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.

I'm just going to have to re-quote this little gem:
especially to young women of child bearing age

You don't even believe in your own supposed viewpoint.

Absolutely this

I'm guessing TRHR is Trans Rights are Human Rights?
I'm not going to argue with that. But, in the UK at least, trans people have the same human rights as anyone. They are not singled out in not being able to either claim to be a member of the opposite sex or being able to assert that their inner feelings override biological sex. No one should be able to do that.

@PlanDeRaccordement

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.

Well, actually women were oppressed due to being born without a penis. There were the penis havers (men) and the penis have nots (women). The penis havers were bigger, stronger and not incapacitated by pregnancy and childbirth, so they oppressed the penis have nots.

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

Gender is an identity based on historical, cultural and societal stereotypes. No matter how you describe them gender identity, you end up using stereotypes.

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.

That’s not “freeing” because honestly a transwomen who identified as a butch lesbian is actually a heterosexual man? And a man cannot be a lesbian....so it is actually robbing lesbians and heterosexual men of their uniqueness to clump them together. While ignoring the fact that men have never been persecuted or killed for having consensual sex with women, but lesbians have.

@yeahbutnaw trying engaging with this instead. It's excellent.

Seems like it was just a drive by wokescolding.

Pity.

Are you coming back, op? Shall we have a debate or did you just want to lecture?

@InspiralCoalescenceRingdown

I know this is a goady plop and run, but for the lurkers:

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.

The anatomical differences between males and females are the defining characteristic of reproductive sex, yes.

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.

Yes, as you correctly point out, women's oppression is based on their sex. Incidentally, it's only been in the "last 100 or so years" that we've known about hormones and chromosomes, but the patriarchy has always been able to identify women.

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.

We're not going back to anything. Most people in the general public think "transgender" means the same as "post-op transsexual". i.e. Penis = man.
yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/07/16/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights

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.

As they say on Wikipedia: [citation needed]

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.

Conservative, religious communities also hold the view that grass is green. Should I disagree?

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.

And yet, your only example of this is a fictional book.

The term handmaiden predates The Handmaids Tale. Atwood also thinks that humans are the same as slugs, so I'm sure she's an expert on biology.

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

So, stereotypes, then.

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.

Feminism fights for women's liberation from male oppression, not some neoliberal "there's no such thing as society" nonsense.

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.

Your clothes have nothing to do with your sex and everything to do with socially imposed gender roles.

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.

Let me know when your biological father is pregnant with your sibling.

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.

We don't care how people move through life, that's not part of your sex. Wear what you want, just don't make false claims about your sex and insist everyone plays along. We just care about males claiming to be females, erasing the concept of sex entirely, and attacking anyone who might have reservations about abandoning material reality.

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.

I'm just going to have to re-quote this little gem:
especially to young women of child bearing age

You don't even believe in your own supposed viewpoint.

You've destroyed your own argument far more thoroughly than I ever could.

@yeahbutnaw also excellent points. Maybe you or indeed the OP could read them. The debate is happening but you need to have actual points to participate, not just 'you're all so mean and transphobic'

I'm guessing TRHR is Trans Rights are Human Rights? I was going to carry on thinking it is "Thyrotropin-releasing hormone receptor" because it amuses me to do so - and I once gave/blagged a health lecture including those very words

CuriousaboutSamphire I had the same (but without your medical knowledge)

I think some of the sneery replies you’ve had are a shame, as there is so much eloquent and respectful discussion to be had on this board. I think as others have said, I don’t think the ‘gender critical’ position is as far from your own as you think. There are a range of views within it, but broadly, GC feminism is concerned by gender stereotyping, as you are, and would be delighted for both men and women to dress, live and express themselves in whatever way they wish. However women are to some extent defined by their biology, as we are the sex class who bear children, we are generally physically weaker and have been oppressed as such. What is terrifying is that we can’t just identify out of that. We have to change male supremacy in our society. But since male oppression of women remains such a huge issue, we can’t consent to giving away our private spaces, given the risk associated with being of the female sex. I wish trans people all the happiness in the world, but access to female single sex spaces is no longer appropriate/ safe due to the cultural shift and self ID.

Ironically, OP, your user name also stands for Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone Receptor where there are different levels recorded in male and female mammals.

