So, what is 'non gc' feminism?

[ArabellaScott]

Hello, all.

What does feminism that isn't about sex/gender look like?

What subjects does it investigate?

What aims does it have?

Would be good to hear from those who didn't feel able to post before.

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind

And that’s fair enough - so now there’s an entire topic for people who want to discuss the trans issue in relation to women’s rights.

Which at least now has 'feminism' in its title clearly acknowledging that issues around sex and gender are integral to women's rights and feminism.

Because as we know @Pumperthepumper, we all have to have our line in sand as to what is acceptable around language!

We absolutely do!

@Freebleweeble actually the things you are talking about in regards to BIPOC women and the racism and discrimation they face are things I would like to discuss and learn more about. I also agree with you that they are feminist issues - in relation to the higher rate of mortality with black pregnant women, one article I read implied it was due to the utterly bizarre notion that black women feel less pain - WTAF?

I suppose why I've been wary to post on debates like what you describe is because, like Arabella, I live in a very small, very white Scottish village and my experience/knowledge in the the oppression you mention is minimal.

I have tried to read things to get a better idea of the biases and discrimination BIPOC face and whenever a thread from the Black Mumsnetter board comes up on Active, I read it and learn a lot but would feel rude and intrusive to post on it (as a white woman) because I really don't have anything of value to add to the discussion. I am worried about really offending someone by giving my white perspective. I'm also aware that it's not BIPOC's responsibility to educate me on these matters.

I've probably put that very clumsily.

@deathbypostitnote

greenwhiteviolet

Why would you want to distance feminism from issues relating specifically to black women? Can you not handle the idea of an overlap? Are issues affecting disabled women also not considered to fall under the umbrella of feminism?

I don't know what you're trying to achieve, other than to shoulder every element except GC issues out of feminism simply to leave nothing standing but GC issues.

You are only demonstrating why these issues need to a space apart from someone with your attitudes.

I'm slightly confused by this and think you're either misinterpreting or misrepresenting my position. Of course an issue that relates specifically to black women can be a feminist issue. An issue doesn't have to affect white women to be feminist.

A discussion of how white women oppress black people of both sexes, however, may be a valuable discussion to have, but I don't see it as specifically feminist. Anti-racist, yes. But feminism is about women's rights.

Who doesn’t know what a woman is? Are you suggesting if I started a thread about smear tests people on mumsnet would be so confused by what I meant by ‘women’ they wouldn’t be able to respond?

You are correct, nobody would be confused. However, if you linked it to an campaign which used" people with a cervix" with no mention of women , then it would be different. Any changes in language which could lead to the needless death and illness of women would, I maintain, be a suitable topic todiscuss by feminists.

@deathbypostitnote

I don't think you have been squeezed, Jelly. I think you've been given a space and a voice which is precious.

What you don't like is no longer being able to dominate the wider space. I'd feel more sympathy if your discussions were being hampered by this but they're not. It's just made it easier to opt out for those who don't want to listen in but do want to discuss other issues related to feminism. That's a perfectly reasonable option for them to have and in no way sidelines you unless your goal was talking at people who didn't want to listen. You're free to make threads drawing whatever connections you like about any issue under the sun and GC arguments. No one who wants to be part of that will struggle to find you.

I think you have missed my central point. I wasn't aiming to dominate anything. It isn't being hampered that is my issue. And yes, I do want women who have not considered this as an important issue to read GC posts and to think - how do you think I got to be a GC feminist posting here in the first place?

I didn't arrive here as a GC feminist. I arrived when TES imploded. I was pretty much LibFem and posted here a few times about the nasty, uncaring GC feminists I was in no way enamoured by the hard stance that would disbar friends from spaces they had been using for decades. I was handed my arse by one now banned poster. Spoken to more kindly by another, also now banned poster, lurked for a while, name changed and came back with an open mind and more information on how women were / are affected by gender ideology.

My point is far wider than MNHQ and their decisions. They are just another in a long line of organisations that have been targetted by people who don't want women, or rather don't want anyone to look too closely at the issues around regulatory capture. Because the more people that do the more people realise that they, like me a few years ago, have a misinformed idea of what is actually going on.

However, can I ask you a favour? Would you watch the Olympics for me?

