Can MNHQ set up a new discussion category called Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)

[PlanetLuna]

MN, will you please create a talk group/category of Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)?

MN appears to currently have only 2 feminism categories:
Feminism: chat
Feminism: sex & gender discussions

But the Feminism: sex & gender category on MN is predominantly GC, with its emphasis on trans exclusion ideology. Feminists who do not subscribe to those beliefs are often unwelcome and treated with derision and hostility in discussions. Certainly not always as some GC posters do enjoy open, intellectual discussions but often enough that engagement can be toxic & intimidating all around.

It is almost impossible for non-GC feminists to find inclusive/non-GC feminist discussions, and we have to wade through unpleasant (for us) GC threads while attempting to do so.

GC feminism dominates on UK parenting sites in particular. However, inclusive/non-GC feminism is extremely popular around the world (especially in places like the US, NZ, and AU) and in the UK among younger feminists and those who do not see trans rights as a threat to women & girls’ safety. Many UK feminists are non-GC but may feel silenced on MN.

The addition of another category will help open up and improve MN discussions while reducing the toxicity and hostility that many feminists on both sides experience in discussions.

So I propose the following feminism discussion categories:
Feminism: chat (general)
Feminism: sex & gender discussions (GC)
Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)

@MNHQ

I love that post Haxxor. One for the lib fems who think oppression is lack of pockets and a 10% gender pay gap at their Stonewall champion employer.

Femmimenism - perfect! 😂

Sorry that was in response to @EmotionalSupportHyena and I spelled it wrong Femmymenism - perfect!

I support much for what @haXXor says in her post but I feel a bit unsure about making pregnancy (and penetration) so completely central to the analysis of women's vulnerability.

I know that right-wing politics, esp in the US, seeks to control and oppress women by forced pregnancy, I know that individual abusive men use pregnancy as a source of control and oppression. And I know that becoming pregnant and giving birth is the point in very many women's lives when the superficial equality in their reltionship with a man is revealed to be a fiction, as she becomes trapped in tasks that her parter refuses to percieve and properly share.

But, still, what I see in men's extraordinarily aggressive refusal to accept women defining and asserting themselves as a sex category, seems like something to which penetration and pregnancy are not wholly central

What these men want is possession. Not just physical possession but a kind of psychic possession. The want women to actually be the object of the male gaze, rather than independent subjects that are appropriated by men as objects. They resent our existence as something other than a focus of their desire.

That is a psychological imperialism that exploits psychological vulnerabilities. It exploits women's tendency to readily perceive and readily overvalue mens needs and sideline their own. Whether that psychological vulnerability is partially innate or wholly socialised I don't know, but it possibly explains why so many women are endorsing the mockfeminism of the TRA men'srights movement.

So I guess I would charactise pregnancy as just one of three fundamental vulnerabilities -- the other two being lesser physical strength and a greater likelihood of having the kind of emotional intelligence that leads them to see, acknowledge and overvalue other people's needs (and undervalue, or learn not to see their own).

The reason vaginas, penises, pregnancy are powerful too s of men's oppression of women is that they facilitate possession. But other factors- psychological ones - facilitate that too.

I feel a bit unsure about making pregnancy (and penetration) so completely central to the analysis of women's vulnerability.

The thing is, sex inequality occurred long before reliable contraception and safe abortion were available and sex before marriage was destigmatised.

Now that women’s control over her own fertility is pretty much taken for granted, we can have the luxury of blindness to the centrality of our reproductive role in our vulnerability.

I’m with you @Random789 - I found @haXXor s post excellent but I disagree on the exploitation being all about pregnancy.

I think a lot of it is just down to possession of our bodies but not for pregnancy just for consumption. Testosterone levels make a massive difference to sex drive. And I think rape as a weapon of war is a demonstration of conquering - again not necessarily about enforcing pregnancy but demonstrating power and instilling fear.

I think there might also be an element of using those acts of violence to bolster the psyche for other acts of violence.

