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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

'Bovine feminism'.

53 replies

SunbowRainshine31 · 21/03/2022 19:30

I've recently dabbled in this topic and found my way here as there really doesn't seem to be anywhere else I can post something and get an wide response.

I have watched a few of the wesc panels, and I've been kind of flipping from one side to the other, I understand its much different on twitter, however the wesc debates seemed quite dry.

Somebody shared this with me from one of the trans contributors, but I dont fully get it, it seems to be a work of parody, but I'm quite new to this, so most of it has gone over my head.

Can anyone break it down for me?

criticallegalthinking.com/2022/03/14/animal-farm-revisited-a-feminist-allegory/

OP posts:
CorvusPurpureus · 21/03/2022 19:41

It's Alex Sharpe straining a metaphor that was, frankly, doing some heavy lifting in Orwell's hands.

I think the gist of it is a tired co-option of people with dsds, but the combination of archness & obfuscation led me to bail partway through.

CorvusPurpureus · 21/03/2022 19:51

Actually I'm doing it an injustice - it's less coherent.

The argument seems to be that the cows are organising, & that's a bit mean if the sheep don't feel sufficiently bovine.

There's no suggestion that the cows & ewes might have commonality of purpose - one wonders what that might be - because Big Juniper the lead cow meanly wants no truck with the ewes. She's presumably off having a Big Gin.

Which seems like a sensible response to this load of bobbins.

Original poster
SunbowRainshine31 · 21/03/2022 20:15

When I googled i,t said they were well respected at quite an elite institution, I don't want to dismiss it on the basis they are trans, I hoped there was more merit to the article than that.

OP posts:
StillWeRise · 21/03/2022 20:20

It's not clever and it's not grown up.

I did start trying to make sense of it but it became more and more difficult.

In Animal Farm, all the animals are oppressed by the farmer, who profits from their labour or their bodies. The pigs, the most intelligent animals, correctly analyse their situation and organise the animals against the farmer (communist revolution). However once they overthrow the farmer they in turn become corrupt and end up exploiting the other animals, just as the farmer did. In the end they ally with humans from other farms and become as bad as them.

In this allegory....well I don't know where to start really. It seems to say that all classes of animals are exploited by the farmer (all humans suffer under partiarchy) but one species (the cows) claim to be more exploited than all the others and so claim a special status in the fight against patriarchy. God knows what the zebroids are mean to be - transvestites?. None of it makes sense. Granted you could argue that all humans suffer under patriarchy but the spectacular nature of women's oppression calls for an analysis that explains it.
I do think you could make a case for some farm animals being more oppressed than others eg pigs are raised solely for slaughter whereas dairy cows and sheep may live longer but be exploited for what they produce.
This is so muddled I'm not at all confident what the author intended to convey. Are all the different animals all meant to be women? Including transwomen? Are some of them gay?

Poor Orwell, as if he wasn't already spinning in his grave at the mangling of language and denial of truth we are forced to endure.

CircleofWillis · 21/03/2022 20:32

I think even the author became fed up of it all at the end and just gave up. What a pile of shite! I read the story all the way through and now feel more than justified giving that review having suffered through it.

CorvusPurpureus · 21/03/2022 20:48

It's just terribly silly, incoherent & smug without any basis for its smuggery.

There is nothing here with relevance to women's lives.

We aren't cows. Not even big, argumentative, difficult ones.

Although I can definitely see that it's a metaphor to run with if you happened to be a misogynist looking for a fight.

WarriorN · 21/03/2022 20:55

Omfg.

People like this have actual jobs?

VestofAbsurdity · 21/03/2022 21:54

@WarriorN

Omfg.

People like this have actual jobs?

Unbelievable isn't it.

As for the article the less said the better, it's a pile of shite is an adequate summary.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 21/03/2022 21:59

This person is a professor of law.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 21/03/2022 22:01

So what are all these other sexes? Rabbits, pigs, zebra things, the bull even seems to be a different sex according to the "allegory".

Ereshkigalangcleg · 21/03/2022 22:06

I'm going to put it with the Edinburgh Action for Trans Health manifesto and Harry Josephine Giles' Wages for Transition as some of the more batshit, incoherent contributions to the trans activist literature genre.

Faffertea · 21/03/2022 22:21

What a load of bollocks.
Which, of course, may or may not be Alex’s problem here.

donquixotedelamancha · 21/03/2022 22:47

Big Juniper explained that the cows were oppressed on the basis of their cow-ness, and while they felt some affinity with the struggles of the other farm animals, it was their cow-ness, not their animal-ness that was most important.

Alex seems to think that being a GC feminist means that you don't understand or accept intersectionalism.

Whereas it actually just means (in this belaboured metaphor) a cow who doesn't believe that goats can become cows.

RashofBees · 21/03/2022 22:59

I couldn’t read it all. What I did read seemed to miss the point big time. Critical bovineism (feel silly even typing that out) clearly weakens the unity of the animals as a whole, whereas the trouble with non-GC feminism is that it destabilises the meaning and scope of women to the point that it can’t represent them. The animals very clearly have commonality, but the common ground between women and TW is fairly slender.

allmywhat · 21/03/2022 23:04

Garrulous nonsensical garbage. They probably just wanted to find a "clever" way to call their enemies cows while pretending not to be a misogynist. Hope they didn't dislocate anything patting their own back afterwards.

JayAlfredPrufrock · 21/03/2022 23:05

Dear lord. I gave up after a couple of paragraphs.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 21/03/2022 23:14

while pretending not to be a misogynist

It's not a very convincing attempt to pretend, especially as Sharpe once likened us to bubonic plague.

Clymene · 21/03/2022 23:17

I'm just embarrassed by this piss poor analogy.

Alex is not very convincing in their arguments in this video either

Ereshkigalangcleg · 22/03/2022 00:19

Alex is not very convincing in their arguments in this video either

You can say that again, Clymene

unwashedanddazed · 22/03/2022 00:48

"Before long, Big Juniper and, the more shrill Buttercup, were having private meetings with the other cows."

That's the crux of it. Women talking to each other without men. Like that popular forum Cowsnet. Sharpe just likes finding new ways to insult women.

pucelleauxblanchesmains · 22/03/2022 01:00

I note it doesn't feature ponies and pigs who identify as cows and want to be miked...

Agrona · 22/03/2022 01:10

Is this a (very) bad way of calling women cows? Or women who do not agree that gender is more important than sex?

What a load of bull.

Waitwhat23 · 22/03/2022 04:12

I (somehow) made it to the end. What utter tripe. Really badly written too.

TheCurrywurstPrion · 22/03/2022 04:37

Sharpe is one of the most unpleasant misogynists I’ve come across. A very typical example of extremist transactivism.

Dontcallmejacqui · 22/03/2022 04:41

I found it amusing in how badly Alex set up the analogy. For a start, the problem doesn't appear when a big (butch?) cow and her shrill friend arrive on the farm. The problem arises when two creatures arrive who are clearly the same species as the patriarchal farmer. Except they are wearing assless leather chaps, walking on all fours and begging to be "milked".

Their argument is that what the farmyard animals have in common is not being exploited by the farmer but the ethereal bucolic feeling that they share...