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“i really don’t understand how you preach that women should all love each other but not accept transwomen. i do see some of your points about men claiming to be trans lesbian and not actually be either but.. i still think transwomen are women.. i had a lot of respect for you until now..”
awaitingthematriarchy answered:
“I’m sorry to hear that of course, but I stand by my beliefs. ‘Woman’ is not an identity that you can opt in or out of – it is a politically neutral fact of biology. It’s the word that describes adult human females. Women can exist in infinite variations of personality types and aesthetics, but whatever our differences, we’re all united by our shared biology, which in turn confers a shared experience as being socialised as female under the patriarchy.
However, if we accept male-bodied people as ‘women’, then the meaning of the word changes. What does it mean to be a woman if we remove it from the state of existing as female? What does it mean to ‘identify as a woman’ if you are biologically male? What are you identifying with? If you can’t identify with the biological reality of being a woman, and you can’t identify with being socialised as a female, then the only thing that you can claim to identify with is the more abstract concept of femininity, which isn’t the same thing as womanhood at all. Does ‘woman’ become redefined to mean ‘anyone who identifies as feminine’? Where does that leave women who don’t identify with the social expectations around femininity? Aren’t they women?
How can we combat (or even vocalise) sex-based oppression if our biological sex is now irrelevant to womanhood? And let’s be clear, as a female I don’t have the option of identifying out of sex-based oppression. If all women everywhere collectively announced that we no longer identified as women, then it wouldn’t somehow magically stop misogyny. It would still be the same 50% of the human population being raped, abused, and exploited. The very act of a transwoman identifying as a woman and demanding recognition as such is an extension of male privilege. Women don’t get to chose our oppression under patriarchy.
So no, I’m afraid that I love and respect women too much to pretend that I view transwomen as anything other than gender non-conforming males. I don’t hate transwomen, and I believe that they should be able to live their lives free from violence or harassment, and I support their right to dress and present themselves in whatever way makes them happy, but I don’t believe that the act of doing so fundamentally changes their sex. My feminism is about prioritising females and lesbians, and combatting sex-based oppression. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I believed that womanhood was something as flimsy as something that anyone can ‘identify’ into.”
Brave words in the current climate of fake news and factual-relativsm.
This from a review on the Feminist Current by Jen Izaakson:
“What unites these men’s rights groups with the alt-right is that they believe white, straight, males have been left behind and now exist at the bottom of the social and sexual hierarchy. They believe that while the world once belonged (rightfully) to them, now women, people of colour, and sexual minorities rule. Indeed, their insult of choice, “cuck,” is acute projection — they feel usurped and humiliated by these groups, and believe they have been robbed of the privilege they are entitled to. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the phenomena of what 4chaners refer to as “incels” (men who conceive of themselves as “involuntary celibates”), lamenting that women refuse sex with them, rendering them modern victims of their self-conceived “sexual hierarchy”.
When Nagle writes of “online culture wars,” we must recognize that the main battle is over truth. While Nagle does not explore the feminist dimension of these online street fights, specifically, the implications are evident. Both the alt-right and the anti-materialist, regressive left believe that prostitution is not about women’s position under patriarchy as a resource for men, but sexual liberation and the free market. Both consider the sex trade to be a situation where women come out on top — with autonomy, empowered through profit and/or sexual freedom. Rather than overturning the system of prostitution, both groups believe we need to offer more rights to pimps and johns, in order to allow prostituted women to benefit from an unregulated free market. (So far, so Marxist!) Most significantly for feminism, both these tendencies wish to block certain feminist analysis and activism — specifically, the kind that challenges the system of patriarchy at its root.”
And there you have it folks, your handy guide for knowing that you’re doing effective feminism – if you are pissing off the dudes on the right, and the left, you’re doing work.
I may have to check out this book, as it seems to address the growing problem on the left of getting away from material analysis of societal problems.
“Taylor Swift’s firm testimony in a civil trial this week involving a former radio host who allegedly groped her is sending a strong message to women who might experience similar forms of sexual harassment and assault: Don’t diminish the act.
“It provides a useful template for her fans, for younger girls who might experience these forms of harassment and be intimidated out of saying anything because their voice is consistently discredited,” said Karen Tongson, a professor who specializes in gender studies and pop culture at the University of Southern California.”
Constantly being discredited. Welcome to the world of being female in society. It’s the little details like the aforementioned that they don’t list in the Growing Up Female set of instructions.
Will Ms.Swift’s actions make a difference? There is certainly a large mountain to climb in Canada on the issue of sexual harassment.
“According to 2014 Statistics Canada data, 83 per cent of incidents involving sexual assault — including unwanted touching — were not reported to police. The most common reason provided by victims for not reporting the crime was that it was considered minor and not worth the bother to come forward.”
Yeah. The violation of women’s boundaries in 2017, in Canada is still a thing. I think perhaps our PM, before making any more “year” plus declaration statements – ala balanced cabinet – we should tackle the systematic lack of respect for the boundaries and bodies of women first.
“The Canadian Women’s Foundation told CBC in a statement that Swift’s refusal to accept blame is “particularly important, as that often happens when seeking justice through the court system.”
Why is this important? Because we still blame the victim for getting assaulted and harassed in our society and our institutions still reflect this patriarchal value.
Good on ya Ms.Swift for fighting the good fight and showing us what we’re up against in the battle for a female liberation in our society.
So many discussion centre around this notion. It would be nice if we could agree on a basic set of facts rather than arguing from completely different frameworks.
[Source]
A nice example of the different way society treats women and men. And yes dudes, of course you don’t see it.
http://vuvaliniterf.tumblr.com/post/163882741302/aki-anyway-when-someone-says-these-days-sexism
When women make progress in arenas typically identified as exclusively male, sexual representations are used to establish cultural boundaries that reproduce male supremacy (Birrell & McDonald, 2000; Robinson, 2002). It is no accident that Danica Patrick’s success in Formula One racing was coupled with a semi nude photo shoot in Sports Illustrated’s hallowed (soft porn) “swimsuit edition” in 2008. This strategy for preserving male supremacy is borne out in a recent study (Kane, 2008) on the effect of sexist marketing strategies for women’s sports. Kane found that the use of sexual objectification as a marketing tool, rather than building a greater fan base and greater interest in women’s sports, actually undermines the female/pro-female (parents of girls, for example) fan base of women’s sports while failing to generate a male fan base.
>-Ann Travers, “The Sport Nexus and Gender Injustice” in Studies in Social Justice 2 (2008): 79–101, p.84
Getting in trouble for naming vectors of oppression; it is what Feminists do.
Good Show Ms.Ditum.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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