@Random789 I think the link between haxxor's point and yours is the somewhat obsessive instinct to possess and control a woman as entirely as they can (that some men are prone to and other more civilised ones manage) is linked to evolution and wanting to only invest resources in a child that is going to pass on your genes.

It isn't the only point of our oppression but it is the crux of both societies and individuals who see women as a resource to be owned traded and controlled.

Excellent post haxxor.

Yes

Our lives are short, children are our only shot at any kind of immortality

as women we just don’t understand the concept of being unsure about your genetic link to your children

Intellectually unpicking behaviours that are largely instinctual and rarely conscious strategies means it will always be imperfect.

Bullies bully because they enjoy it, they find it rewarding and they get good outcomes from it.

Rapists rape because they enjoy it. It gratifies an urge. It’s rarely a thought-out strategy.

There may be a greater thrill in the thought of rape resulting in impregnation, but the rapist rapes as an end in itself.

I’m with you @Random789 - I found @haXXor s post excellent but I disagree on the exploitation being all about pregnancy.

Just because it's not all about pregnancy now (when we have contraception, safer births and when many men aren't that fussed about having children, even if that underlying drive still fuels their sexual behaviour ), that doesn't mean that the whole edifice of the patriarchy isn't still a result of it probably having been originally pretty much all about pregnancy. I think @haXXor 's excellent post made that clear. What started out as commodifying and controlling women as vessels for men's progeny probably just evolved into the right of men to use women's bodies for whatever they wanted.

@EndlessTea

absolutely, people are rarely walking around consciously thinking, "I worry about my children because historically over evolutionary timeframes parents who worried about where their kids were did a better job of keeping them alive" nevertheless, clearly that's pretty much what's going on.

Interesting points thank you @howdoesatoastermaketoast and @Fairislefandango

This twaw issue has brought me to feminism and I’d never considered it deeply before - my eyes are being opened through mn to issues like surrogacy that I’d always thought ‘that’s nice/kind’ about before.

I’ve always thought of myself as a feminist in that I believe men and women should be equal in society but never went beyond that. Growing up in the 70s 80s I suppose I was put of academic feminists because they were painted as uppity harridans who eschewed make up, bras, shaving etc. I thought we had equality back then. It wasn’t till I had my children (still school age) that I saw big difference in how much of the mental load I take on as a mother.

I’m not sure about the patriarchy/ origins etc so it’s definitely put a different spin on it for me thinking of instinctual/ evolutionary drives.

Food for thought. I worry about talk of the patriarchy turning men off from supporting feminist goals though. We are all humans and need to somehow find a way to work together to have a society which has more respect and value for what has always been seen as ‘women’s work’ with no economic value.

Is there a Patriarchy break it down for me thread? Maybe @haXXor could start one with her post (pretty sure you’re a her @haXXor sorry not sorry for assuming pronouns 😝)

I think a patriarchy break it down for me thread is a good idea

tempted to change my name to UppityHarridanOutandProud.

yes to breaking down the patriarchy thread

Food for thought. I worry about talk of the patriarchy turning men off from supporting feminist goals though.

But the patriarchy is the only reason we even need to have feminist goals in the first place!

Interesting responses. I think that the difference between Haxxor's emphasis and the one I tried to explore may be quite small in any case, in the sense that, across the broader historical landscape of evolution and the origin of human mores, the essential material divide between men and women (pregnancy-capable and non-pregnancy capable) is at least partly the cause of the psychological vulnerabilites I mentioned. So - on that timescale - pregnancy-capability is analytically fundamental.

"But on this issue I’m expected to creep around the vestry like a secretly atheist chorister, forced to chose between total silence or mouthing the words to a hymn I think is full of bollocks"

This encapsulates it perfectly - the frustration of not being able to speak about reality!

oppression is lack of pockets and a 10% gender pay gap

Those originate in uterine exploitation.

Female fashions are designed for appearance at the expense of function in a way that men's clothes are not.

