Theory: like parenting toddlers

[oxalisRed]

It's stuck me time and again, a lot of the discussion about centering women's rights is not dissimilar to parenting toddlers and enforcing boundaries. Bear with me...

MN, obviously, has been built on an audience of women who over time have become/ want to be/ stopped actively parenting, mothers. We're all aware of the pressures, societal and personal, that motherhood induces; aware of the limits and miracles that our bodies can perform.

Then we're actively parenting toddlers whose lives we're guiding, we're teaching them everyday how to become their own person but setting limits and boundaries for their own safety.

"I want to do what I want to do" is a phrase uttered by my toddler that has stuck with me - of course she did, who wouldn't want their cake and to eat it?

Now women are yet again defending (hard won) boundaries that protect us against people who basically act like toddlers. Who cannot or choose not to behave with reason, who want everything even though it would be a cost to safety (predominantly ours).

Is it because we're mothers that we understand this fight so well, the fundamental importance and absurdity of it?

Many of the younger women I've spoken to (not yet mothers or never plan to be) see no issue with changing the boundaries that protect women - I wonder if that's because they've yet to experience a 3 year old demanding so much chocolate that it would make them sick?

Totally.

This is why posters on FWR so often ask "Where are the grown-ups?"

And watching them fight is like watching toddlers fight. Saw something on Ovarit today - they'd spotted someone in r/honestransgender having a rant about "otherkins":

"HOW can you identify with something you cannot possibly experience? You can only identify with projections from your own imagination of this thing. This is make believe, pure and simple!"

Aside from the obvious hilarity, the Ovarit posters noted:

It's like a child angrily yelling at another child for not playing their imaginary game the right way

I think that is the gender identity wars entirely. Everyone just fighting about imaginary stuff and the right way to do it.

While not admitting that it is imaginary.

I heard an interesting comment on the radio a few days ago from a teacher saying today's children were so rude: she said they seem to think of her and other adults as 'Alexas', do this, do that, do it now. They don't talk to her with politeness and respect, as a fellow human being, but as a service robot. Just generally there has been a societal shift with the online everything to the idea that anything you want you can get, and get it instantly, and get stroppy if it isn't there on your doorstep the next morning (or within minutes, if it's a fast food order).

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

Yy, society has become so transactional and self-centred it seems (I'm really coming across as an old gimmer!)

While not admitting that it is imaginary. so true!

@Lliikklkkj

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

Pretty much all my colleagues who go in for this are men and women without children. Interestingly, very occasionally of my colleagues who are into gender ideology, the odd one or two women with children get on board with this, but I’ve noticed that they invariably have boys, especially boys who are a bit gender non-conforming.

All the most GC women and men I know are all parents of at least one girl; or they are lesbians. (Actually I also know a fair number of gay men who are pretty scathing about gender ideology, too, but mostly from a distance as they tend not to be bothered by it.)

I think parents just know that saying “no” doesn’t mean you hate your toddler?

That is very interesting foxgoose. I would love to see some research on this.

This interview is great on this topic.

@Lliikklkkj

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

I don't think you can make generalisations like this. I'm not the only regular poster on here who doesn't have children. The only gender evangelist I've had a conversation with about this in real life has daughters and grandchildren.

Is it because we're mothers that we understand this fight so well,

Yup.

Familiar with cutted up pears type rage. And practiced at not giving into tantrums and demanding adherence to basic nursery manners.

I think it's because as mothers we are used to young children inhabiting a fantasy world. I had one child who would only respond to her octonaut name for months, and another who constantly thinks she is some form of baby animal.

Yes, I will call you baby cat, and offer pretend cat food, but that doesnt mean you use a litter tray, or get taken to the vets...

Not sure about the statistics here. In the families I know who have gone in for gender ideology, it's driven by the mothers in most cases, with the fathers sort of nodding along. The one exception is the father in a very acrimonious family split who has been very encouraging of the daughter's wish to be his (and only his) son.

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia ... could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

That's a good point, Lliik. I'm childless myself, and feminist till I die, so the lss of women's sex spaces appals me. But I can see how having children would focus your mind on what's good and safe for children. It might also sharpen your alertness for dangers, and your reluctance to have untested batshit-crazy ideas like making all loos gender-neutral trialled on the whole population.

