Anyone read or seen Women Talking?

[Doyoumind]

There's something I've been pondering since seeing the film at the weekend. I thought overall it was a powerful and moving film that I would recommend, but one thing really irked me, being GC. This is not a spoiler. There's a character who is a trans man. The film makes a point of stating this is not a result of being sexually assaulted, but because 'born in the wrong body and can't live a lie any longer' etc etc. They dress in shirt and trousers but look after the children in a totally gendered role.

Although strictly speaking it's not anachronistic, it feels it. The setting is one of the most patriarchal imaginable so I don't buy it. I understand this is straight from the book, and the author is Canadian so that may go some way to explaining it.

What view did you have of it?

Haven't seen it yet op but would like to so when I've seen it I shall report back!

I've read the book. I haven't seen the film and to be honest don't want to because while I think it's a powerful work of fiction, the ending was far too much like wishful thinking to me. The real life rapes in Manitoba colony weren't stopped by the imprisonment of the supposed perpetrators. The women and children who were and presumably still are drugged and raped nearly daily in some cases are expected to carry on with their lives as normal and were refused trauma counselling by the elders because they were unconscious.

I don't really remember the trans man stuff, I seem to remember that in the book it was all recorded via August so with his outsiders perspective as it were. I've heard that the film is narrated by one of the women so loses that disconnect?

I watched the film and loved it but was so angry about that bit. It was completely irrelevant to the storyline, where as if she had started dressing and acting as a man because of her trauma that would have made total sense. I mean she couldn't speak for gods sake how was it not linked to her trauma?!

However, they're clearly all GC too given she was included in the 'women' group in the outcome!

I get where you're coming from Scrambled. It doesn't represent the full reality of the women whose story inspired it but that is kind of implicit in the film.

You're right that Augustus doesn't narrate.

Sounds like we're on the same wavelength. Those were exactly my thoughts!

Late to this discussion but have just watched it today.

I think it is clear from the outside that the trauma clearly jump starts a young woman's hatred of being a woman - when she is attacked she deals with it by denying her womanhood altogether.

I think it's true today that many young woman do not see that the reason they believe themselves to be men is in fact wishful thinking because their traumatic experience has taught them it is neither safe nor enjoyable to be a woman. They hope being a man will make them exempt from attack.

I totally understand why girls fear becoming women and why they find the idea of 'transing' into manhood more powerful and safe.

This would be especially true if they were in a community like that in Women talking.

Somehow I doubt that the men of that community, or our own would exempt the character from attack just because they have declared themselves male - violent men don't usually let women's wishes stop them.

I liked it, she was trying to avoid being a woman for the obvious reasons. It didn't work, it didn't protect her. For the obvious reasons

I only just watched this and very late to the convo but went searching for this kind of discussion and voila, Mumsnet did not disappoint :). I’ve listened to an interview with Polley about the movie trying to glean her GC status - she didn’t give anything away on either side. I sensed that it was deliberate - fear of cancellation I suppose. But from the outcome in the film - spoiler alert - trans man is included amongst the women in the end, I think the film makes a statement about womanhood and the nature of our subjugation as women (biology and the power this gives men over us) regardless of time, place or culture.

Whilst ‘in the wrong body’ palaver is there, I think this is a deliberate red herring to throw off accusations of transphobia from the powers that be. It’s so obvious from the graphic rape and miscarriage storyline and the subsequent name/clothing change that the new ‘identity’ is a defence mechanism for this young woman. Perhaps the converse could be true for a proportion of men dressing as women - as in - it’s a way for predators to gain access to women, therefore an attack strategy.

I was just thinking that a fourth option the women might have entertained was to all start identifying as men and staying to see what the ‘other’ men would have made of that in terms of who they would have then selected for rape and forced pregnancy. I suppose Butler might hypothesise that this would have at least democratised who gets raped (and who does the raping) if not stopped it altogether. Idiotically. I suppose the trans storyline covers this off and concludes that TM are not really men, but if this were truly an allegory for the history of feminism, as some have argued, it really should have been discussed as option 4 - as this seems to be what post modern ‘gender studies’ seems to insist we buy into now.