1. Why? To flatter the figure.
2. Why? As a means of establishing pecking order amongst women (who's the fairest of them all?) and to try to attract men.
3. Why? Because women need to outcompete other women to attract a high value man.
4. Why? Because women have been trained to believe that we need a man in our lives (Don't believe me? Look at the pick-mes on the Relationships board.) and she doesn't want to be stuck alone or with the kind of toe rag who beats her. Remember that "old maid", "maiden aunt", and "spinster" are negative words, whereas "bachelor" isn't.
5. Why are we trained to believe that we need men? So that each of us will submit to having our uterus exploited by one man, and in doing so make more citizens for the State.

The pay gap is derived via multiple paths.

• Women not being paid enough for doing reproductive work for the State. Mat pay is not your full salary, is it?
• Women dropping out of work to raise kids, and not paid for caring for the State's new citizens. "The child is her choice" my arse, see again what I said about Decree 770.
• Women dropping out of work to raise kids and the skills needed to do that (time management, dealing skilfully with recaltricant small people who are often only slightly worse-behaved than some of the "rock star" programmers I've seen, prioritising spending with a limited budget) are not deemed appropriate to even mention at interviews and discounted as work-related skills, disadvantaging the woman when she returns to work.

But those paths all come from treating the uterus and the woman surrounding it and her child-caring skills as commodities to be exploited at the cheapest possible price, which inherently means devaluing the skill involved in reproductive work.

Rapists rape because they enjoy it. It gratifies an urge. It’s rarely a thought-out strategy.

How come women experiencing similar urges flick the bean or reach for the rabbit vibrator, but men feel entitled and permitted to help themselves to another person's body? And how come, six times in seven, the person being raped is female. The answer is quoted below from another poster:

What started out as commodifying and controlling women as vessels for men's progeny probably just evolved into the right of men to use women's bodies for whatever they wanted.

Yup. Male entitlement to women across every aspect of life became normalised and accepted because of men's desire to be sure that he has heirs and puts resources into raising his own child, not someone else's. If women are property, a woman outside without her male "owner" and not labelled as owned is up for grabs just like a tenner lying on the ground. This is where wedding rings and the historic practice of married women wearing headcoverings in public comes from as well, marking her as owned so that she can pop to the market without her husband.

pretty sure you’re a her @haXXor sorry not sorry for assuming pronouns

I don't dictate how others refer to me. I do have first-hand experience of taking a pregnancy test, if you were hinting that a male would be unlikely to write such an analysis.

issues like surrogacy

Paid-for surrogacy is to having a Handmaid's Tale type handmaid as prostitution is to rape. The consumer is paying for something that would otherwise not be given freely. It's another "once you see it..." realisation.

as women we just don’t understand the concept of being unsure about your genetic link to your children

Until the advent of hospital births, with baby mixups, that was very true. Equally, men don't understand the concept of being unsure whether you will survive the process of making a child.

In societies like the Mosuo where women own most property and pass it to their daughters, men are strangely much less worried about paternity uncertainty.

Sorry, I missed some lines.

Yup. Male entitlement to women across every aspect of life became normalised and accepted because of men's desire to be sure that he has heirs and puts resources into raising his own child, not someone else's. Plus, it's hard to control a woman's uterus if you don't control her entire life, as she could cheat or be raped. For a man, trying to prevent "his" woman from being raped is about protecting his investment. If women are property, a woman outside without her male "owner" and not labelled as owned is up for grabs just like a tenner lying on the ground. This is where wedding rings and the historic practice of married women wearing headcoverings in public comes from as well, marking her as owned so that she can pop to the market without her husband. Don't believe me? How come men only started wearing wedding rings very recently?

Goddesses and whoevers bless you, women of MN, for taking such a confused post and turning the thread into a thing of thought-provoking interest.

It'll be that we don't want teens to mutilate themselves before their brains are fully matured. You know protecting children and young people from making decisions they are likely to regret later in life.