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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Young people

41 replies

JeeeeezeLouise · 12/10/2023 21:52

Ffs! I just have to vent a minute,..,,Some of the younger people I work with just don't get it!

They don't seem to realise that women still don't have equality. Or how many years we've been fighting the patriarchy.

Their smug, virtue signalling comments about some cultures having more fluid genders than ours... oh DO fuck off!

And then fuck off a little bit more. You privileged, sheltered little twats!

OP posts:
fedupandstuck · 12/10/2023 21:59

I'd just call them on it. Ask them what they mean, exactly. Which cultures? What do they mean by gender, and what does being fluid about gender mean? How is gender different to stereotypes? And so on until they're unable to answer with any sense. But that might be a bit mean.

ArabellaScott · 12/10/2023 22:03

Plenty of young people are sensible and aware, ime. They just maybe aren't as LOUD. Empty vessels etc.

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 13/10/2023 01:13

I assume by 'fluid' they mean 'have a traditional third gender'. I'd be surprised if they could name an actually fluid one - generally 'third gender' concepts are found in cultures with the most rigid and (pretty much always to women, usually to gay men) oppressive ideas about gender.

Rudderneck · 13/10/2023 01:39

I am not sure that the equality thing is really the issue. But they are ignorant about people's lives and how important our sex is within our lives, ignorant about biology, and they are clearly ignorant about other cultures as well.

Pocodaku · 13/10/2023 01:52

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 13/10/2023 01:13

I assume by 'fluid' they mean 'have a traditional third gender'. I'd be surprised if they could name an actually fluid one - generally 'third gender' concepts are found in cultures with the most rigid and (pretty much always to women, usually to gay men) oppressive ideas about gender.

Agree. And those same ‘third genders’ are traditionally always bio-males who dress and ‘live as’ as women, never the other way around. E.g. the Hijra/Kinnar communities in India. The ahistorical and anachronistic cherry-picking by young people infuriates me too!

VoodooQualities · 13/10/2023 02:36

Vent away, we don't mind!

But to be serious for a sec, it doesn't surprise me that young women are like this, for two main reasons:

  1. The world has always looked exciting and interesting to the young. It did to me. They're not jaded yet. Give them a decade or two living in a woman's body and they might open their eyes. Or maybe not because...

  2. their world genuinely is a better place to be a young woman now than when we were their age. It's fairer, they have more opportunities, they're oppressed less than we were.

But yes the genderwoo, fluid this and non-binary that. It's self indulgent for one thing, but ultimately it's a categorisation exercise based on the rigidly defined sexist stereotypes that it claims to be freeing people from. I hate it.

Original poster
JeeeeezeLouise · 13/10/2023 04:50

VoodooQualities · 13/10/2023 02:36

Vent away, we don't mind!

But to be serious for a sec, it doesn't surprise me that young women are like this, for two main reasons:

  1. The world has always looked exciting and interesting to the young. It did to me. They're not jaded yet. Give them a decade or two living in a woman's body and they might open their eyes. Or maybe not because...

  2. their world genuinely is a better place to be a young woman now than when we were their age. It's fairer, they have more opportunities, they're oppressed less than we were.

But yes the genderwoo, fluid this and non-binary that. It's self indulgent for one thing, but ultimately it's a categorisation exercise based on the rigidly defined sexist stereotypes that it claims to be freeing people from. I hate it.

  1. their world genuinely is a better place to be a young woman now than when we were their age. It's fairer, they have more opportunities, they're oppressed less than we were

THEY might be. But women in general aren't. When a girl gets raped by 11 men and burned alive in India, they certainly know who is male and who is female don't they?! Regardless of any third "gender"

OP posts:
Original poster
JeeeeezeLouise · 13/10/2023 04:51

Self indulgent cherry picking indeed!!

OP posts:
IncomingTraffic · 13/10/2023 07:44

It’s not all young people by a long shot.

It’s just that having to tell someone that humans are not mushrooms (after they’ve delivered what they think is a winning argument about mushrooms having thousands of sexes) tends to be memorable.

Brefugee · 13/10/2023 07:49

well i just got told on twitter that my assertion that feminism is based on the tenet that "women are humans and shouldn't be discriminated on based on their biological sex" is bollocks.

