Friends suggesting transphobia and misogyny both rooted in policing gender roles

[Pyjamatimenow]

Friend of mine has posted on her social media ( a very long detailed post) that basically trans rights are women’s rights and that what she sees as transphobia is akin to people who ‘punish’ women who don’t fit into gender stereotypes, don’t get married, don’t look ‘feminine’, don’t have children…Says she’s a feminist and defends the rights of trans women to live safely etc …whatever that means. Cis women mentioned several times. I don’t normally comment on these kinds of things on FB but struggling with this particular post! If I were to say something what would you say?

Sticking it to women seems to be the dominant goal. That and gaining their attention.

For this one, yes, undoubably. It's not a coincidence how close many of his "arguments" are to classic MRA tropes.

Excellent work, Rhino
I remember in the olden days when it was just a gold lame purse.

It's the rage that gets me.

Why the fuck is he, and men like him so bloody angry with women. It has to be all connected to the incel environment.

I love this.

It's like the consumer price index.

This year in the what makes me a woman basket, we have glasses, psychological associations, and because I said so.

Last year it was a constellation of data points, my mum's assertion, and because I said so.

The year before, it was my new, enormous boobs, sundresses, and because I said so.

As a PP has said, I'm detecting a theme.

It is hilarious isn't it. Such backwards construction. Start from what they want the end to be and work backwards to justify it.

"I understand all sorts of things that are currently socially attached to sex don't have to be. Also, because I am progressive I don't think we should be classifying people by sex at all because that is reducing people to their biology or limiting their sexuality. Logically, I should therefore be agitating to drop the idea of men and women altogther and just have "people" and "things people do/feel/enjoy".

However, I still like the idea of women, so much in fact that I want to be one. So obviously we still have have to have the idea of men and women, it just can't be linked to sex or biology any more. But yes obviously we still need separate toilets, that's really important otherwise what is the point of being a woman and not a man anyway?

So, rather than following my own thought process to the logical conclusion of getting rid of the division between men and women altogether all and putting all the non-biological social construct stuff currently linked to sex back on the pile for everyone to play with, I'm going to decide that "women" and "men" still exist but it's actually all the psychological/social construct stuff that makes a person a "man" or a "woman".

Yeah, that feels good to me, that's what I'm going to go with."

An incel-to-trans pipeline has been noted previously. I believe that this is who people refer to when they use the term 'transcel'.

Whatever the case......a man can play around with feminine streotypes and presentations all he likes but it still doesn't make him a woman. A woman can play around with feminine stereotypes and presentations all she likes, but that is not what makes her a woman.

Sex is a matter of biology; of the chromosomal hard drive.....which may well, and probably does have direct influence on certain traits and behaviours at a population level.......mostly linked to the sex drive and its operation and to the facts of reproduction and childbirth. No amount of sympathy, fellow feeling or 'identity' makes a male into a female, though.

And as Judith Butler ( the queen of gender) suggested - 'gender identity' is not a fixed state of being, it is a repeated series of actions and not something with demonstrable existence. Feeling something does not change your sex.

'Discrimination' is simply being able to tell one thing apart from another. It is not necessarily a pejorative. We need to use our ability to discriminate all of the time.

Yes. I don't think our current iteration of word salad waiter is trans himself though, he just shares the MRA joy in telling women who we are really and that our own views on the matter don't matter.

MRA/TRA mantra: "The people who care don't matter, because the people who matter don't care"

Of course they do, but they are still men.

Baileyonice · Today 06:42

Research shows that males and females share the vast majority of cognitive abilities, leadership traits, and personality dimensions.

Baileyonice · Today 07:17

Males & females sharing cognitive abilities & personality dimensions more common to one particular sex is scientifically uncontroversial.

Can you explain your apparently self-contradictory position @Baileyonice?

Some women are tall, some women are short. On average women are shorter than men, but we do not classify people into male and female based on height. The different height distribution is a consequence of the sex difference not a defining feature of it.

Some women like unframed spectacles, some like normal frames, some like chunky frames. It may be in current fashions unframed are more popular with women than with men. It may be in 50 years time that fashion reverses. In any case we do not classify people into male and female based on fashion preferences.

