Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

I didn't read that whole thread. Did it really posit that? Some women are women who don't have women's bodies? It's so utterly batshit I don't even know how to go about starting to process that!

What on earth has this got to do with pretending men can magically be women?

Men can never be women. Ever. Regardless of feelings, because being a woman is simply a biological fact not a man's fantasy.

The fact that actual women can be mothers in different ways or have very different feelings of being a parent isn't a gotcha that allows some men to claim womanhood.
It just means that the ONLY thing that women have in common is their female biology. The rest is personality and life experience.

It breaks my heart that when I see gender non conforming kids, my first instinct isn't "Oh, good on ye", it's: "bet you want to put rapists in women's prisons, mediocre male athletes in women's sport, unwanted male bodied caters for disabled women, neutralise important sex specific language, insist lesbians do dick, give random blokes access to women's safe spaces including refuges"
Shame, really. But that's not on me.

Mother is an apparently ill-defined term so anybody who thinks that they are a mother becomes one. By extension, anybody who thinks that they are a father becomes one. I suggested that you try being a father because of the lower workload.

Hey Spookie sorry to inundate you but what do you think of the term Adult Human Female - what does it mean to you? Are you fine with that meaning (what the rest of us call) a woman?

I am now looking at the data collection for this 'World Economic Forum' data that supposedly feeds this 'Gender Gap' measurement.

https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022

With more detail about how they collect it here:

https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/in-full/2-gender-gaps-in-the-workforce-an-emerging-crisis#2-1-gender-gaps-in-the-labour-force-recovery

I am a tad concerned. I am reading how they are compiling 'gender equality' data based on roles. They are using "LinkedIn' information. They are not detailing what % of the workplace they think this covers, or what % of people keep this up to date or what % increase in 'female people taking on roles' is just women joining LinkedIn for the first time or updating their profile. And fuck, I certainly haven't plugged in my 'skills' etc on LinkedIn, yet, this is what they are using.

Also, for the "female head of state over the past 50 years" data - the UK was ranked 9th - how do they work that out? What formula are they applying there?

I will come back tomorrow or Tuesday when I have looked through more.

It always, always pays to look behind the conclusions and to look at the methodology.

I am seeking to find what they measure by way of violence against women. But considering they have put countries with very high rates of violence against women in the top 10, I suspect that this report is pointless in being used to measure VAWAG in these countries.

And therefore, the primary variable for measuring whether or not women and children are more or less safe under Self ID is NOT measured. Making this an interesting read, but actually not relevant to the safety issues for women under Self ID AT ALL.

As has been mentioned numerous times already.

By the way, WEF are a foundation with lots of 'partners' that they 'survey' to pull in the data. Is this then checked to that country's government data? There 'risk' is based on their partners feedback in their surveys and doesn't look to be what the governments of that country identify as the risks for that country.

For instance, the 'partner' in the UK (apart from many corporations) is a lobby group for business.

Interesting reading, but a holistic look at 'how good women have it' in the top 10 countries, well.... not really. And as a wonderful support for how well women are doing under Self ID - no. As we say at my place, tell them they are dreaming!

I would say that ‘gender’ is a harmful concept that the world would be better off without, given that it perpetuates damaging sex stereotypes.

Males who say that they must really be women because of their personalities / tastes, and vice versa, and people who identify as non-binary, are reinforcing tired old stereotypes and thus supporting the patriarchy / sexism. It’s people who say ‘However I dress / behave / am attracted, I’m still a man / woman because that’s my biology’ who are actually the progressive ones.

Generally I'd agree with most of what you said, but I'd also say stereotypes as a whole are not necessarily inherently incorrect or wrong imo.

I'd say the best example of this would be the studies Jordan Peterson often cites where generally speaking (ofc there's some overlap) men and women tend to have different traits.
On one hand you could use his stance to prove gender is just personality, but you could probably also use his stance to prove gender exists and is measurable - Not sure if I've made myself super clear, lmk if I haven't! ;o;
(Please excuse it being a video from Ben Shapiro, just I like the way JP phrases it here, it's fairly concise for the complexity of it all)
o

So if I split from my partner and go to the Child Maintenance Service for maintenance for our 3 kids [which we do not have], you think this service is going to pay me maintance based on just my words alone?

That's your logic? Anyone can say anything and the world has to abide by it?

Yes empress. Once you realise they are only identifying with their own unique perception of what a woman is, and not the reality formed from having a female body, you realise it is ALL stereotypes.

That ‘identifies as’ falls down because they have no fucking idea what a woman is, just what they want a woman to be!

Hence so much porn. How many of them have admitted it is all about being fucked as a ‘woman’?

But also, they are identifying as anything but a ‘man’ so what is left…. A woman is who they say they must be.

@Helleofabore

I work in childcare. Maybe some do but I would guess most women here don't have linked in. Certainly not us grunts at the bottom.

Ok, there are a few people who have asked me to come back and I have been putting a lot of thought into how to explain my perspective of what it means to be a woman in the sense that trans women are women and I think I have an analogy that may help.

But women aren't born with male anatomy. Anyone who is, is and always will be a male. Simply because someone feels womanly, doesn't mean they have the right to tell people they are women nor go into female spaces.

I may be wrong Alison but I think Jane’s tongue is firmly in her cheek and she’s playing devil’s advocate.

Not only that but by transitioning young people we stop them growing up to use their more inclusive feelings/empathy with the opposite sex. These children are being made infertile.

Who will be raising the next generation of kids and then sterilising those who's trait's challenge the patriarchy and gendered inequality?

@Catiette apologies for the slow response.
Here's the link below.

It's got some similarity with a few of the comments on here. It's just a different take on the way to have a discussion. My suggestion would be to give it all a read from the top down if you have time. How it's unfolding is just as interesting as how it started and the individual comments IMO.

