threat to the recognition and respect of different races, and their history and experience?

I want to remind posters that feminism has no set text etc.

Liberal feminists say a lot of things I disagree with for example.

In the end there is no feminists say this or that.

I've been in places where women who are v vocal radical feminists have views that I cannot agree with and to be frank are misgynistic.

Thr nicey lefty types are terrible at prioritising a unified message over sub groups, political purity, and in group rows. Always have been. There's a good book about it if anyone fancies a rec. Look at labour tearing itself apart from within. Momentum. The 'long left' militant tendancy all over again.

I have my own feminism which is formed from my life experiences and observations. It more or less accords with 2nd wave type view.

But not always.

Stand for your own values. What you believe/ know to be true.

The recent feminism (not that recent now) says sex work is work, anything a woman does is a feminist act, ignores class analysis and is very keen on taking your clothes off to show how empowered you are.

The women who believe that are a feminist movement.

I think it's bollocks.

Additionally. Loads of women (and men) agree with various tenets of feminist stuff even if they think feminism is a dirty word.

Very few people actually think being paid for sex is a great way to earn a living. For example.

Anyway think I've gone on enough!

In the end it's what YOU think and feel is right or wrong. As a person with a brain. And that's that.

My whole existence is effected by having a vagina and reproductive organs.. The expectations on me as a child to be domestic because I had a vagina, the inappropriate sexual touching because of my vagina, my infertility, pregnancy, birth, breast feeding and mastitis because of reproductive organs, my menopause and female health issues.

Don't be silly!

You're an unformed kind of gas or something. Your female sex is irrelevant. No one enforces anything based on that!

Let's all be freeeeeee!!!!

PS I have tried living as a gaseous cloud, also a liquid in a bucket. Suggest you experiment with your formlessness to avoid pesky stuff like sexism, sex crimes, and also housework. Good luck!

‘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".’

Is this true though? There is a subset of gay men who are very feminine in their behaviour and are seen as part and parcel of feminine (not single sex) environments and are generally welcomed by feminine women. The obvious example is hair salons.

I would argue that those gay men are perceived as authentically feminine in a way that many trans women are not. As a society we do recognise a difference between acceptable femininity (which includes that subset of gay men) and biological women.

This is why I find some of the examples given from other cultures like Samoa as being trans really unconvincing. They actually seem to occupy a role very similar to that of feminine gay men not to trans women.

Thanks CloudyMoment, that’s given me something to think about. Also the poster who talked about the lack of teaching of critical thinking skills.

The reason why all this still bemuses me is that I grew up in a very conservative religious environment where gender roles were pushed very hard and I was told that being a woman meant I needed to be submissive and subservient to men, that my happiness would come only from having a husband and kids, and so on. My family still struggles with the fact that I grew up to be a happily single and childless lesbian feminist with several degrees and a professional career that I love.

If I could see through the indoctrination and gender-role conditioning I grew up with, why can’t everyone? I mean, it’s so obviously rubbish - isn’t it?

The more overt the pressure to conform the easier it can be to rebel
Much gender conformity today is pushed quite under the radar in tv and such ?

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

So cultural appropriation is ok now?

Yes, that did occur to me after writing my post, midgedude. Maybe my family did/does me a favour in being so openly coercive around gender rules.

I think it’s also backlash to the 70s and 80s when feminism truly meant challenging gender. The amount of coverage given in the media to studies purporting to show differences in ability at certain tasks between men and women, for instance, does seem to have pushed the narrative towards ‘there are natural differences in ability/aptitude between men and women and this accounts for their different social standing’. Despite the fact that any differences are generally small and results not replicated. Cordelia Fine is excellent on this.

Hopefully all the genderisation going on now will provoke a further backlash where people realise it’s rubbish and we go back to a more sane, human way of understanding our potential.

@CrazyNeighbour
I agree with you on the point that there isn't much left "truly" after you scratch the surface.
However my point was not that any action is "truly feminine" or "truly masculine", rather than that certain ways of doing and being are coded as such, and if you internalised that code and think it is true, and you were made to constantly feel inadequate because you don' fit what is expected, you will relate to it as if it's more real than it is. Especially those who view themselves as "a man or woman" first. Hence point out to them that it is not real, but the only thing that is real is biology will make them feel deeply unsettled.

BUT to be honest I am starting to question my own understanding, because I have re-read the section of OPs post that said:

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.

I truly honestly don't get it, because it seems to hinge on an idea of being a woman that neither feminine, nor has a female body and YET is a claiming the word "woman". This seems to truly imply some kind of mystical quality of gender, which eludes me.
It kind of feels like.. either we are a group of people who simply aren't able to perceive what is obvious to others. OR we are being gaslit.

@LibertyMole

Is this true though? There is a subset of gay men who are very feminine in their behaviour and are seen as part and parcel of feminine (not single sex) environments and are generally welcomed by feminine women. The obvious example is hair salons.

Feminine gay men will be accepted by women, because they are seen as non-threatening sexually. Would the same men be accepted if they were straight?
I doubt that the experience of feminine gay men is good amongst guys.
In fact it is common to be bullied because you are perceived to be gay.
I think there is an interesting cluster of oppression causes at play - straight and gay men are often targeted for being feminine. It can be because of both homophobia and misogyny (seen as an oppression of all things related to femininity.)

In fact I do think that this is where the view comes from that "women are oppressed because of their gender" - because males are actually more pushed into line to conform to the male gender expectation, and can feel "oppressed for their femininity". Hence the presumption that this is a universal cause.

That doesn't deny the fact that women are oppressed because of their sex.