Womens weightlifting and possibly BMX cycling too.

Then come back and tell me that what you see is fair, should not be discussed as part of any womens rights debate. Think about what it means for every other part of life!

@JediGnot

"What does feminism that isn't about sex/gender look like?"

Pretty much like marxism with the class struggle bit removed?

But to resurrect a point I made earlier, and to extend your metaphor, there's a danger that we end up with some form of Marxism that obsesses over definitions and the precise boundary between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and loses sight of the struggle.

@Waitwhat23 I don't think you've put that clumsily- I think you've put that very well. I agree with everything you've said. I was very interested in @Freebleweeble's points.

I've seen it said many a time on here that feminists don't actually want to have to be dealing with having to fight to say that biological sex is a reality, women need safe spaces etc etc. It's a distraction from all of the long-standing issues that are still to be resolved. I'd much rather be focussing on misogyny, raising girls, the way women are treated in medicine etc (including the specific issues non-white women face)! But the threat to our sex based rights and being able to call ourselves women (as opposed to the nonsensical and offensive ciswomen) is so fundamental. Of course I still believe we can focus on all issues but the impact of sex/gender/trans issues is huge.

Who doesn’t know what a woman is? Are you suggesting if I started a thread about smear tests people on mumsnet would be so confused by what I meant by ‘women’ they wouldn’t be able to respond?

Pumper: Actually the smear test thing is confusing in several ways, none of which I can discuss on this board. Sorry. But if you pop over to... nope, I'm not sure we can discuss it there either, under MN rules. It will have to remain a mystery.

I've seen it said many a time on here that feminists don't actually want to have to be dealing with having to fight to say that biological sex is a reality, women need safe spaces etc etc. It's a distraction from all of the long-standing issues that are still to be resolved. Absolutely. You get entrenched, see my unecessarily snippy resonses above. I just want gender ideology to fuck offf, so I can go back to feministing properly, productively, more joyfully!

And yes, I do want women who have not considered this as an important issue to read GC posts

They still have the option to do so. They would have to actively hide that topic not to do so (and this will, if I am anything to go by, take some time to work out how to do). They have the right to do this and you're not being marginalized by giving them a quieter place to talk. Perhaps MN should have left the feminism board and made a feminism-non GC related discussion board on the side.

There's a difference between a discussion and a publicity board. I think the two have got a bit blurred because of how strongly you feel about the topic.

You need to understand that wishing to center a different aspect and talk about that for a change is no reflection on the importance of anything else. And it is very possible to discuss other issues without finer definitions, again no reflection on the importance of those definitions.

I think you're wrong about MN. They've put themselves in the firing line for these issues. There are many, many women who would like to talk about other aspects of feminism but have no space to do so because you are loud, very loud. I can see you don't get that which I can't help with, but don't assume people who want to talk about other things too don't care. It's polarizing and leaves you unnecessarily defensive and isolated.

@334bu

*Who doesn’t know what a woman is? Are you suggesting if I started a thread about smear tests people on mumsnet would be so confused by what I meant by ‘women’ they wouldn’t be able to respond?*

You are correct, nobody would be confused. However, if you linked it to an campaign which used" people with a cervix" with no mention of women , then it would be different. Any changes in language which could lead to the needless death and illness of women would, I maintain, be a suitable topic todiscuss by feminists.

And they could discuss that campaign in the new topic.

Why would you want to distance feminism from issues relating specifically to black women? Can you not handle the idea of an overlap? Are issues affecting disabled women also not considered to fall under the umbrella of feminism?

Yes, because black women and disabled women are female. You missed the poster's point.

But to resurrect a point I made earlier, and to extend your metaphor, there's a danger that we end up with some form of Marxism that obsesses over definitions and the precise boundary between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and loses sight of the struggle.

I do like this metaphor, and it's a fair point to make.

That said, if the factory owner declared that because there was some fuzziness in this boundary, he was in fact part of the proletariat and could speak on their behalf as he shared their interests, definitions might suddenly become very important!

@ifIwerenotanandroid

Who doesn’t know what a woman is? Are you suggesting if I started a thread about smear tests people on mumsnet would be so confused by what I meant by ‘women’ they wouldn’t be able to respond?

