Why do some feminists oppose misogyny but support gender ideology?

[Doodwhatareyou]

I recently ended up in the man hating side of tiktok, which is a place I tend to be in agreement with. I’ve seen several women bravely battle stupid men in the comments who manage to reinforce everything being said.

I’ve seen a pattern though that these women, who seem to be very up on rules of misogyny, and aware of how problematic too many men are, usually have pronouns in their bio, and occasionally will complain about being bullied by terfs.

I’m baffled.

How can they be so up on patriarchal nonsense yet miss the fundamental misogyny in gender ideology. How can they deny the evidence that trans identified men are just as much of a problem for women if not more as they want women’s rights and spaces.

They can make endless videos about how hateful men are because of the way women are treated, and how women have to budge up and make room, yet trans identified men are women, and anyone who says otherwise is a massive bigot. I don’t understand.

Are you theorising that feminists would agree we can't be sure what 'woman' means?

Haha. Now I know you're trolling!

I'm pretty sure calling your self a police officer might be illegal (some words have protected meanings/usages). But yes, it someone wants to come themselves a fairy, then go ahead.

If a man calls himself a woman, I don't give a fuck as long as he stays out of women's spaces. Which is why I don't think a man just calling himself a woman (or dressing as a woman) should be made a crime.

I'm saying principles that underpin a movement need to be applied consistently for them to remain its principles. In other words, principles are no longer principles if they are only applied at convenience.

I don't think a man just calling himself a woman (or dressing as a woman) should be made a crime.

I must've missed the posts where people said it should be.

Christ, you sound increasingly like a first-term philosophy student.

Got tired of this level of inanity before 2010. Not revisiting it now. Do enjoy your ideological onanism, though. Just not on my time 😘

'owwww my brain hurzzzzzt'

It's not unheard of for humans to have delusional beliefs about themselves. That much is 'understood'.

But what other delusion beliefs are affirmed? If you think you are Napoleon, people won't bow before you or send you out to battle.

To them it isn't delusional, just part of being a human with substantially more complex emotions and self identity than other mamals.
I suppose a comparison would be being gay. In nature male mammals are attracted to the female of their species. But in humans that often isn't the case with many people only feelings attracted to the same sex. I think we all know being gay isn't a choice a person makes it's just how they feel and who they are attracted too, does that make them delusional?

Similarly, transwomen will say they didn't chose to be a woman trapped in a man's body, it's just who they are.

Again, i'm not necessarily saying I agree with the trans general ideology but it isn't difficult to comprehend even if you don't agree with them

People who are gay are actually attracted to people of the same sex.

A man who thinks he's a woman trapped in a man's body isn't actually a woman trapped in a man's body. If he truly believes this he's suffering from a delusion.

It's pretty homophobic to compare the reality of gay people's lives to the delusions of others.

It manifestly is delusional. They aren't the other sex. No one is 'trapped in the wrong body'. How do you imagine that happens? What happened to the right body?

Its nothing like being gay. Same sex attraction is a verifiable phenomenon - there are physical, objective signs of sexual attraction.

I understand it in the same way I understand some people believe the earth is flat or the moon landings are fake. They’re perfectly fine to believe it, I am perfectly fine to not believe it. It is when they demand that I believe it that we have a problem. I’m not going to call a man she and her. I’m not going to accept men in women’s spaces. I’m not going to be called “cis” so that makes with a trans identity can be called women. They can call themselves what they like, dress how they like, but don’t get upset when others refuse to affirm their beliefs. And if you support men demanding women affirm these beliefs, you are not a feminist. What kind of feminist believes a man when he says he’s a woman, and condemns a woman when he says he’s not?

The good thing might be, if enough men dress as women, then those clothes etc will not be considered women’s clothes. Therefore men wearing “women’s clothes” cannot access women’s spaces claiming to be women as they’re “dressed as women” They’re just wearing clothes.

Do you really not understand their point of view? Or do you just not agree?

I think most people here understand the other side’s viewpoint, but they don’t want to acknowledge it because they worry that doing so gives legitimacy to the argument (or that just stating the arguments might get them attacked on here). I think that’s stupid.

Recognising that someone has a line of thinking doesn’t automatically mean you agree with it. In fact, I think their arguments are pretty easy to understand.

I think you have fallen in to the trap of believing people when you really should not.

Do I think the men who say they are women really truly believe they are women? No, I do not. It is AGP or a beta male power play.

Do I think that women who say they are feminist believe that these men are really women trapped in a man's body? Well, none have ever been able to explain how this happens, how a man saying 'I'm a lady' are suddenly women.

Do I believe that these feminists are of the belief that a man wouldn't stoop that low as to place himself in the category of 'women' unless he was suffering? i think they think that but they really need to get better at logic and body language. And maybe better at considering why he might be doing that, and what he is getting out of it.