Some women are interested in caring professions, some prefer construction or IT. It may be that a higher proportion of women stably choose caring professions. Hard to tell how culturally influenced this is as nobody is brought up outside culture, but it wouldn't be surprising if our brains had evolved to be more interested in hanging onto those infants while our bodies were evolving to feed them. We do not classify people into male and female based on degree of interest in caring professions.

The review paper linked upthread is interesting but unsurprising.

Men and women are different genetically and physiologically, and have different reproductive roles. It would be astonishing if there were no population-level psychological, behavioural or cognitive differences, operating independently (insofar as such a thing is possible in a social animal) of environment.

When a society becomes more prosperous or egalitarian, environmental levers may press more lightly than genetic ones, pushing the latter into prominence.

For example, the height difference between the sexes may be greater in a rich than a poor society because both sexes can achieve their maximum genetic potential in the former, but not the latter.

I was saddened by this:

When it comes to cognitive abilities, females benefit more than males from improvements in living conditions. The performance gap increases in domains where females have an advantage and closes in domains where males are ahead.

This must mean that men are being trained up to their full genetic potential but women are not. When conditions improve, women catch up with men (in areas of natural male dominance) and pull even further ahead of them (in areas of natural female dominance).

This is analagous to finding out that the height differential has shrunk as conditions improved - it means men were previously getting optimum nutrition at the expense of women.

The idea a more prosperous society is more equal is clearly false - just look at UAE.

Average wealth and equality are two different measures. Both can affect the ability of an individual to reach her full genetic potential.

You think they were born liking lacey things?

You understand how a society works, I'm sure - you'll agree that most of our values and manners are learned, rather than innate, and that a child brought up by wolves probably won't find and use a knife and fork for themselves?

If you don't believe that girls are taught to be 'feminine', just look at the amount of pink frilly stuff in the childrenswear dept.

And any fool can deduce that, in a system in which power is severely conscribed for a particular group, members of that group will will be forced to use whatever currency or power they are allowed to survive and, within the limits placed upon them, prosper.

It doesn't mean that gender exists, or that femininity inheres in femaleness. It just shows that women lack power.

I do wonder how the human race reproduced prior to the invention of lace, what which it being so pivotal to womanhood. Did we split in two like ameoba?

Do people really believe that sex is in any way dependant things that didn't exist for the vast majority of the time humans walked the earth?

Psychological sex class?

What on earth is that?

Sex is physical not psychological.

Are you saying people of the same sex class all have the same psychology?
All women think alike?

This really is meaningless garbage dressed up with some long words.

You do realise that what qualifies as fashionable and appropriate women's clothing has changed over the decades?

Dungarees and messy hair were where it was at.

That relates to the deliberate attempt in late 1940s/1950s America and Europe to put women back in their box after they did many of the traditional 'men's jobs' during the war. Every time we show signs of getting something (some of) the blokes want it back.

Really tedious.

Ah, but lace is fundamental to understanding the difference between female and male, and lace has existed since the dawn of human existence. It's just that "lace" way back in the Mists of Time was a psychological concept that proto-humans hadn't developed the brain capacity to quite understand. Once we had evolved the capacity to understand "lace" as an integral part of human sex, it logically attached itself to the female sex, which it was able to do because, of course, "female" is the same sort of psychological manifestation of humanity. So, sort of like calling to like, as it were.

This is all quite clear, and very easy to understand, which most of us now have the capacity to do. What I do take issue with, are those people who seemingly can understand the fundamental nature of lace as a psychologically essential part of female makeup, but seem, oddly, incorrectly tied to the concept that the "lace" in question must be pink!

Now,if you're looking for a proper argument, let's discuss that!

One thing that often surprises me in documentaries featuring poor Americans is how many women work in construction.

Sorry I'm being a bit thick here, I was following your explaination nicely but then I thought what happened in 18th century Britain? Lace was pretty ubiquitous (among those that could afford it obviously). Did males disappear from all but the poorest classes?

Pink, lace, heels, long hair, hosiery - the epitome of masculinity

. in Denmark in 1623, too. Very macho.

I think they must have, because we don't often see them in fancy portraits, do we? I seem to recall that, in the 18th century, most lace was created by women (being, of course, a womanly thing with which to occupy their time), and perhaps they bestowed it upon only the men they thought were pretty enough?