So who knows?

Further that my belief in 2nd wave feminism (rejecting the notion of gender stereotypes, indeed rejecting gender as a social construct) is wrong too.

Sorry i fought and marched for equality now, tbh. Such people should be at home at the stove, not allowed to vote, work or have a bank account (not really - much as it pains me i believe in free speech)

MishyJDI · 13/10/2023 07:51

Doesn't gender woo actually help in blurring the lines of patriarchy?

I don't get why trans women would want to change gender from men to join an oppressed class. I don't buy the AGP nonsense.

I love the younger kids and that they are doing what we did when their age - challenging the older folks and bringing new ideas.

Always makes me laugh on threads about "kids these days".

Brefugee · 13/10/2023 07:53

gender woo reinorces stereotypes. If men think they have to don a dress to be a woman, and wear make up and shave their legs - how is that about equality?

True equality and inclusion would say: sure, go ahead, wear what you like and accept that.

And then there would be more resources and sympathy for people with genuine gender (sex?) dysmorphia

Brefugee · 13/10/2023 08:10

oh GOD. And now I've been told that when i was fired for being pregnant (something i took them to court for under sex discrimination rules, and won) i was told "nope that wasn't sex discrimination, it was pregnancy discrimination, it doesn't only happen to women"

And i give up. I am no longer fighting for equality, feminism or anything. It was all a complete and utter waste of my time.
I'm retiring in less than a decade, i simply can't care. Good luck everyone.

OldCrone · 13/10/2023 08:23

MishyJDI · 13/10/2023 07:51

Doesn't gender woo actually help in blurring the lines of patriarchy?

I don't get why trans women would want to change gender from men to join an oppressed class. I don't buy the AGP nonsense.

I love the younger kids and that they are doing what we did when their age - challenging the older folks and bringing new ideas.

Always makes me laugh on threads about "kids these days".

What makes you deny the existence of AGP, which has been described by people who transitioned because of it?

https://debbiehayton.com/2022/05/16/my-autogynephilia-story/

And younger kids seem to want to take us back to a time when everyone was forced into compliance with gender stereotypes. With the "progressive" Iranian style option of transitioning for anyone who doesn't comply.

No thank you.

My autogynephilia story

AGP drove my own transsexualism. But in a debate where the condition is simultaneously denied and monstered, it is unsurprisingly also misunderstood.

https://debbiehayton.com/2022/05/16/my-autogynephilia-story

Erivo · 13/10/2023 08:28

The younger generation is being fed often emotional propaganda at a crucial developmental period. I would be careful on describing this period for women less oppressive, more a different type of oppression. Porn, social media, dare rape drugs, revenge porn, plastic surgery. I am glad to have been born in the late 70s.

Brefugee · 13/10/2023 08:28

Always makes me laugh on threads about "kids these days".

tell you what though, @MishyJDI - i worked with a 20 year old who rolled her eyes so hard when i told her i was a feminist. With the words "we have equality, duh"

Well, she wasn't rolling her eyes so hard when 5 years later she was being discriminated against for being pregnant. And then whining at me when her request for part-time working was refused on business grounds. And so on.

But yeah, kids these days should pin back their lugs and pay attention. Because you know, just because we are old, doesn't make us stupid. Or not understand that the things our grandmothers fought for/against, that our mothers fought for/against and that we fight for/against are still going on.

But you do you

OvaHere · 13/10/2023 08:35

I love the younger kids and that they are doing what we did when their age - challenging the older folks and bringing new ideas.

This is true to some extent. The difference is in years gone by the grown ups weren't compelled to go along with anything that was clearly nonsense.

I'm fairly sure I'm not alone in looking back at my youth and realising I had some poorly informed, naive and sometimes frankly daft ideas about the world.

Societal changes have given young people more power than other generations had but this doesn't make them right about everything.

Dowhadiddydiddydum · 13/10/2023 08:38

I’m not sure I truly understood sexism and the inequality between the sexes until I started work and then even more so when I had a family. I had little glimpses but work and family are where the inequalities really slapped me in the face. Before that I felt quite idealistic. Told women can do what they want and have it all. Reality has been far from that.