4 Women Scotland met on Mumsnet and they moved the agenda forward.

What is your definition of 'forward'?

As a trans person myself, I completely disagree.

I'm not a man trapped in a woman's body. How could I be? My woman's body is what I am. So where is this supposed man hiding? My brain is a part of my body, so my brain is female like the rest of my body. Same for my heart, my liver, my lungs or whatever: all of me is female. None of me is male. So where is the man?

If some trans people really believe that they are somehow the opposite sex trapped in their body, then that is by definition a delusion, and shouldn't be supported by others around them.

Are you telling me that women should accept biological males in female prisons, refuges, sports for the benefit of womankind?

Never do we get a clear answer to this question by our resident trolls, infantile TRAs, or wishful bekinders. Never. Or any effort at all to respond or engage in the many important points raised here in thoughtful discussion.

There's a reason I never could stay and keep reading for long, back when I was lurking here: as soon as I hit an argument that couldn't be pushed away with, "Please be kind, trans people don't want to hurt anyone," I had to leave, because the cognitive dissonance was too great.

No it doesn’t say anything of the sort.

It’s clarifying that if you prioritise men over women, you are not a feminist - by definition.

As you seem to be somewhat confused, so called ‘trans women’ are men.

There's nothing unfair about saying, "Men are men, women are women, neither can have the other's specific toys." On the contrary: arguing that some men, and only some men, can have women's toys too, is unfair to all other men and to all women.

Is that because you throw out ill thought out and ludicrous comments and then are unable to back them when challenged?

I agree, that’s fairly conversation limiting.

What changed for you @Seethlaw? As here you are now hitting out clear and succinct arguments post after post.

Two things:

1. I happened to come back yet again right on the day of the SC judgement. At first, I was baffled, and then I was horrified, when I realised that the whole thing had been about... women keeping the right to call themselves women!? Like, the word itself had been taken away from women, so that they had no more word to designate themselves? I was all for trans rights, but I also considered myself a feminist, and the idea that women couldn't even call themselves something specific, was absolutely wrong in my book.
2. Discovering TRAs were going after the kids. I don't know how I managed to avoid it for so long, but when I discovered that whole cohorts of kids had been given puberty blockers, that teenagers were put on cross-sex hormones, and that barely legal adults went through surgeries, I was sick to my heart and stomach. That's so fundamentally wrong, I have no word for it.

From there, I just had to let go of my "trans people don't want to hurt anyone" position, since it was very obviously false. So I let go of everything, reviewed just the facts, and everything fell into place.

And then I posted a thread, was asked extremely insightful questions about myself that forced me to thoroughly examine my feelings and beliefs, and learned a whole lot about myself and where I actually stood.

And let me tell you: this position is SO much more grounded than the one I had before! Before, I had only ~feelings~ ("I feel like I'm a man in a woman's body") and beliefs ("Trans men are men") and hopes ("We can all have what we want and live together - somehow"). Now I have hard facts and logic, and though it made my own situation more complicated, it also made the whole societal framework in my mind more solid and anchored. House built on the sand vs house built on the rock and all that :P

Ah, radicalised by Mumsnet!

We really do need t-shirts.

In other words, there's this super big important existential threat to women that affects all women but at the same time don't know about …because it doesn't impact their lives? Uh huh….

Not every woman will feel the effects immediately but they are still there. They go about their daily lives and then they turn up to the gym and there’s a naked man in the changing room or a male nurse being creepy when they have specifically requested no male nurses due to rape trauma, then the private hospital refuses their life saving surgery. And as I said, some of the brainwashed just don’t have the cognitive function to understand at the moment.

As has already been repeated upthread, GC's effectively silence issues that do impact women at scale.

Which issues for women are improved by including men in our spaces and definitions?

Disagreeing with a view is not the same as dismissing it. And it's you that's 'wokey' for prioritising lived experience not them.

I’m ‘wokey’ for listening to transpeople? I thought that’s what trans activists are always telling us to do.

The difference being is you are only promoting their view because it supports your own.

Are you struggling with the fact that a transpersons view agrees with my reasoning? So you feel at absolute liberty to dismiss Seethlaws lived experience out of hand and that’s ’disagreeing’ but I am ‘weaponising’ those views because I agree? You are consistently hypocritical, I’ll give you that.

GC's on this forum routinely mock trans people as mentally ill, predatory, groomers & fetishising but exploit trans people who agree with them as perfectly 'rational' not to be criticised so don't pretend not to know. You can't have it both ways.

So now you have zoomed out and are accusing me of everything that’s ever been said in this forum that you dislike? How very rational. It’s not mocking to state facts btw.