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.

@cakedays

- my MIL, aged 62, works in a factory where she has to change to put on workwear and safety protection, and there are male and female changing rooms, but no space for individual cubicles. At times she has had various illnesses that mean she is particularly self-conscious about changing in front of others. One of her workmates has recently come back after a mastectomy. Should these women be expected to change with the men - of all ages? They are often aggressive or jocular. Even the older women report staring and sexual harassment from male co-workers.

- a dear friend spent months living on chemotherapy wards having treatment for blood cancer. Ward bays were either four or six patients to one or two lavatories and one shower/bath. Patients had little privacy except flimsy curtains, which they are only allowed to draw back occasionally for medical procedures (staff like the curtains back as a default so that everyone gets enough light and so that they can see quickly if there is anything wrong with patient). Few possessions were allowed in the hospital, often patients were wearing very little clothing due to the heating and wires and tubes from central lines and IVs which were sometimes running for hours, so that you have to take your IV stand with you to the loo. Every bodily issue, wash, loo trip and consultation is audible by others. Fluid input and output had to be constantly measured so patients had to wee into pans and leave their urine pans in a set space where every couple of hours nurses would come to collect them to measure and test output, so patients using the bay patient loo often have to do so together with a neat row of other people's urine in little pans. It's dehumanising enough to have so little privacy even with other women; I can't imagine how it would be to have a man present if you are seriously unwell, unable to wash often, need help with personal care and have your body only partially clothed a lot of the time.

Because that sounds like it's a feasible expectation in a nice middle class workplace where it's basically an office and some pleasant loo cubicles. But there are lots of public institutions and spaces, workplaces, schools and hospitals that aren't like this. Why should it be up to women every time to ask for privacy in changing rooms or when unwell, for example? It isn't just in swimming pools that people might be undressing or vulnerable or not want their bodies exposed to others.

What do you think about those examples above? Because you're saying that you don't need to know about anyone's genitals and so on; but there are plenty of times of life or spaces where people might well get a good look at others' genitals; and surely everyone should have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and especially privacy from potentially sexual stares or looks? Should girls or women always have to ask every time for their privacy to be "justified" in every space they are undressing or vulnerable in? And who decides? What if a man decides women's desire for privacy isn't justified? Is that a form of harassment in itself?

That's just one aspect of your post I wanted to ask about; there are others, but this is the first one, partly because you admit that your view might be privileged; and I'm wondering whether one of the issues with women who are comfortable not having any sex segregation is that those women by and large are healthy, young or relatively young, and move in spaces where they don't expect to be physically vulnerable or incapacitated.

I mean if you are a healthy young person in your twenties or thirties working in an office space with unisex cubicle loos, the only place you might expect to find yourself undressing in front of others might be at the gym, with other people who are at the gym. You simply don't see the spaces - all over the place if you are poor or ill or young or vulnerable - where women need to change clothes or perform bodily functions in front of other people, and feel vulnerable and stared at, or are at the mercy of others' decisions about their bodies or their privacy.

I do appreciate these points. I wouldn’t say I’m that young or that healthy, but I do have pretty limited experience of being in situations where I was that vulnerable for any prolonged period. From the limited experience I do have of being in those sorts of situations I have some awareness of how uncomfortable and upsetting it can be, and how important it is to be treated with kindness, empathy and respect. I understand that a significant number of people feel that having patients of the opposite sex around reduces their dignity and privacy more than having patients of the same sex around. I don’t really understand why, although I suspect it’s partly generational. My homework will be to ask my mum how she feels about it - she’s in her 70s and has had quite a few hospital stays over the years.

Are you reading the posts Helen?

Or wasn't this helpful/ of interest? Just I think your last comment coming hot on the heels... Anyway.

'
When I was 19 I stayed on a mixed sex ward. It was my first time in a grown up hosp after having lots of stints in a specialist children's hosp. Incidentally those wards were mixed sex, and actually that was fine. There was always a nurse or two keeping an eye- their room had a window and if course they were seeing patients a lot. As it was children who were having quite serious stuff done and were often in long term that was a real feeling of comradeship tbh. Anyone interested feel free to ask!

Anyway mixed sex. So I'm 19 in a ward with about 12 beds. About 10 were occupied. I was the only female. It wasn't high risk or anything so the nurses came round i dunno. Every 2 or 3 hours or something.

I did feel uncomfortable. And I wasn't a nervous type of person at all. Not of anything- not of men. I knew obv what they could be like but my youthful optimism said it's a few bad apples, vast majority are fine etc

I felt uncomfortable. I was very aware there were all these men and me. And I was in a nightie and fairly immobile. I tried to ignore it. 3 of them just sat there staring at me.