IncomingTraffic · 13/10/2023 08:41

I actually think that society is now a bit obsessed with taking young people’s ideas as seriously as possible.

Older people fear being ‘on the wrong side of history’ - or being judged as out of date and wrong. So they don’t sufficiently challenge these supposedly exciting new ideas (although what is new about gender stereotypes?)

Thing is, this fear and this narrative of youth as the future and older people as barriers to progress, means that we’ve almost forgotten how often the ‘new ideas’ we were so sure of as young people were just misguided and wrong. All the times when our elders actually did know better. They had more experience, understood the bigger picture, grasped the downstream implications in ways our zeal missed.

There’s a confirmation bias in how we tell the story of history as ‘progress’ (and progress towards liberal utopia).

MargotBamborough · 13/10/2023 08:56

Pocodaku · 13/10/2023 01:52

Agree. And those same ‘third genders’ are traditionally always bio-males who dress and ‘live as’ as women, never the other way around. E.g. the Hijra/Kinnar communities in India. The ahistorical and anachronistic cherry-picking by young people infuriates me too!

Show quote history

It sounds like the way this issue is currently playing out in India is not all that different to how it is playing out in western countries;

https://unherd.com/2023/09/the-fate-of-indias-trans-widows/

The desperate plight of trans widows

An Indian filmmaker risks everything to tell women's stories

https://unherd.com/2023/09/the-fate-of-indias-trans-widows

user123212 · 13/10/2023 08:58

Dowhadiddydiddydum · 13/10/2023 08:38

I’m not sure I truly understood sexism and the inequality between the sexes until I started work and then even more so when I had a family. I had little glimpses but work and family are where the inequalities really slapped me in the face. Before that I felt quite idealistic. Told women can do what they want and have it all. Reality has been far from that.

As women delay having kids/having fewer of them, I can see this happening more and more.

EdgeOfACoin · 13/10/2023 09:04

I don't get why trans women would want to change gender from men to join an oppressed class. I don't buy the AGP nonsense.

Someone in my extended family died a number of years ago. After his death it became apparent that he had lived a secret life as a woman and had at one stage begun hormone treatment and early stage transition. He appears later to have stopped and never came 'out' to his relatives (he was unmarried). His secret remained a secret and he eventually died dressed as a woman in a solo sex game gone wrong, which is when other people found out the truth.

I literally spent ten years trying to understand this man as having been 'born in the wrong body'. I tried to reconcile everything I knew about this person with the phenomenon of gender dysphoria etc. I thought about how terrible it must have been that he couldn't have lived his life as his 'true self'. I assumed he didn't pursue the transition because he was frightened of prejudice, or not being accepted etc.

And yet, it still didn't make sense. The man I knew clearly wasn't a woman. Furthermore his mode of death was a stereotypically 'male' death (women die in sex games, yes, but almost never on their own). Yet, I still tried to understand him.

The moment I found out about AGP, everything clicked into place. What hadn't made sense to me before was suddenly crystal clear.

People who deny AGP either have an agenda or they are extraordinarily naïve.

Incidentally, I found out about AGP from a post on Mumsnet that was swiftly deleted (as I say, some people have an agenda). However, I had just enough info to do my own research - that was enough.

Floisme · 13/10/2023 09:40

I think it can be hard for young women who've been raised believing they have equality, and on top of that fed a diet of female superhero fiction, to accept that the average male is stronger and faster than they are. You really, really don't want to believe it and, unless you find out the hard way, it can take a long time to process.

RufustheFactualReindeer · 13/10/2023 10:01

i was talking to friends about this a few days ago

back when i was in my late teens and early 20’s i thought we’d done it. We had equal opportunities, could do anything we wanted, we were seen as equal

and then i learnt we didn’t have all that…and we still don’t have all that, lots of young women now feel the same way i did, but unfortunately they will learn

if anything i think its all gone backwards

Alltheprettyseahorses · 13/10/2023 10:07

I don't get why trans women would want to change gender from men to join an oppressed class In reality, a man who identifies as a woman is treated by privileged groups as having joined the priestly class not an oppressed one.