Recommend me a book!

[RibenaBerry]

Right, reading these boards recently has given me a bit of a kick up the arse on my feminist principles. I've done a bit of 'light' reading in the area (think The Beauty Myth as a teenager) but think I need something a bit more serious without being so weighty I never pick it up. I'd rather have something published in, say, the last 15 years than any of the 'classics'.

Any ideas?

im saying this Dittony!
i am not trying to turn what you say at all-
and im not deliberetly missing the point!
i didnt say that she had felt like she had given birth i said that she had felt like she was the mum!

I found the Telegraph newspaper article interesting. I'm not sure I would describe their headline "So, I had a sex change" as positive, when the article was actually dealing with gender reassigment. I'd prefer that newpapers did not continue to perpetuate that misconception to the general public.

It might have been done already on here (sorry, can't be arsed to read all 780 messages ) but I'm currently reading The Women's Room by Marilyn French. I'm not sure it's the best written book ever and it's quite rambling but, having said that, it really does tackle a lot of issues that are just as pertinent today. I've really got into it.

yes i know you was Dittony!
but you spoke about genital reproduction and
this is why i brought parenting into it!
im thinking youre saying"theres only such thing as male and female because of whats inbetween the legs-and whats inbetween the legs define what we are[only male or female]because of the ability/need to reproduce"!
but what i am saying Dittony is-how can that be when theres gay/lesbian parents!
which then leads me to think-if in one situasion somebody is saying "im mum of this child although i didnt produce this child"-
then why cant someone else in another situasion-eg a transwoman say-"i am female even though i was born with a male body"?
BTW-im not fighting with you and i am not deliberetly doing anything-i dont agree with some of what youre saying but im finding it interesting!
i have a condition which means i cant always "get"what someone is saying and others often find it hard to understand what im saying aswell-but im trying!

Hi Sparky, I don't want to put words in Dittany's mouth, but I think what she's saying is that no matter who parents a child, that child has been brought into the world by an egg meeting a sperm and those things came from a man and a woman.

Anyone can parent a child. A parent is someone who cares for and brings up a child. That does not, however, make that child the genetic product of that parent no matter how much anyone would want that to be the case.

The same goes for trans women. They can live as a woman, they can call themselves a woman, but they were not born a woman and they do not possess the reproductive equipment to produce an egg themselves.

There is a difference between relationships, which are flexible, and between the sex of a person, which is inflexibly defined by what reproductive system they are born with.

I think.

This stuff about if you have a "woman's brain" and you "feel like a woman" then you are by definition a woman means that many women who are born as women, raised as women, have children etc etc are not women, if they don't go around "feeling like women" or "thinking like women" whatever that means. That can't be right?

And this is actually all about feminism isn't it? I mean that is the topic and where this conversation came from. What bothers me is that if reporoduction etc are nothing to do with being a woman, and the only thing that means you are a woman is "feeling" it, then many of the things that traditionally feminists have stood for go out of the window. Everything to do with reoproductive health, childbirth, contraception etc etc are not a feminist issue as these things are nothing to do with being a woman. That really bothers me.

ramblingrosa thanks for the recommendation, the conversation has moved on a bit but I'm sure the OP will note it!

sparky about your point earlier about how trans MTF may not have had the experinece of growing up as a female in this society, but they have very likely had a difficult time of it, and a struggle, in other ways, and therefore can't we all be in the same struggle.

Well not really.

Feminism is to do with fighting sexism and male oppression, and in order to fully understand how sexist our society is, you need to be on teh receiving end. People who have only observed sexist behaviour, even if they find it appalling, will usually not be able to fully empathise with the victim. The sexism in our society starts with birth and is compounded every day after that. By the time a female leaves school she will have been bombarded with things that have happened to her because of her sex, that will have entirely shaped who she is. It is a very specific set of experiences.

So having a shared bad time of things can make people sympathetic to each other, yes, but I would say that they can't entirely understand.