Pumper: Actually the smear test thing is confusing in several ways, none of which I can discuss on this board. Sorry. But if you pop over to... nope, I'm not sure we can discuss it there either, under MN rules. It will have to remain a mystery.

Send me a link to the thread in the gender debate board and I’ll have a look.

Sorry, there is no thread to look at. I meant that I'm not sure MN rules will allow me to set out all the real-world confusions for you. That's how shut-down this 'debate' is.

That said, if the factory owner declared that because there was some fuzziness in this boundary, he was in fact part of the proletariat and could speak on their behalf as he shared their interests, definitions might suddenly become very important!

Indeed.

I think you're wrong about MN. They've put themselves in the firing line for these issues. What did I say that was wrong? I pointed out that they have been in the firing line just as many other organisations have.

I get that you find GC feminist posts unecessary. Maybe that's why you are nly a very recent poster in FWR - or a name change perhaps - it is hard to tell why, other than you think that a topic that many woemn here feel passionately about is advertising or overly enthusiastic. One of which is weird and the other patronising!

What brutality are you participating in as a white person who ‘just exists’?

Put it this way- in NAZI germany, if you weren’t actively working in a concentration camp, If you weren’t actively rounding up jews- were you still complicit in the holocaust?

An extreme example? My grandfather was born in 1913 in Germany. He fought for Germany in the Second World War (he refused initially and ran, but when threatened with concentration camp he exercised his privelige as a non Jew and chose the panzer core, and survived till his 90s) He appeared never to have been DIRECTLY involved in genocide...he never took a Jewish life with his own hands. But was he complicit? and more than that, was he brutalised by growing up in the culture that produced the holocaust? I can fully confirm, yes he was, very much brutalised. He did not ever actively fight against nazism. He was complicit.

Now, the holocaust killed 6 million jews. How many of the African diaspora have been killed by white supremacist systems? I can’t even find a number, no one knows how to count it. It’s SO vast. It’s ongoing.... how many people suffer to put food on our tables? How many people suffer to clothe us? To make our electronic devices?

If you live in the UK or USA and are a white woman, what do you have in your life in terms of wealth and power that is built on the back of Black suffering? What can we do as white women to redress this? How powerful could our feminism be if we centred that question?

Those who are saying- but I live in a white area, I don’t encounter black people, how am I participating?

If you are not actively seeking to dismantle our white supremacy culture, in every forum of your life, in every space, then you are upholding it. Even if I lived in an entirely white space there are so so many things I could do that would help to build an anti-racist culture.

@jellybeansforbreakfast

why is the area you live so white?
What is the history of your area in regards to slavery/ colonialism?
What is the history of your country?
What are the places in your life you hold influence that you could build an anti-racist culture?
What do you teach the people who learn from you about your history and our cultures history when it comes to race?
What Do you have in your life that is good for you, that requires other people to suffer in order for you to have access?

I’m asking you these questions because your post implied that since you are in a white space this fight isn’t yours, and I’m hoping those questions lead to answers that would show you that it is your fight too.

What areas of feminism can be discussed and considered as being separate from being a female?

Those of you making these kinds of comments are being completely disingenuous. You're not fooling anybody.

It's not that complicated. I'm a feminist. I also have no problem with the idea that trans women are women. So as I go about my day, working in a male dominated industry, living in our patriarchy-shaped world, ranting about all the total bullshit that women have to put up constantly, I do not stop to obsess about trans issues. I don't agonise about other people's private anatomy. I care very deeply about the oppression of women and I simply don't care if someone was born a woman or decided to join us at a later date.

Look at all the things we should be focused on! Rape has been effectively decriminalised in this country, women are being killed and abused with impunity, women are suffering disproportionately in lockdown, young girls are being hyper-sexualised, I mean the list is endless. There is a serious problem with racism within the feminist community, something that (as this thread shows) a lot of white feminists really are not engaged with at all.

So these are some of the very serious matters it would be great to discuss without being dragged into the never-ending debate about who is or is not a woman.

I mean, who gave GC feminists the right to decide who a woman is? You are entitled to your opinion as are the rest of us. Personally I don't want my identity to be determined by my reproductive organs. I find the biological essentialism of GC feminism very disturbing and I want no part of it. But I am still a feminist, someone fighting back against misogyny and patriarchy every chance I get.