Link

Aha, thanks @BonfireLady. I wondered if it was that one, but wasn't sure. A lot of interesting stuff today!

Yes, indeed. And special thank you to Spooky for presenting some views that counter those of many of us. It's not often we get thoughtful discussion, and I do appreciate the chance.

I should have been more explicit.

Is there anyone on here, who can actually answer my questions, in the manner in which the thread was set up, without playing games?

@SpookyFBI

You said an awful lot about mothers.

You said you are a mother. Are you a step mother? And adoptive mother? Have you ever lost a child/ren? All these experiences of motherhood are different. And certainly I'd argue they are all motherhood. But i argue a mother is something different. A mother gives birth.

A child is neglected by birth mother she has drug addiction. She was abused as a child herself ran away from home and a pimp gave her a place to stay and got her into drugs ages 16. She try to be a good parent but she's only young there is no support she has the child removed. Maybe she then gets clean and spends a life lamenting the loss of that child and what she as a mother did to her child. Child Is adopted by an amazing adoptive mother. How 'mothers' verb the child. Fills the social role of mother for the child. Does this child have two mothers? How in their mind do they distinguish the two? Presumably birth mother/adoptive mother? Likely adoptive mother is actually called something like mum/mom/mam/mama- I doubt the child calls the adoptive mother "mother"

Mothers give birth.

And if I can ask your comment on how claiming the word mother impacts children who previously saw this person as their father? What of the birthing mother? Surely you can see how wrong it is to take her words in language? Her life may have just imploded. Why are her feelings worth less than trans mothers?

Exactly Hellofabore a TW's idea of what a woman is is a male idea of what a woman is and there are numerous high profile TW that demonstrate this. No, @SpookyFBI they are not women with a different body they are not women at all they are males and I find it extremely offensive that you posit that they are.

Perhaps we should post those very telling remarks from the prominent TW especially the one which describes women as just a collection of fuckable holes with dead eyes.

Good on you for giving this a go, SpookyFBI. I take back my earlier tacit implications about your lack of good faith.

I think others have taken on the 'adoption' and 'stepmother' analogies; it is a well known move. Just one thing to add here: 'stepmother' means 'a woman who has married one's father after one's mother's death or divorce'. That is a straightforward non-circular explanation of what 'stepmother' means; is anything similar available regarding the meaning of 'woman' in the context of an assertion 'TWAW'? If so, what?

The main thing to note, though, is the difference between "the meaning of 'woman'" and "what it means to you to be a woman." You try to tell us something about the latter, when what you were asked for is the former. But they are not the same. And it is the former we need if we are to begin to make clear sense of what 'woman' means in "a trans woman is a woman" so we can assess this latter assertion for truth or falsity.

This is tricky, I know. One way to keep the difference in view is to notice - and keep in mind - the difference between a woman (a kind of human being, we will all agree, at least), and 'woman' (a word). (Check out the quote-marks.)

[This is a distinction I was signalling when in an earlier post I mentioned "material mode". Let's not overdo this: by all means, if you're interested, look up the difference between material and formal mode; or equivalently the use/mention distinction. But we should be able to understand what is going on without over-egging such technical notions.]

Look, we know you think, in some way, that TWAW. I think you are wrong to think that. I think it cannot be true that TWAW. But if we only consider what being a woman means to you, we will not be able to move on from that to see whether 'TWAW' is true or not, because part of what being a woman means to you is, of course, that TWAW (which is equivalent to saying "'TWAW' is true"). And we get nowhere in our discussion if we assume what we want to argue for in the premises of our argument.

Yes, this is tricky. One way out of the difficulty, I think, is to focus on the question I posed (and try not to paraphrase it into other terms that may only seem to be its equivalent). If you can't answer it simply and clearly, ask yourself why not.

Can you say what 'woman' means in the context of an assertion 'TWAW'?

-- Again, a popular explanation of the meaning of 'woman' is ruled out by that assertion: if 'woman' means 'adult female human', a trans woman cannot be a woman. So how are you going to get 'TWAW' to come out true? What other meaning (you must offer some other meaning if you are sincerely asserting it) can you offer?

What it means to you to be a woman is not at all relevant to this. Do you see?

[And one last thing: "... everyone should feel liberated to define themselves in whatever way works best for them" might work for people (though really I am unsure what it might mean to define oneself in any substantive way). It cannot work for words, though: remember Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

--To be clear, this was a (logico-semantic) joke by Lewis Carroll (or maybe by Charles Dodgson). Alice was right to be sceptical.]

Thanks for getting me to think about this by exposing your own thoughts the way you have, SpookyFBI. It is interesting to see where thoughts like yours come from. I hope that doesn't sound too patronising. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoy motherhood.

I am a left-wing liberal (small l) socialist and I don't believe any human can change their sex, and men should not be incarcerated in womens prisons. I'm not going to stand alongside those arseholes on the 'alt right' because I have nothing in common with them and they are mostly cunts. Men don't belong in womens spaces. For me, that's really the end of it.

Be careful with this data. It looks at where women stand (those that indeed are registered as female on linked in etc or data collected by the governments that is publicly available) in the economic of a country. Nothing more, nothing less.
It says nothing at all about sexism, misogyny, social opportunities etc. It also is based on very recent data so the trends that self id will cause, will not be visible for example.

It is striking that a country like Norway or Canada has self id and is so far up the ladder. Btw, North America as a whole is leading in this, which included the beacon of womens rights, the US. That actually says a lot imo.

Anyway, Norway and Canada. My impression is that those countries concluded that womens equality was achieved and here was another group asking for equality (we all know it isn't equality, but the framing is very well thought out), so why not? Looks good on all the indexes and sells well to the youth voters. Both countries now have well documented and increasing problems. Let's learn from this.