That would tie in with the total lack of interest in anything which affects women in general from reproduction through FGM through girls being forced into prostitution and the whole range of things that are happening to women around the world, in the trans feminist manifesto. you might argue that I have not personally experienced FGM, true, but I have experienced male oppression and sexism and all the rest of it. I would never think to say eg to an organisation helping people who are deaf, that I completely understand where they are coming from, and in fact I should be able to tell them what to think, on the basis that I am female and have experienced discrimination on that basis. It's silly.

By all means trans feminists please do feel free to fight for causes which help women everywhere (although from the manifesto that doesn't seem to be something that is called for) and through my general activities hopefully all women will be helped including trans women. But don't tell me that loads of things which are important to women are irrelevant, and that I should turn my back on them to work towards a very specific set of aims that will help a very very small number of trans women.

thankyou Lifeissweet
yes-i agree that a egg meeting a sperm brings a child and this egg and sperm comes from a man and a woman!

but i dont agree with what youre saying about the rest-reason being-
i see things less black and white than this as well-things are not always black and white are they?
again-im not arguing with you Lifeissweet-
im just having great problems trying to put across what im saying-but i shall keep trying and hopefully get there eh!

?I consider having been raised as a boy to be a significant advantage in business. It has not only given me an unusual outlook, but put me at a huge advantage, because I was brought up to be confident business-wise, and technologically inclined. My schooling was completely different to my sisters?; I was pushed much harder in different areas. A lot of the women I meet who want to go into business have all the skills but lack the confidence, which is also partly why many women in IT are still disadvantaged; they are paid a staggering 23 per cent less than men in the IT sector?.

That quote from the Telegraph article really struck me. What this person is saying, is that in fact, it is not simply a question of "feeling" a woman. He was raised as a boy; because of that, she is now more successful than most women, because the confidence is there, the male sense of entitlement which women have battered out of them right from the start. This transexual person has still got enough of that male sense of entitlement, to behave "like a man" in business and therefore be far more succesful than other women.

Thats the bit I meant HerB - and is something that has been raised further up the thread....It is fascinating isn't it, and goes back to that argument about being brought up as a female....

Yes I think what struck me was precisely what is not being acknowledged on this thread by the pro trans people: that the fact of whether you are raised as a man or a woman, bloody well matters and isn't just a feeling.

Agree with what you're saying about never fully realising someone else's experiecnce ISNT.

I can empathise with a black person's psycholgy vis a vis racism, ahve even experienced some of it myself becuse of being Irish, but the racism I have experiecned is NOT like the raicsm a black person would have experienced and therefore I can't properly understand it - no one would know I was Irish until I opened my mouth when I was younger (wouldn't know at all now as speak with a n English accent) and the anti -irish racism is different in nature to anti black racism, just as anti asian racism is different to either, anti chinese etc. - all these people have experienced racism, but the nature of those experiences will be different and the groups may empathise with each other and recognise common strands, but there will be unique experiences within each group, not shared by the other groups.

Sparky, the whole fact of human life coming from a man and a woman is a black and white thing. That's all I was saying. It is just a plain fact.

It is also a plain fact that a parent who is not the genetic parent of a child will never be so.

I don't see the grey areas. Sorry if I'm being dim. Keep trying to explain your point - I'm not arguing with you either, but trying to clarify your ideas. I'm interested in what you have to say.

I think that the implication is that if you say that sex and who has genetically produced a child is black and white then you are a terrible bigot who would not recognise gay parents, adoption and lots of other things.

I think that is the gist, trying to imply that saying that a woman who has been born and raised a woman has a unique experience is a bigoted viewpoint.

The thing is that if being born a woman and being raised a woman means nothing, then where does that leave any of us. The only real women are the ones who were born and raised men? Because they truly "feel" and "think" like women and have chosen to be women and thus they have a greater understanding of being women than the people who simply happen to have been born with female sexual characteristics? That seems to be the implication here and it is getting me down.

isnt-
is this post in answer to mine?
ifso-no-im not saying these things at all!
im saying things are not black and white-
because if they was-there wouldnt be gay parents or transpeople!
im not a bigot isnt-im trying my best to try and understand what others are saying and put my thoughts across aswell!