@jellybeansforbreakfast - actually, weight lifting is of interest to me as a feminist. I was a competition power lifter for a long time and still lift regularly (though I'm lazy and wouldn't win any major competitions now). I've never encountered a trans woman in any competition I've entered. I don't know any active in my area. But I have a lot of experiences I'd like to discuss through a feminist lens about weight lifting - like the level of stigma aimed at women with a lifter's physique, the fact that it's actively harmed me career wise to not fit the feminine ideal, the social pressure that leads to eating disorders amongst female athletes, male gaze and female exercise, and the massive pressure to perform femininity twice as hard when you're built like me, because I offend social sensibilities which mean women are meant to look dainty.

I'd genuinely like to discuss all of those things as I think they impact on more weight lifters than what is currently a single trans woman competing at an elite level which the overwhelming majority of athletes will never reach.

Which isn't to say that trans women in women's athletics isn't an issue. I kind of think it is and just feel like I'm not well enough informed to have an opinion. But I think there are many more issues which impact on more women and could do with discussion too and it would be really nice to be able to say "let's discuss the pressure on athletic women to drop serious sport in order to be acceptable as a "proper girl"" without that immediately being derailed.

@ifIwerenotanandroid

Who doesn’t know what a woman is? Are you suggesting if I started a thread about smear tests people on mumsnet would be so confused by what I meant by ‘women’ they wouldn’t be able to respond?

Pumper: Actually the smear test thing is confusing in several ways, none of which I can discuss on this board. Sorry. But if you pop over to... nope, I'm not sure we can discuss it there either, under MN rules. It will have to remain a mystery.

Isn't it transphobic to have a thread on smear tests in the 'feminism' section. Doesn't that suggest only women have smear tests? Ditto abortion rights, deaths in maternity wards, etc. I hope no one gets banned.

A thread about raising girls would be interesting. How do you do that before they're old enough to confirm their gender?

I suppose it's just a coincidence then that virtually every thread on the other part is trans related

These are threads from the Feminism Chat that Mumsnet moved over to that board. They did the filtering and shuffling.

I would like to learn how I can be more than just not racist. How can I be anti racist and help black women get better pregnancy and birth care. I am white so this is difficult for me but I support female genital mutilation initiatives, I support giving reusable sanitary pads to girls in Africa but I would love to know what I could do everyday day to help black women. I know we can't expect black women to educate us but to be pointed in the right direction would be really helpful and discussion on here would be welcome. I would have read and probably joined in a thread about this if it had been posted.

I came to mumsnet feminism as a be kind live and let live woman. My feminism was weak from being a young adult in the 1990s and from being in an abusive relationship for 14 years . I am so ignorant and learn something new every day from this board. I hope that continues. IRS a shame I now have to flip between two boards to do that.

This board has given me the confidence to speak to my daughter's schools about Equality and sex education lessons. I did speak out at work about a few things but had an informal complaint made about me so I have now been silenced by an anonymous colleague without any discussion. I can't afford to loose my job which has fab hours as am I am a single parent to two autistic girls.

I've write lots of letters, signed petitions and given to charities fighting for women's rights. I just couldn't have done all that without these discussions that have opened my eyes wide and sent me down a rabbit hole I cannot unsee.

I want future where my dsughters are free and safe and that means protecting women's rights but for me that is only possible if we know what a woman and a girl is.

@KimikosNightmare

I assumed this was to give those of you who want to talk endlessly about trans issues a space to do so.

It can't be called "trans issues"- hence "sex and gender" but it's really just trans issues.

It will also allow those of you who want to talk endlessly about trans issues to carry on with the pretence that only you are "real feminists" who care about women and that anyone who doesn't want to talk endlessly about trans issues isn't interested in things like abortion rights or the normalisation of "sex work"

Wrong section

You’re meant to focus on other stuff not ‘sex and gender debate’

Got anything that isn’t focusing on above?

@ifIwerenotanandroid

Sorry, there is no thread to look at. I meant that I'm not sure MN rules will allow me to set out all the real-world confusions for you. That's how shut-down this 'debate' is.

Why wouldn’t they? You can talk about smear tests all you want in this topic. If you want to talk about smear tests and trans people, post in the other topic. Easy.

@dreamingbohemian agree 100%