"The sexual dimorphism of energy metabolism is evident at many levels; women differ to men in fat distribution, storage and energy expenditure. Females resist fat loss at the expense of decreased energy expenditure better than males in situations of food restriction and have a higher ratio of lipid/protein loss than males during starvation; this may be an evolutionary advantage for survival (1).

fbscience.com/Landmark/articles/10.2741/4857

Not sure how the rats in the study 'identify' but their sex is obvious to researchers...

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

If you cannot name sex, you cannot see sexism.

This.

The clues in the name. TRHR, nobody is disputing that, trans people have rights and are human obviously. But women are also human and have rights and needs too, those needs are often related to our biology.

Is that you yeahbutnaw?! Tomorrow's drive by "why can't all you stupid, nasty, middle aged women just shut up and go away?"

Op I know a young woman who's going to read Invisible Women to help her construct an argument for her gcse oral exam; I suggest you consider the same.

She's going to smash it.

I think some of the sneery replies you’ve had are a shame, Mostly a repsonse to the tone and the frequency with which similar OPs have plopped and run recently!

@ANewCreation it's also central to a number of other health conditions that differ by sex. Even a hormone receptor knows what sex it's body is!

Is that you yeahbutnaw?! Tomorrow's drive by "why can't all you stupid, nasty, middle aged women just shut up and go away?"

Yes but they keep coming here especially to tell us to shut up and go away. A platform that has many stupid, nasty, middle aged women using it. Unless they'd like us to delete our accounts and withdraw from social media and public life, and let them get on with making the world a better place for some people

I expect that is what they'd like. 😁

Women also have particular human rights.

"On 18 December 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981 after the twentieth country had ratified it. By the tenth anniversary of the Convention in 1989, almost one hundred nations have agreed to be bound by its provisions.

The Convention was the culmination of more than thirty years of work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a body established in 1946 to monitor the situation of women and to promote women's rights. The Commission's work has been instrumental in bringing to light all the areas in which women are denied equality with men"
www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cedaw.aspx

Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC) is a group of volunteer women from across the globe dedicated to protecting women's sex-based rights. Our volunteers include academics, writers, organizers, activists, and health practitioners, and aim to represent the total breadth of the human female experience.

The Declaration on Women's Sex Based Rights was created by the founders of WHRC to lobby nations to maintain language protecting women and girls on the basis of sex rather than "gender" or "gender identity".

www.womensdeclaration.com/en/declaration-womens-sex-based-rights-summary/

To be fair Undersnatch OP is yet to come back to engage with any of the responses.

@sleepyhead

You know how people say "oh I'm colour blind, I don't see colour me" and are all proud of themselves and how progressive they are while negating the lived experience of people of colour who know that race is a significant factor on how they have to negotiate their way through life?

You know how these "colour blind" people aren't actually progressive, and almost certainly extremely privileged not to have to think about and recognise race, or lying to themselves?

That's you when you pretend that sex doesn't matter, that you don't see sex, when you ignore women who are telling you that the way they live their lives involves negotiating with the lived experience of having a sexed body.

Excellent post sleepy head. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening to millions of women and girls.

Warrior that sounds great. I'm still cross I had to do mine on a book of the teacher's choosing.

@TheWeeDonkey

To be fair Undersnatch OP is yet to come back to engage with any of the responses.

No

Obviously a plopper, i think it must be because people who plop, or don’t engage or just berate have no argument

*Unless they'd like us to delete our accounts and withdraw from social media and public life, and let them get on with making the world a better place for some people

I expect that is what they'd like.* 😁

For some reason I have visions of a scold's bridle Erikrie 🧙‍♀️

making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman

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

I'd suggest that you're conflating two entirely separate and different propositions. And that the second clearly does not follow on from the first?

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.

It's unhelpful to base an argument on the idea that this WAS the case when it indeed IS the case. Can you tell me how your ideology can protect females from that?

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

As one of the majority without a gender identity, I don't know what this means. Can you define gender without recourse to any regressive stereotypes?

[quote GoingThruTheMotions]@babbaloushka she was an amazing woman. So direct, such a good outlook right to the end. I'm very angry this happens to women regularly.

It's horrible it happened to your friend too. Sorry for your loss. No child should experience such unnecessary loss.

I think it's really fucking privileged to characterise feeling terror in the way described in the op. So poorly thought through and disrespectful.[/quote]
Absolutely, I cannot imagine the terror our dear friends felt at the knowledge they would never see their little ones start big school, or get married, or have kids. That is terror. Not whatever the fuck OP is trying to say.