Well I will meet you as far as saying that some things are not black and white. Sexuality is not black and white. Human relationship are not black and white.

Reproduction needing a male's sperm and a female's egg is, however, black and white. So agreeing that some things are not simple doesn't negate the fact that some things just ARE.

yep-i agree with you on these things lifeissweet-
and i also agree that some things are aswell-
but i feel that transsexuelism is one of them things that are aswell!

HerBeatitude - Further to that quote about the trans woman admitting that she had a different education to her sister. It would have been interesting to discover how much concern the trans woman did or did not show during childhood about the different educational trajectories experienced by her and her sister.

sparky you misunderstand i was not trying to say you were a bigot! I was saying that the "black and white" thing has been used to say that some of us on here are bigots but that I disagree with that.

I think also I have fallen into the trap that I am very against some of the things said by some of the people who came over with you, and have ended up sort of lumping you all together and arguing as if you all said the same thing - which of course you didn't.

Sorry about that.

I also agree that lots of things aren't black and white and that people should be free to be whoever they want to be (assuming they're not hurting anyone else).

Where i have difficulty is with this very basic argument that being a woman is "a state of mind". Thus all a woman is, is someone who says they think they are a woman.

If that argument is accepted it makes a mockery of many of the prioirities of the feminist movement

And it means that many women born as raised women, are not actually women.

I am amazed actually that this thread is on teh feminist topic of mumsnet, populated by (mainly) women, with various feminist ideas, who are being forced to argue the case for them a. actually being women at all and b. being feminists.

It's mind boggling actually.

isnt-thankyou for explaining this!
oh i see[black and white]oh ok-
well since i dont know whats been said to you about the black and white thing-i cant comment on this!
id like to point out that i havent come here to make a mockery of feminism[im not saying youre saying this of me]
and i can see why youre saying some things-
i came here because of the statement that was said about "child abusers"
and im sure that if you heard of a derogatry statement against women-youd be straight there-rightly so and id be behind you!
anyway-dont want to start any arguments off again about this statement-im here to try and help others understand-as its only by this-that things move on!
as i said-im having great trouble doing this-but im trying!
im not saying that a woman that is born and raised a woman isnt a woman!
yes it is all rather mind boggling isnt it-
ho hum-maybe we ll end up understanding each other more-maybe we wont!
right-ive gotta go out-be back later-ill try and elaborate on what ive been saying!

Sparky - when you get back to wherever you were linked to this thread from, can you please clarify that the only accusation of child abuse was levelled at someone who was giving hormone blockers to a small child. I am willing to assume that you would agree that that is an abusive thing to do.

lifeissweet-
well-as far as i know there isnt no big thing going on anywhere about this thread!
although i was angry-ive also come in peace-
i dont wish to cause no arguments with anyone nowhere-
yes-if anyone asks me-ill clarify it!
yep-i agree that giving blockers to a very young child is wrong!

I wanted to comment on two of the analogies.
Race is a social construct. Biologists have said this for a long time. There is nothing new or shocking about that.

But variation in skin pigmentation is a biological reality. There are few important health concerns linked to geographically specific evolution of skin pigmentation. For example, 'white' European women can't give birth to a live baby in some areas of high altitude in South America, while the indigenous women can, because their placentas have evolved to cope with the oxygen levels. There are other issues that are correlated with skin pigmentation in specific locations such as malaria resistance or the ability to absorb vitamin D through the skin.

But apart from this, 'race' is entirely socially constructed. There are not white brains or black brains. But it is important that black people in Britain are able to maintain ownership of that social construct. There are many studies showing that for a black to child to grow up feeling positive about their skin pigmentation, they need to be exposed to lots of positive examples of black history, culture, fight for civil rights, and black role models. So in order to end discrimination, the social construct has to be maintained. We can't just pretend that the discrete history of black people or their different position in various societies do not exist simply because it has been constructed. The fact that societal roles are constructed does not mean that they do not exist or that they can be escaped from by people who have a specific material reality by virtue of the biology of their body.