What is a woman at the Tate

[Melroses]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/25/tate-modern-trans-rights-row-female-artists-protest-screening/

"Tate Modern in trans rights row as female artists protest screening of ‘one-sided’ film
But the gallery insists that short film What is a Woman? reflects multiple viewpoints, including the views of gender-critical people
The gallery screened What is a Woman? by Norwegian director Marin Håskjold on Friday evening as part of an evening focused on female artists.
In it, a trans woman is drawn into an argument in a women's changing room over whether she should be there."

twitter.com/ArtXPropaganda/status/1497324356912902146

I was there. Yes, the film had a ‘terf’ character using our arguments but she was either ignored or accused of being bullying / unreasonable for making them.

The film (as they always do) had a passive, feminine-looking transwoman who was the only character to spend the whole of the film with their bottom half fully covered & their top half only in a bra. The message was very clear.

What a shame the other artists have been overlooked now.

After watching what we can online, It feels cheap art. Give us Judy Chicago any time!

Just watched something (an audience discussion thing) around the other film she's done where a man wears a red dress to a meal with friends. Slightly more interesting except that it's bloody obvious to the women what the message is. For the mostly gay men the Penny seems to drop for the first time. It just feels like naïve, easy art.

As I can't read the article Empress as paywalled, how did the protest go? What happened?

We were in the front few rows, hiding our cloth banners & AHF T-shirts. We sat quietly through the film because we didn’t want to disrupt it. We had no objection to the Tate showing it. What we wanted was for them to show a film from our side too for balance.

It ended with the question ‘What is a woman?’ As the lights came up we stood up, faced the audience and held up our banners, shouting “An adult human female!”

Most of us left at that point to meet the Telegraph photographer. A few stayed inside. Lily Maynard is writing a blog about it with quotes from a lot of the women about how it was and why they did it.

How was the transwoman portrayed and did the individual have a penis?

Or was it all effectively 'airbrushed' to hide the existence of sex?

Sick of them trying to shoehorn men into our sex class. It's bullshit.

No male can be a woman. Ever.

Bravo EmpressaurusWitchDoesntBurn ! 👏

This is the trailer

The transwoman was also the only character to spend the whole film in a bra & trousers. The film might have gone very differently if they’d used an actor who was less stereotypically feminine.

What struck me was the way that women's bodies were on display - the woman with the bra (and a very conventionally attractive woman too) and in the back left there were other partly clothed women getting changed - lots of underwear on display. In other words, women's bodies were being used as props in the kinds of ways they usually are but the character who was trans was allowed the dignity of remaining clothed.

The usual suspect of sexism in other words.

Or maybe I have this wrong - it was actually quite hard to see who was talking...

It ended with the question ‘What is a woman?’ As the lights came up we stood up, faced the audience and held up our banners, shouting “An adult human female!”

Fabulous 👏

The trans character is the one with long blonde hair wearing the bra. It’s hard to tell from the pictures - as I said, not realistic! The one in the black shirt is the ‘terf’ and the other is the libfem.

The whole changing room scenario is so people see bra + long hair = woman.

The only short haired character in the film was non binary. Because obviously only feminine looking people can be women .

The camera work was awful - it looks like a student film.

We had no issue with the Tate showing it. Just that they needed to balance it.

Has anyone else noticed this trope where there is ALWAYS a liberal feminist there ready to defend the honour of the poor, set upon transwoman? And the transwoman is much more passive, and just stands meekly by while two women fight it out?

Well, you p*ssed off Kaitie on Letterboxd ( Profile "yah I ~study film~
which basically means I don’t know what Im talking about
Enjoy!") so well done! :)

"Even after watching the whole film!" yes maybe it wasn't enough to convince them that males should be in women's changing rooms

I was reminded this morning of one of the best bits, TERF says to TW, something like "Can I be black?"
TW "Are you black?",
TERF "Well I feel black"
Then the white male TW says something like "if you like" and Lib Fem says "See, she's nice" .
Brilliant, what nice lady sharing out all of the protected characteristics.

It would be interesting for is to be reshot with a less feminine passing tw, or with any other blend of sexes and/or genders. However, I've only seen the trailer, so apologies if this is inappropriate.

@IcakethereforeIam

It would be interesting for is to be reshot with a less feminine passing tw, or with any other blend of sexes and/or genders. However, I've only seen the trailer, so apologies if this is inappropriate.

That's exactly what I think. Propaganda like this only ever shows feminine transwomen who pass very well. If they really believe what they’re saying then they should use transwomen who look less convincing.

That's exactly what I think. Propaganda like this only ever shows feminine transwomen who pass very well. If they really believe what they’re saying then they should use transwomen who look less convincing.

Yes, they should.