It wasn't the best tbh.

Nothing happened- none of them even spoke to be. But I felt sort of alone, out of place and vulnerable.

That's the sort of thing where people say but nothing happened!! What's the problem. It's not illegal to look at someone etc. But lots of women and girls know the men can make you feel unsettled pretty easily if they want to.

As luck would have it, it was an orthopaedic ward so no one was moving around the place much!'

I think it's less age than circumstance.
2 years ago I was rather cavalier in showing my body. Now a pregnancy and post natal depression later and I don't even like looking in the mirror. I'd be mortified if any man who wasn't my husband saw my body. Yet I can get changed by the mums at baby swimming without too much discomfort.

And quite simply, due to religion or trauma some women don't have the luxury of being the 'cool girl' about males in female spaces.

' I have some awareness of how uncomfortable and upsetting it can be, and how important it is to be treated with kindness, empathy and respect'.

I wasn't upset. Just very aware of the situation. And uncomfortable.

What would kindness empathy and respect have done? From who to who?

Hi @NiceGerbil sorry, I did just read that - I’m finding it a bit hard to keep up with everyone’s posts, there’s a lot to absorb and think about. Also I keep losing my place and missing things as it’s a bit hard to navigate on iPhone. I did find your example very interesting, thank you. I can imagine also feeling uncomfortable in that situation if I’m honest. It’s all so situation specific - if any of those men had chatted to you normally and been friendly and kind (though not over friendly!) do you still think you would have felt uncomfortable?

I have had situations where I’ve felt uncomfortable around men - eg taxi drivers behaving oddly, making odd comments, asking inappropriate questions. Because when you’re in a person’s car you can feel a bit at their mercy (even though rationally in a licensed taxi you know it’s incredibly unlikely anything bad will happen).

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

I think it's less age than circumstance.
2 years ago I was rather cavalier in showing my body. Now a pregnancy and post natal depression later and I don't even like looking in the mirror. I'd be mortified if any man who wasn't my husband saw my body. Yet I can get changed by the mums at baby swimming without too much discomfort.

And quite simply, due to religion or trauma some women don't have the luxury of being the 'cool girl' about males in female spaces.

I’m very sorry that you’ve been through that.

I’ve always been self-conscious about my body (having been teased for being overweight as a child, then for being flat chested as a teenager), and have not really been naked in front of anyone since I was a child other than sexual partners and (generally bottom half only) healthcare professionals. I did do a burlesque class a couple of years ago that involved getting top half naked (other than nipple tassels!) - I hadn’t realised when I booked it that it would involve taking off bras and I nearly had a panic attack when I realised - but actually doing it felt incredibly liberating. Sorry, bit of a diversion there....

Ps @SunnydaleClassProtector99 I really like your username!

Ok, off to sleep now - I need to be up bright and early tomorrow for my vaccination, excitingly

'It’s all so situation specific - if any of those men had chatted to you normally and been friendly and kind (though not over friendly!) do you still think you would have felt uncomfortable?'

Hell no.

All the times I've been in hosp the protocol is to not chat while in bed, to give people privacy if they're in pain etc and because they can't get away if they don't want to talk! It's more like how it is on the tube in terms of behaviour.

Would I have been put at rest at the age of 19 on a ward with all men, 3 of whom were staring. if a non stare one had come to me bedside and struck up a conversation? When I couldn't get away?

And IME men who strike up conversation randomly are never just being chatty esp when you're that age.

I find that question plain odd TBH. Don't you just know that at that age and in that situation having a random man decide to talk to you would make your brain say proceed with caution possible risk...

@WhatyoutalkingaboutWillis

Can I just say, although I'm not aligned to Helen8220's views, how refreshing it is to hear opposing views dealt with in a '"grown up", non aggressive manor.

Completely agree with this.

In reply to @Helen8220 about healthcare settings... You might have felt a bit embarrassed visiting the doctor, but not minded which sex they are or whether the toilets were single sex. That’s fine, many people will feel the same. Forget about toilets for a second or whether you wake up in a ward with men after a heart op.

To reduce health inequalities - one of the most important things we must do is to know which groups are at the most risk of ill health. Who is suffering barriers to healthcare?

So the ‘WHO’ is important. Recording accurate data on WHO is critical, without it we have no idea who to target and which inequalities or health needs in particular groups to address.

For this reason I am strongly against anyone being able to put down in a form that they are biologically female or to fudge the issue by just asking do you identify as... It is useful to put both down e.g. born as a male, identify as a female, identify as gay etc. It is very useful to know if being gay or transgender for example is having any effect on accessing healthcare. So my first point:
Data must be factual and accurate - for collection in statistics, crime stats, healthcare stats...

