Have feminists brought this upon themselves?

[Lessthanaballpark]

I’ve heard this opinion so much lately, mostly amongst men who seem to be enjoying the struggle between feminism and trans-activism and the threat to women’s rights.

The opinion is that feminists have been attacking male spaces for years and now are getting their comeuppance.

Or that we’ve created the language of inclusion and gender that has led to this.

It’s a mean spirited attitude for sure. But is there any truth to it? Has feminism hoisted itself with its own petard?

women being sent to the front line in war if we want equality

When men use and depreciate their bodies on the growth and birth of children, then equality to the front lines. Until then, women already permanently injure themselves in pregnancy and childbirth, at a greater rate than soldiers are permanently injured, and at far less pay. We do our bit.

@PicsInRed
False equivalence.

Men can’t give birth because of biology.

Many women WANT to be allowed to serve in military in combat zones and we CAN do this. There is no biological reason why we can’t be ALLOWED the same opportunity as men. And frankly lack of combat experience is currently the #1 cause of sex discrimination for promotions in the military.

I did a bit of research on women in war back in the day. Before full time professional armies appeared we had citizen armies. This meant people leaving work and agriculture to join the army, therefore the stronger men went to war and women stayed to work and farm. Sparta on putting together a full time army actually granted women significant and previously unmatched property and legal rights so they could hold society together during war. Later on with mass citizen armies returning in the world wars there was a simmilar model, although millions of women were also pilots, officers, snipers etc. In the red army.

@Datun

2. Stop. Calling. Women. Females.

Well spotted. It just creeps up on you, doesn't it. It's insidious.

People on here are using the term 'males'

I'm using the term 'female' to cover women, girls, ladies etc

OK - I'll stop posting on here if its upsetting too many people. I thought this was a discussion forum, but hey-ho

People on here are using the term 'males' Yep! As in males, transwomen are men, born male.

I'm using the term 'female' to cover women, girls, ladies etc We are women. Born female.

Children are boys and girls, male and female.

Common use of the language rather than the mangled version being pressed upon us at the moment.

OK - I'll stop posting on here if its upsetting too many people. I thought this was a discussion forum, but hey-ho Oh, don't flounce. You said you wanted a discussion not a mass agreement.

@BrozTito

I did a bit of research on women in war back in the day. Before full time professional armies appeared we had citizen armies. This meant people leaving work and agriculture to join the army, therefore the stronger men went to war and women stayed to work and farm. Sparta on putting together a full time army actually granted women significant and previously unmatched property and legal rights so they could hold society together during war. Later on with mass citizen armies returning in the world wars there was a simmilar model, although millions of women were also pilots, officers, snipers etc. In the red army.

And of course women and girls have fought in conflicts throughout history, despite having been ostensibly culturally or legally excluded.

Yes theres been millions of exceptions of course-lots of women in military leadership especially.

2% charging figures for rape is not the fact that 'nobody gives a shit'. Its more about the offence being difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Its often word against word, mix into this the victims who do not wish to pursue the matter through the courts (and i can appreciate this, as its an absolute horrendous crime and as a society should we not respect the victim view point on this?) And there are a host of other evidential difficulties that come into play. Its not the case that no one cares, we want to put away bad guys for a long time but we can only act within the law.

This entirely ignores many of the mechanisms by which convictions are so low. Defense of rape cases relies heavily on sex based oppression with arguments such as 'well, look at what she was wearing', 'why did she drink so much', 'look at her sexual history - she's obviously a slut', 'why was she walking there by herself?', 'she was asking for it', 'why didn't she fight back' etc etc etc. Women have been forced to hold up the underwear they were wearing during a sexual attack in court and asked why they were wearing such 'provocative' underwear - one teenager killed herself after this happened in court.

And women know this happens. So they don't report, knowing that their past sexual history will be used as a defense to why they were raped.

Rape convictions are shockly, shamefully low. And men's views about women, which are woven institutionally, are a large part of that.

I don’t care if women and female is used interchangeably. I’m a woman and a female. It should be understood that they are one and the same. People should never start thinking that the term “women” automatically includes transwomen...because it doesn’t. Just like the term “abled” doesn’t include the disabled. They are distinct and separate.

@AssassinatedBeauty

(I would advise that women posting here don't waste their time and energy with patient explanations of basic points to posters making the same tired old points that visitors here always make as if they are novel insights.)

Absolutely

People here use males because the guidelines require us to. If we say men and we are refering to all males including the males who have a special identity, we get deleted.

The use of females is being employed in a similar way often. This is what language control leads to.

I can massively recommend The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich, about red army women from an east euro feminist angle.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I don’t care if women and female is used interchangeably. I’m a woman and a female. It should be understood that they are one and the same. People should never start thinking that the term “women” automatically includes transwomen...because it doesn’t. Just like the term “abled” doesn’t include the disabled. They are distinct and separate.

I think it was more using female to mean females, born female.

So that women would then include transwomen.

That insiduous word creep we have seen quite often her, across SM and mainstream media etc.

I thnk it is important to both recognise it, as @Brefugee did and to epxlain it, as you did!

@CuriousaboutSamphire
Oh, I get it now. I had used term female in one post about distracting men in military.....and thought the post was directed to me. Sorry.

@Waitwhat23

2% charging figures for rape is not the fact that 'nobody gives a shit'. Its more about the offence being difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Its often word against word, mix into this the victims who do not wish to pursue the matter through the courts (and i can appreciate this, as its an absolute horrendous crime and as a society should we not respect the victim view point on this?) And there are a host of other evidential difficulties that come into play. Its not the case that no one cares, we want to put away bad guys for a long time but we can only act within the law.

