Greta Thunberg IWD tweet "people oppressed because of gender"

[HelenaRavenclaw]

Shame on Greta Thunberg! Literally removing women from International Women's Day! How about "WOMEN are still being oppressed...for their SEX"?

She's young and they are getting it brainwashed into them these days . I agree OP , it is alot of nonsense, gender. Sex . Women are oppressed because of their sex. She will learn.

English isn't her first language. She has not Literally removed women from International Women's Day because she used the word gender instead of sex.

Swedish may not have different words for sex and gender. My native language doesn't. Also, many speakers of English as a second language may think 'gender' is the more polite option because of American influence on online spaces.

Language is really important and sex is not gender, but please let's not gang up on a teenager who is relentlessly targeted online already.

She needs to shut up now. She's been allowed to cause more than enough trouble.

Aw. She's just a kid who's feted wherever she goes. And doesn't go where she won't be feted. She has no idea what about real life or what daily oppression is like. She'll learn.

@LondonWolf

She needs to shut up now. She's been allowed to cause more than enough trouble.

What a lovely comment about a young woman on IWD! Full of solidarity.

I agree with Ramayquaza

Posters on MN are very clued up on sex v gender meaning, but my years of working in consumer research means I know most of the uk sees them as interchangeable and gender as more polite. Greta's language might not even have two terms.

She's not as bright as she's made out to be

Give the girl a break
She may not understand the huge difference that transactivism has forced us to emphasise sex vs gender. It's gender after all (the system of gender) that causes the female sex to be oppressed.

I can see the point that IWD can end up being a bit pink cup cakey.

As English isn't her first language, she may well be using gender as it is used (particularly in the American press) as interchangeable with sex. I don't know. If gender is used as a synonym for sex, then I agree with her tweet.

Also, she's young and a woman and I won't gang up on her.

I agree that some countries say gender when they mean sex, but it wouldn't surprise me if Greta was a supporter of the blue-hairs..... it seems a lot of young people are. Sometimes I feel like I should just let them have what they want and sort it out for themselves when it goes pear-shaped (I'm old!)...

A lot of people use the words sex and gender interchangeably, because that was a pretty normal and uncontroversial thing to do a few years back. Maybe Greta Thunberg is deliberately using 'gender' in the current sense, but Engiish isn't her first language- I'd be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt unless I had good reason to think she really was trying to erase women.

It has two generally accepted and related meanings, one of which is the sex of an individual, male or female, based on reproductive anatomy, but she supports LGBT rights, and is probably including trans women in that.

@Nightlystroll

Aw. She's just a kid who's feted wherever she goes. And doesn't go where she won't be feted. She has no idea what about real life or what daily oppression is like. She'll learn.

I hope she does.

I also hope she has someone close who is looking out for her emotionally, financially and for her future. because she will need it.

Once the glow wears off, she grows up a little, loses the 'cute quotient' and becomes another campaigning adult, she will need something more than a stern voice and her name to get her heard. Or a job.

This sort of shit really won't help her into adulthood, earning a living etc. It will just cement feelings, opinions about her.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/russia-ukraine-energy-europe-sanctions-b2023180.html

Most if not all languages have words for men and women. Not sure why people are fixating on whether or not she’s confusing gender and sex. Women are oppressed, women, not people.

And thankfully there are many women to be celebrated who are fighting for the rights of women and girls, so i disagree with her message on that basis too.

@LondonWolf

She needs to shut up now. She's been allowed to cause more than enough trouble.

Yes, let's shut women up for IWD!

She's 18, and English is her 2nd language FGS.

@DadJoke

It has two generally accepted and related meanings, one of which is the sex of an individual, male or female, based on reproductive anatomy, but she supports LGBT rights, and is probably including trans women in that.

Two different things. Women are oppressed because of our sex.

Transwomen may discriminated against for many reasons but it isn't because of sex.

The two groups have nothing in common.

How sad to see (presumably) grown adults on here trying to pull down and shut up a young woman from speaking, on IWD of all days.

I agree with her comment in it's entirety apart from the use of the word gender to mean sex. However as she is not a native English speaker and speaking to an international audience, I don't think it's a problem or a deliberate attempt to include male bodied people in IWD. I also think that she gets the most horrific online trash thrown at her, left right and centre and I have no desire to add to that.

Actually reading some of the replies on here illustrates the lack of solidarity between women & the misogyny even within a supposedly feminist community . It's grim. This teenage woman has received rape threats, been described as mentally retarded, had threats made against her family etc etc. A young woman told to 'shut up' because she uses the word gender instead of sex in her 2nd language. Get a grip.

These are the sorts of threads that are screenshot by TRA because of how absolutely batshit they are.

There are plenty of tweets to pick out that aren’t done by people with English as a second language, maybe focus on those, eh?

kön (Noun)
Sex, Gender

This doesn't read like a comment on the trans debate to me, just a statement about IWD being more needed to protest discrimination towards women rather than celebrate how great they are... which incidentally uses gender interchangeably with sex.

@RoseslnTheHospital

I agree with her comment in it's entirety apart from the use of the word gender to mean sex. However as she is not a native English speaker and speaking to an international audience, I don't think it's a problem or a deliberate attempt to include male bodied people in IWD. I also think that she gets the most horrific online trash thrown at her, left right and centre and I have no desire to add to that.

I think if I was going to speak to an international audience in a foreign language, I'd make sure I was using the right terminology. It's not that difficult to Google and she'll have a lot of native English speaking friends to check with. But maybe she meant to use gender instead of sex.

The point is, that for a lot of the world, she is using the correct terminology... gender and sex are interchangeable, and mean the same thing.

It's totally unnecessary to instigate a pile-on towards her on the FWR discussion section on IWD, for what is a completely reasonable and sensible comment about women and discrimination.