I think you’d probably agree that many groups do suffer more from ill health, of various forms?
For example menopause symptoms, or sickle cell.

And many have more barriers than most to accessing healthcare? For example those who do not speak English (more women than men). Health Visitors would tell me that it was women in domestic violence situations would avoid appointments and be hardest to reach.

You would agree that it is important that we make sure that healthcare is accessed by those that need it? Which is my second point, that once we have identified groups who have ‘access’ issues, such as women in DV situations, we need to tailor our healthcare provisions to enable access.

No one is going to argue with a ramp for a wheelchair user into a hospital. Even though lobbying groups fought hard to get these. However the more ‘invisible’ access issues are still important to address, and one of these is women and men. Both sexes have access issues. Men, particularly young / deprived areas will avoid the GP more than women for example, and present late in illness.

Women particularly older, or who have suffered abuse, mental ill health or because of their religion, need some single sex provision in order to access healthcare. In addition, in hospitals or at the GPs are when women are at their most vulnerable.

Single sex wards are there because more sexual assaults occur in mixed wards, and patients report feeling that they have a lack of privacy and dignity. Recovery from illness is a critical time and mental wellbeing does have an effect on this, so it’s not just a question of preference.

Many single sex wards are now saying that trans people can use the ward that ‘they identify with’.

The difficulty with this is that single sex wards arose because of what I have described - the real historical problems that males and females sharing resulted in: increase sexual assaults, increased lack of privacy and dignity, increased vulnerability. This happened every time they tried to make wards more mixed so they had to go back to single sex wards.

I understand that there is now a quandary for trans people and hospital wards. Where do you go? However that debate needs to be discussed over time. And crucially it cannot just be a back door to mixed wards again - because the problems with them are not going to go away. Instead anyone now feeling a lack of privacy or dignity, or leered at (as was reported increasingly when mixed wards were introduced more and more) are going to be met with accusations of hate crimes / discrimination towards trans people too.

This is a bit of a mess from hastily introduced policies that are ignoring the problem of access, and inequalities, which in this case are the increased vulnerability in terms of body privacy, dignity and sexual assault of women ill in hospital. For example an elderly Muslim woman recovering from a heart operation does not need the additional stress of having to be in a state of undress next to a bed with a man who identifies as a woman. A young woman fleeing domestic violence, recovering from her injuries should have discharge herself early because she realise that there are men in her toilets and in the adjacent bed. A woman experiencing debilitating depression on a long term mental health ward should be able to do that with some privacy and dignity with her own sex.

I disagree that we mainly take our cues to someone’s sex from their hair, make up etc. I have no difficulty correctly recognising a butch lesbian in man’s clothes as a woman, or a drag queen in full ‘female’ act as a man.

In fact studies have shown that we are very, very good at correctly sexing humans. This famous study from a while back put lights on people’s joints and asked subjects to identify their sex only from seeing the lights move. People did so with high accuracy even when there were simply a pair of lights attached to the ankles, because men and women walk differently. Accuracy was almost perfect when lights were attached to the upper body:

people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pubs/recognizing_sex.pdf

My dog doesn’t care about hair styles or make up but reacts differently to men and to women, as do many animals and also human babies. It simply isn’t true to say that we can only know someone’s sex from whether they’re wearing a skirt and makeup or not.

Oh and yes, I’d have been worried about being alone with three older men when I was 19, and would have wondered at the motives of any such man who tried to make friends with me. Not to feel that way at 19 would seem to betray a worrying naievety or lack of boundaries, to me. And a decent older man would not want to be in a situation with a 19 year old woman where she was vulnerable.

@justawoman

I disagree that we mainly take our cues to someone’s sex from their hair, make up etc. I have no difficulty correctly recognising a butch lesbian in man’s clothes as a woman, or a drag queen in full ‘female’ act as a man.

In fact studies have shown that we are very, very good at correctly sexing humans. This famous study from a while back put lights on people’s joints and asked subjects to identify their sex only from seeing the lights move. People did so with high accuracy even when there were simply a pair of lights attached to the ankles, because men and women walk differently. Accuracy was almost perfect when lights were attached to the upper body:

people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pubs/recognizing_sex.pdf

My dog doesn’t care about hair styles or make up but reacts differently to men and to women, as do many animals and also human babies. It simply isn’t true to say that we can only know someone’s sex from whether they’re wearing a skirt and makeup or not.