This entirely ignores many of the mechanisms by which convictions are so low. Defense of rape cases relies heavily on sex based oppression with arguments such as 'well, look at what she was wearing', 'why did she drink so much', 'look at her sexual history - she's obviously a slut', 'why was she walking there by herself?', 'she was asking for it', 'why didn't she fight back' etc etc etc. Women have been forced to hold up the underwear they were wearing during a sexual attack in court and asked why they were wearing such 'provocative' underwear - one teenager killed herself after this happened in court.

And women know this happens. So they don't report, knowing that their past sexual history will be used as a defense to why they were raped.

Rape convictions are shockly, shamefully low. And men's views about women, which are woven institutionally, are a large part of that.

There was a thread on here this morning about Virginia Guiffre which I commented on then hid because it proves your point perfectly.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@CuriousaboutSamphire
Oh, I get it now. I had used term female in one post about distracting men in military.....and thought the post was directed to me. Sorry.[/quote]
No

Not you! Another seemingly quite determined poster.

Datun
2. Stop. Calling. Women. Females.

Well spotted. It just creeps up on you, doesn't it. It's insidious.

People on here are using the term 'males'

Oh dear. It's because women get deleted and banned for using the term men.

Who do you think is behind that, I wonder? It certainly isn't women.

OK - I'll stop posting on here if its upsetting too many people. I thought this was a discussion forum, but hey-ho

Fine by me. Heave-ho.

Ooops! I'd lost track of the fact that this one is in FWR!

Unlike the other one in AIBU!

Language monitor will now be switched on! Thanks

I don't like "male" used as a noun either, if that helps, but I'm not fighting that corner - I have enough on my plate.

@Brefugee

I don't like "male" used as a noun either, if that helps, but I'm not fighting that corner - I have enough on my plate.

I don't think any of us like it, but needs must.

Having had a deletion for using the word 'man' to describe a male bodied person I am a little bit wary now. I too don't fight it, just go with it, here in FWR only!

@PicsInRed

women being sent to the front line in war if we want equality

When men use and depreciate their bodies on the growth and birth of children, then equality to the front lines. Until then, women already permanently injure themselves in pregnancy and childbirth, at a greater rate than soldiers are permanently injured, and at far less pay. We do our bit.

The nature of war has also changed - far less front line combat.

It’s a pointless comparison anyway. Whether through conscription or enrolment disproportionately young men from disadvantaged back grounds are killed and injured in war, and they often have limited support when they return.

That doesn’t somehow create a balance in the universe that justifies badly fitted PPE for women.

Feminism is like any social movement, it is a product of its time, and takes up some of the assumptions of the time it existed, which may or may not be good. And like any ideological position, it is sometimes more on the ball than others. And sometimes that includes the ideas that are most accepted into the general society and become almost normative.

The idea that there won't be wrong turns or bad ideas that have to be looked back on and modified or corrected is really naive, and even dangerous. We could identify a fair few, but I would say several are casing real issues now that need to be urgently considered:

There was a real "woman-power" push that has contributed to the lack of understanding of differences in male and female bodies. A lot of it revolved around women moving into very heave physical careers, like firefighting or the combat arms, and it's strongly impacted depictions of women in film and television. I think this could be tied to some extent as well to the tendency for women's studies departments and academic feminism to neglect really including biological science as part of it discipline, the main problem being that it has been a discipline dominated by ideology. Relatedly, feminism has struggled with motherhood.

The influence of 60's sex positivity and the sexual revolution has been a real mixed bag. This has been modified over the years but often in an ad hoc kind of way.

There is a real tension that continues to manifest problems between the idea of feminism as a ideology of the left, or a project by women, for women. It tends to present itself as the latter but act as the former, and in doing so has alienated many women and lost out on certain kinds of female experiences.

But the most urgent issue now, IMO, is that it has been deeply influenced by Critical Theory and identity politics, and those are as toxic in feminism as they are anywhere else. And it's deeply enough ensconced that a lot of ideas that are considered baseline assumption necessary to feminism are manifestations of CT thinking.

@TheWeeDonkey

This is a really interesting thread, I think I need a MN earpiece too, but what I find most fascinating is the type of posters we get in the wee hours. What is that about? Its like clockwork isn't it? See a goady post where they clearly haven't read the thread and the timeline is always between midnight and 3am. Never fails to amaze me.

I work shifts, so I often don't finish work until the early hours

@Artichokeleaves

Why historically are women not part of front line conflict?

At the most basic level, because just their presence makes males considerably harder to barrack, organise, control and keep within the necessary boundaries of discipline required in that arena.

Not because women refused to get their hands dirty.

These is true to an extent, though historically women have almost always followed armies.

But I think there is a tendency to ignore the elephant in the room with this, although there have been societies where women were on the front lines to some extent, the main thing that has always kept those numbers low has been the realities of female reproduction. Pregnant women are not ideal in such a situation, nor are breastfeeding women, nor are women recovering from or with long term effects from childbirth. Rape has often been a common experience of armies on the losing side, but male soldiers at least do not become pregnant. Even menstruation in the field is a burden, I know many female soldiers today who avoid it through medication, but that's a very recent possibility.

And then, if we are talking about societies with marginal reproductive levels, males are always going to be more disposable, in terms of reproductive capacity, than females whoa are a limiting factor. This is not a common scenario today but it's contributed to human thinking about the shape of war for thousands of years and probably even before we were really human.

Yes SmokedDuck.

Apart from anything else, any labour intensive enterprise depends on women reproducing the labour…