Not sure about this

[FrankReynolds]

I've always been very pro-trans and pro-equality and considered myself an ally to people of all flavours. I thought that being a feminist and being pro-trans didn't have to be mutually exclusive and I was uncomfortable with any views that are considered "TERF"

But

I've just seen this post on Insta and it's making me question a lot of what I believe in that area. As a queer person (married to a bloke but not straight), it's something I've been wrestling with. Can anyone shed some light on the issue? And why this particular post has made me so uncomfortable and conflicted?

Or we could all stop tying ourselves up in knots, assigning labels of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ and accept that biological women should be able to live as they see fit and biological males should be able to do the same. No one needs to be categorised into abstract boxes.

Because it’s backwards. Womanhood is decoupled from femininity, but pregnancy isn’t about femininity, it’s about womanhood. Yet it is a facet of womanhood, not the whole shebang. Women who can’t become pregnant are women. Women who aren’t feminine are women. There are no women who aren’t female.

In other words, they are not trying to decouple femininity from pregnancy. They are trying to decouple pregnancy from womanhood.

well, it’s pure bollocks isn’t it?

maybe your soul has finally rebelled against the absolute hailstorm of moronic bollocks you’ve been subjected to as a “trans ally.”

anyway, “mother” has never been part of the definition of “woman”. “Woman” is part of the definition of “mother.” This person needs to shut up and study Venn Diagrams intensely for several years until they’ve grasped the concept.

It seems to imply that I couldn't, for example, refused motherhood if I was feminine without refusing my womanhood

Which is a whole lot of word salad that means fuck all

This thread is a good start OP.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?page=35

It reads like something that’s designed to make you feel discombobulated.

It's a load of assertions without any argument for a start. And it's the wrong way around as others have said. It encapsulates what the problem is with expressing anything meaningful on Twitter.

I would say you are having a moment of clarity and having your eyes opened.

It happened to me too..

I would have assumed by 'femininity' they mean cultural femininity, but I think they have mistakenly or dishonestly conflated it with 'being female'. I know in medical language 'feminine' can mean 'pertaining to the female body' but I think they should have clarified.

Any woman should be able to refuse motherhood for whatever reason they want.
It has nothing to do with 'being a woman' or 'being feminine'. They seem not to really know what they mean, or realise that feminists have been saying this for donkeys' years.

It's a load of cis-bollocks.

Pregnancy isn't feminine it bloody and painful and risky.

Pregnancy should make all woman realise they need to be feminists, it's the very act that demonstrates the impact of our sex on choice, career, security, bodily autonomy and our body.

I have no idea what they are trying to say. "decoupling pregnancy from feminity" ??? I've been pregnant and am (obviously) female, but I've never in my life considered myself to be feminine.

Very confusing 😕. Wtf does pregnancy have to do with femininity anyway? And of course the cis bollox.

The coupled up language of pregnant woman didn't stop me from rejecting motherhood. I had this really weird idea I could choose whether or not to have children. I've still be subjected to misogyny. Is there someone I can complain to about this or was I asking for it because I never embraced the pre requisite feminity for motherhood and I confused men.

It's absolute bollocks.

You are trying to make sense out of what is, really, just incomprehensible rubbish.

Motherhood is coupled to womanhood because only women can become mothers.

Motherhood isn't coupled to femininity because women who aren't feminine have been becoming mother's for fucking donkeys years.

It's just basic, boring misogyny. "Pretty little women become mummies, but I am soooo much more interesting and unique than all those boring girls (and definitely nothing like my actual mother, urgh gross) so I am being bold and wonderful by decoupling motherhood from the feminine, look at how edgy I am, yay me".

Not sure how a third degree tear, crippling PND and cracked, bleeding nipples is feminine, myself. But it's all definitely a (optional) part of womanhood.

I've long been fascinated about how what's perceived as 'femininity' and what are the things that only women can experience - breastfeeding, menstruation, labour, pregnancy, menopause - are so at odds.

It's like femininity is a superficial "mask" to deflect, combat, hide actual female physicality.

Obviously loads of people have some aspects of 'femininity' - I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I've just often wondered why it's thought of as linked to being female. I guess we are on average smaller and slighter compared to men, so that sort of thing make sense. And maybe feminine behaviour is the flipside of aggression/violence - which is more prevalent in men. It's just weird to try and track how this filtered down to 'frills on socks'.

It's like femininity is a superficial "mask" to deflect, combat, hide actual female physicality.

Yes, I think so too. Femininity seems to me to be basically patriarchal in nature, aiming to trap women into either Madonna or whore tropes. Sanitised or sexualised. It's just stereotypes, and they've never done any good for women.

What actually is femininity though? Having both tits and ovaries? Like others have said, I've given birth but don't feel particularly feminine. Or masculine. I think it's important as a woman that birth belongs to women though. Is that weird and wrong and bigoted and hateful?

I'm really struggling with it.

They want you to read the word "femininity" as "what it means to be a woman" but what they actually mean by it is "female stereotypes that anyone can adopt".

Femininity is cultural - it differs in different societies in different locations and over time. It's the expectations of what that society thinks women and girls should be like. Hence an individual woman might be seen and see themselves as not feminine because they don't express the required behaviours.

You're struggling, because none of those words have definitions. Or they have more than one.

Femininity is characteristics. Like floral, nurturing, fragility, pretty.

So that's the first problem. Pregnancy has nothing to do with femininity, and everything to do with being female. Transmen give birth, butch women give birth. Entirely unrelated to femininity

Llikewise motherhood. Motherhood is the state of having given birth (adoption excepted). The only way to refuse motherhood, is to not give birth.

Womanhood is the state of being a woman. No one can acquire womanhood unless they are born female.

Gender ideology reinforces the notion that femininity belongs to women, and masculinity belongs to men. It's regressive.

Pregnancy is not feminine. It's female.

Quite apart from the fact that even if you were to impose those stereotypes onto pregnancy and birth, the last fucking thing it is, is feminine.

‘What actually is femininity though’

It’s not femaleness. It’s the stereotypical appearance of femaleness. I could be bald, old, muscly, hairy, and still female.

And btw I’ve rarely been less “feminine” than when I gave birth.

It's giving you a headache because it's meaningless bollocks.

Pregnancy happens because of female biology, not femininity. You say you have given birth, you didn't do this because of stereotypes or an identity, you were able to sustain a pregnancy and give birth because of your female biology, something men will never have, no matter what sort of feelings they have in their head.

Also, I was uncomfortable with any views that are considered "TERF" - what you mean 'views' like that biology actually matters?

We're lucky we held on to the word 'mother', as thanks to the UK courts
'the definition that people who have given birth are legally mothers – regardless of gender – has been upheld.' Not for the lack of trying though www.progress.org.uk/supreme-court-will-not-hear-appeal-of-man-who-gave-birth/ (quote is from the attached article).