Great post

@justawoman

I disagree that we mainly take our cues to someone’s sex from their hair, make up etc. I have no difficulty correctly recognising a butch lesbian in man’s clothes as a woman, or a drag queen in full ‘female’ act as a man.

In fact studies have shown that we are very, very good at correctly sexing humans. This famous study from a while back put lights on people’s joints and asked subjects to identify their sex only from seeing the lights move. People did so with high accuracy even when there were simply a pair of lights attached to the ankles, because men and women walk differently. Accuracy was almost perfect when lights were attached to the upper body:

people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pubs/recognizing_sex.pdf

My dog doesn’t care about hair styles or make up but reacts differently to men and to women, as do many animals and also human babies. It simply isn’t true to say that we can only know someone’s sex from whether they’re wearing a skirt and makeup or not.

Yes, i specifcally said "gait" as one of the first indicators of sex, and took pains NOT to say that we can only know someone's sex from clothes etc, because that's the opposite of what I was saying. From a distance, or facing someone's back, I would not be as confident in correctly, instantly, identifying the sex of a slight man in a skirt with a bobbed hairstyle as I would a 6'6 shaved head, bearded rugby player man in kit. That's all. As I got nearer or as they moved, more cues would become apparent and I would reconsider if necessary. There are people on tv or in photos I've genuinely been unsure about their bio sex but fully admit that must be just a failure on my part (and the other MNer I was talking about who thought a woman was a tw). As another poster says, I have spotted TW in tv shows before my male partner.

Oh, I don’t disagree with you. I wasn’t reacting to your post, but to Helen’s argument that we ‘underestimate’ the importance of clothing and other indicators in identifying sex (I’d argue that we actually overestimate them), and that we need some sort of ‘experiment’ to show how we identify sex in other humans (such experiments have been done and they show we’re very good at it and that’s not because of superficial and culturally-dependent signs like clothing and hairstyles).

I understand that a significant number of people feel that having patients of the opposite sex around reduces their dignity and privacy more than having patients of the same sex around. I don’t really understand why, although I suspect it’s partly generational. My homework will be to ask my mum how she feels about it - she’s in her 70s and has had quite a few hospital stays over the years.

No, I don't think it's generational. I think by what you've said that I'm probably younger than you. The majority of people in this country want single sex wards in hospital, not a few, or just the elderly ones. It's your position that's out of step with everyone else's, but you seem to find it hard to put yourself in the position of others, and can only understand things if you have personal experience.

I understand that there is now a quandary for trans people and hospital wards. Where do you go? However that debate needs to be discussed over time. And crucially it cannot just be a back door to mixed wards again - because the problems with them are not going to go away. Instead anyone now feeling a lack of privacy or dignity, or leered at (as was reported increasingly when mixed wards were introduced more and more) are going to be met with accusations of hate crimes / discrimination towards trans people too.

This is a bit of a mess from hastily introduced policies that are ignoring the problem of access, and inequalities, which in this case are the increased vulnerability in terms of body privacy, dignity and sexual assault of women ill in hospital. For example an elderly Muslim woman recovering from a heart operation does not need the additional stress of having to be in a state of undress next to a bed with a man who identifies as a woman. A young woman fleeing domestic violence, recovering from her injuries should have discharge herself early because she realise that there are men in her toilets and in the adjacent bed. A woman experiencing debilitating depression on a long term mental health ward should be able to do that with some privacy and dignity with her own sex.

Good points. An excellent, thoughtful thread, laying it out very clearly.

Thanks for the link justawoman. I knew there had been a study regarding recognition of sex (and that it involved lights) but I hadn’t been able to find it again. I’ve saved it now!

No, I don't think it's generational. I think by what you've said that I'm probably younger than you. The majority of people in this country want single sex wards in hospital, not a few, or just the elderly ones. It's your position that's out of step with everyone else's, but you seem to find it hard to put yourself in the position of others, and can only understand things if you have personal experience.

I don’t think it is generational either. I know my teen would be concerned being in a room on a ward with males.

@Helen8220

I have had situations where I’ve felt uncomfortable around men - eg taxi drivers behaving oddly, making odd comments, asking inappropriate questions. Because when you’re in a person’s car you can feel a bit at their mercy (even though rationally in a licensed taxi you know it’s incredibly unlikely anything bad will happen).

Now imagine one of those creepy taxi drivers in the adjacent bed when you're in hospital.

happy to identify as possessing a vag&being a woman.Not feeling the slightest threat from your sensationalist ramblings.

@Helen8220 I'd just like to echo what other posters have said about how nice it is to have your thoughtful, measured and detailed input - when someone like you engages it's easy to see that it is possible to hold opposing views while still sharing a lot of core values. Thank you.