Queer theory is very much about overturning the apple cart, kicking down the fences, not caring about your own boundaries or anyone else's -- a very teenage energy.

Aaagh! I meant the loss of women's single-sex spaces appals me.

the loss of women's single-sex spaces appals me.

Oh for an Edit key.

I used to work with vulnerable but challenging teenagers. They were excellent at turning almost anything you said into over the top criticism of them eg “here’s your maths, I can help if you need it.” “OMG YOU SAID I’M STUPID! HOW DARE YOU CALL ME STUPID! I’M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED!!!” Mainly because their whole lives were so out of control full on drama was their way of communicating.

I see this a lot in some TRA responses.

I think those of us who have ever spent time with a toddler, whether as a parent or otherwise, are very used to engaging with make-believe and imaginative play (a good thing to promote development) and having to say no to the more outlandish demands (a good thing to promote development) and can distinguish between the two.

It's baffling to me that no-one would have thought it decent parenting to take my son's claim to be a cat as anything other than healthy imaginative play, yet if he had said he was a girl some might consider it decent parenting to say yes my darling you are a girl, even though you've got a penis.

Mental.

I don't think you can make generalisations like this. I'm not the only regular poster on here who doesn't have children. The only gender evangelist I've had a conversation with about this in real life has daughters and grandchildren.

I agree with this. There are plenty of mothers that are happy to give away the protections they themselves enjoyed in the name of trans activism/be kind.

Yes that's true - I'm not saying only mothers truly understand - I am generalising and that always comes with exceptions, but that there may nonetheless be a trend. I'm very open to the idea that I'm wrong. Just like I might be wrong that non binary identities correlate strongly with narcissism. I'm just searching high and low for explanations for this madness. Because I do believe that if it was mostly mothers in academia- we might not be here.

I think it's surely true that bringing up a child should give a person greater understanding of human behaviour, psychology and needs than they had before becoming a parent.

That's not to say that all parents have a better understanding than non-parents - some parents are starting from a very low baseline!

But I find that seeing up-close how a child thinks and feels, as they're so raw and unfiltered, kind of shows me how we all are under the surface. It's made me better at dealing with people.

Where it gets messy is where you have parents who have been terrified into a trans-evangelist position via their own child's experience. I can imagine how the fear for a loved one could just override other avenues of thought.

I can imagine how the fear for a loved one could just override other avenues of thought.

Ah so true. Whilst it hasn't changed my mind and political position, having my child go through this and watching them endure their pain ("only" psychological at this stage) has changed my stance to the extent that I will accommodate my child's beliefs and use their new name and pronouns. It's difficult because it seems so wrong to me.

I've wondered this.

I think it's possible that mothers, as a rule, are just too aware of the physicality of biological sex. After I had my dd, it really hit me how females get the shitty end of the biological deal: pregnancy, childbirth and feeding, all of it with associated sickness, discomfort, pain (agony in many cases), mastitis, cracked skin, and torn flesh while males pretty much just ejaculate.

It actually shocked me at the time how unbalanced it was, how unjust. I understood properly, for the first time, what was really meant by "the suffering of Eve". And to think so many women, before modern medicine, lost their lives in childbirth...

But recognition of this truth is very muted in modern culture. No one really talks about it. If you don't have your own children, I don't think you are ever in a situation where you realise just how visceral pregnancy and birth is, and maybe you are never quite aware of what your biological sex really means.

Ah, I didn't realise, @oxalisred. So difficult. Wishing you and your family all the best

I agree @packingsoapandwater, though I don't see it as a negative or unfair thing exactly, it's very clear that my experiences of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding are big and meaningful things I have in common with other mums and can bond over, and not with any men. Stating the obvious I know, but pre kids, working in an office or studying alongside both sexes, the physical differences are pretty irrelevant and the salient differences are the aesthetic ones and the "who fancies who". Although I was always conscious of men's greater strength and my physical vulnerability when out and about, of course, so even pre kids when I heard about self ID being mooted, I thought "hell no!". But I can see how others might shrug or even cheer. The Twitter pseudo-intellectual pseudo-feminists who espouse this stuff (e.g. journalists, academics, creatives) do seem IME to typically be young or young-ish women without children.