Kinda scary how far and deep male entitlement goes. You can be label a terf for expressing an opinion, talking about the female reproductive system, just about anything really. The fun awesome part is, only what is shown here are the outlying women who defy their socialization. How many more women don’t dare raise their head (because dealing with angry, entitled men is awesome) to deal with this assault on reality?
12 comments
November 15, 2018 at 7:29 am
john zande
Can’t trans be just trans? Wouldn’t that be the ideal middle ground? Greg Egan’s books have multiple genders (in the future), which is what we should probably, I think, strive for.
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November 15, 2018 at 12:13 pm
The Arbourist
@JZ
Wouldn’t that be nice? But then the trans community would have to start defining terms, which is a key point that there has been close to zero movement around. It much easier to have opaque definitions that can easily ‘fit’ into any argument because there won’t be a debate – just name calling (transphobic, terf, bigot) et cetera – and threats of suicidal ideation if things get too heated. There is only sound and fury because there are no substantive arguments to be found – but threats and intimidation (the male standard for dealing with females) is often enough to get women to fall in line and toe the line.
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November 15, 2018 at 12:53 pm
john zande
This really shouldn’t *be* a problem, should it? I can’t speak for a trans person, but I think I’d embrace a completely unique class, if that’s the right word, which it probably isn’t.
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November 15, 2018 at 7:59 pm
Curious Mother
I also can’t speak for trans people, but personally, I thought Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche had a point when she was asked if she thought trans women were women. Her answer, that “trans women were trans women” was widely condemned (perhaps bc she then went on to talk about gendered oppression in Nigerian culture). It would seem to me that trans people are always going to be biologically different, but that their identity should be honoured. Having said that, I read a trans woman proposing recently that if (let’s say) the brain of a cis man was suddenly transplanted into a female body, this person would likely not stop insisting that they WERE a man. Structurally, I would suppose that the main problem with seeing trans people as a separate class is that this would support isolation, seclusion and ‘othering.’
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November 15, 2018 at 8:02 pm
Curious Mother
There are no black hands or faces in the pictures above. That’s significant.
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November 15, 2018 at 10:16 pm
Elise
To CuriousMother. Significant of what? There are black hands in the pictures above, and the corresponding text indicates that the one who posted it is probably a black woman.
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November 16, 2018 at 1:36 am
Curious Mother
Elise, sorry – you’re right. I still think it’s significant that MOST of the hands and faces are white because trans excluding radical feminists are overwhelmingly white, middle class and university educated.
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November 18, 2018 at 9:15 am
The Arbourist
@CM
Is this the ‘white feminism’ gambit being deployed? It is the #3 tactic of genderists, the first being ‘transphobe’, the second being ‘terf’, in rhetorical manoeuvring to silence women and censor debate. Is addressing the argument put forth that difficult?
Just to head off any further possible accusations of ‘white feminism’ we can look to Raquel Rosario Sanchez for some definitional clarity:
“To argue that sex is not real and that gender is innate or chosen, instead of socially imposed, demonstrates both ignorance to the world around you as well as a position of privilege. In this way, we see that gender identity ideology literally is “white feminism”: a (so-called) feminism that ignores the material realities of the marginalized, centers the feelings and interests of the most privileged, and presents itself as universal. It is a “feminism” invented by academics in Western countries that does little to address the struggles of those outside these circles.”?
The transactivist playbook is filled with false dichotomies and the ‘white feminism/(ist)’ trope is not much different. It plays into the risible construction of cis/trans, which starts the oppression olympics by making the assumption that females somehow actively identify(?) with the oppressive feminine construct of gender and that by embracing the toxic gender roles forced on them by society they are somehow privileged (cis-privileged)? If people can identify with their oppression then the converse must also be true – people can identify out of their oppression. If this assertion had even a shred of truth involved, then females, en masse would be identifying as male to escape their mandated fate under patriarchy.
Not happening.
And of course the ever eloquent Rebecca Reilly Cooper adds:
“And though “gender identity” is presented as an issue feminism must contend with, it is, as Rebecca Reilly-Cooper explains, completely at odds with feminist analysis of biological sex as an axis of oppression:
“Women’s historic and continued subordination has not arisen because some members of our species choose to identify with an inferior social role (and it would be an act of egregious victim-blaming to suggest that it has). It has emerged as a means by which males can dominate that half of the species that is capable of gestating children, and exploit their sexual and reproductive labour.
We cannot make sense of the historical development of patriarchy and the continued existence of sexist discrimination and cultural misogyny, without recognizing the reality of female biology, and the existence of a class of biologically female persons.”
Far from fluid, the realities of sex-based oppression are strict and enforced through violence — this is particularly true for women of colour and women in poverty.”
—–
Finally, what sort of commitment to ‘inclusion’ is being demonstrated by demonizing one particular class of people? So if being white educated and middle class is antithetical to being a proper feminist, how does being white, male, and entitled (one cannot opt out of white male privilege or socialization for that matter), escape this particular criticism?
I’m not sure if you were actively employing the white feminist thought terminating cliche on purpose or not, but its utility is of limited value in terms of substantive argumentation. The issue at hand was that women are being persecuted for speaking about feminism, their bodies, and their biology.
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November 18, 2018 at 5:20 pm
Curious Mother
The Arbourist: I said only I thought race was a significant factor when looking at the demographics of so-called terfs – c’est tout.
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November 18, 2018 at 5:35 pm
The Arbourist
@CM
Oh , okay. 😀
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November 18, 2018 at 6:29 pm
tnt666
Also, to out oneself publicly, it takes a certain amount of security, of privilege. Anyone who can afford to should absolutely out themselves, but to expect it from people living from paycheck to paycheck with kids to raise, knowing that statistically, black women have less financial privilege than white women, would totally explain why “fewer black hands”. Social change is always mostly in the hands of those who can best afford the public exposure.
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November 19, 2018 at 11:26 am
The Arbourist
@ tnt666
The calculus you mentioned doesn’t seem to resonate with many of the people, who claim to be progressive, that I get into debates with.
Unfortunately, during many of the encounters, the pejorative usage of ‘white feminism’ has come up and in its usage is nothing more than a silencing tactic meant to end the conversation.
It, of course, is bullshit and the argument continues for me. But I can see where others who have not been socialized to believe their thoughts and opinions are worth hearing would stop cold.
:(
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