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Most men are quite clueless about the silent web of privilege and power that surround them. When they decide that they want to be women that cluelessness follows them…
Did you ever want to see what a patriarchal double standard looks like in action? Most women understand completely as it onerous crap like this that circumscribes their experiences in society and is a daily reminder of their second class standing (in 20-fracking-18). Conversely, the class of men, who are often the beneficiaries of said double standards often are unaware of systemic voodoo that ‘mysteriously’ makes their lives that much more livable and convenient. The qualifications for entering either class of people – being a privileged male, or an oppressed female is entirely based on the foundational truth of which biological sex class you happen to be born into. It should also be said that this feature (sex) and the associated benefits/disadvantages (sex based privilege/oppression) follow you regardless of how you happen to identify in society.
But enough of that heady class based analysis of the oppressive forces in society, we have to talk about… soccer.
How could soccer (or football for my European readership) provide the genesis for a piece about the patriarchal double standards that permeate our society (ohh, and probably a critique of the violent strain of transactivism that is currently afflicting western soceity as well)? Let’s set the stage, with many thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the news article:
“An international men’s soccer league has no room for Canada’s top female player. Stephanie Labbé is considered the No. 1 player in the country. She earned 49 caps, awarded for each international game appearance, and helped the Canadian women’s team win Olympic bronze at the 2016 Rio games. To challenge herself, she also tried to win a place on the Calgary Foothills FC men’s soccer team this spring. She earned that spot — but the league refused to let her play due to her gender.”
Firstly, full marks to the CBC for conflating the social construct of gender with a biological fact of sex. Secondly, this story doesn’t get going till we see what transpired.
The pre-professional league runs teams across North America, but in a statement to CBC News, said it follows “gender-based eligibility requirements.”
“Although our specific mission relates to the men’s game, we applaud all that female players have done to move the sport of soccer forward in North America,” the league said in the statement, declining an interview.
“Stephanie Labbé, in particular, has had tremendous success, and we wish her the best as she continues to pursue her career goals.”
Labbé, however, faces being benched all season. Because she and the team were so hopeful to have her play, she missed the deadline to join women’s teams.
So, a female athlete – Canada’s best Soccer player – is accepted onto FC Calagary to play. After committing to the Calgary team and the associated scheduling, the league says well, no you silly female, this is a MEN’S league and we don’t allow you nor your shameful vagina to be anywhere near our games or our precious league because of the RULES.
Labbé career is hamstrung for at least a season because of the commitments she made to the Calgary FC team. Well, you know, rules are rules. Sorry about your luck. End of story.
And that’s the fucking problem right there. There is no story after this story – a woman (adult human female) told to get bent (despite being the best in Canada)because this is a man’s game – woman’s grievances and sacrifice dismissed with a shrug. Woman citing the injustice of the situation and how drastically unfair the situation is has her arguments dissipate into the willowy-wispish grey vapours (of patriarchal society) never to be remarked on again.
This is the normal state of affairs. Welcome to the world of being female in society.
Men’s rules and men’s sports are automatically granted respect and more importantly, respect for the rules and guidelines that protect their game. It isn’t even a question.
Let’s compare and contrast though what happens when a male decides he want to be in a female sport.
Fallon Fox is a trans identified male and also a fighter in the UFC. Was he told that his participation in the female UFC was against the rules, so sorry about your luck? Too Bad?
Nope. Not even close. This isn’t someone going against the rules, but rather a brave, noble, and ‘progressive’ venture. A bold tale that is venerated by numerous media outlets. This is the power males wield in society – because Fox calls himself a woman – it is accepted by society – the facts and reality of the situation be damned. Let’s look at example #239478322 +1 of what happens when male feelings take precedence over female safety and material reality. This quote from Tamikka Brents an actual female opponent of Fox’s who was TKO’d in the first round of their match –
“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” she stated. “Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…
“I still disagree with Fox fighting,” Brents stated. “Any other job or career I say have a go at it, but when it comes to a combat sport I think it just isn’t fair. At least not until we have more scientific proof that it is or isn’t fair. More research is needed for sure. Like I said, I am not a doctor, I can only say my opinion and I don’t believe that
“Brents reportedly suffered a concussion and a broken orbital bone during the two-minute beatdown, and required seven staples in her head.”
Yes, Takikka Brents is the example writ on a personal level when we allow (extra-spicy) male delusion to rewrite the (already male authored and male friendly) rules of how society works. Women’s safety, bodily integrity, and boundaries are all put at risk.
It’s not the full embrace of the misogynistic gender stereotypes, or the balefully embroidered tempest in a teapot that is ‘misgendering’, or even the entire fallacy that is ‘self-identication’. It’s the glaringly obvious fact that these frocked bell-ends consistently act and expect to be treated with the male privilege that they’ve been socialized with since birth.
Because if they understood, even a tiny-fraction of what it is like to be female and socialized as a female in society (implicitly understood as you should prioritize the feelings of others, there is something fundamentally unclean/shameful about your body, and you should sit down, shut up, and make yourself small), they wouldn’t act as they do. It’s your biggest tell, my dudes. Because if you were actually a woman, you’d be in the shutting up/swallowing your dreams phase of your artificially circumscribed life a long time ago and you and your very important opinions would reside where most of female anguish/frustration/rage currently lay – quietly impotent in the grey vaporous patriarchally approved ether.
TiM’s most certainly wouldn’t do this if they *got* what being a woman in society is about:
The weapons the trans identified males were using in the above photo, now part of a display at the San Francisco Public Library. Quoted material from Gender Trender).
“If you thought the age of scold’s bridles and dunking pools designed to torture and kill disobedient women were a thing of the past, you would be wrong. The San Francisco Public Library unveiled an exhibit this week featuring blood stained t-shirts encouraging patrons to “punch” feminists, along with several installations of deadly weapons painted pink: baseball bats covered in barbed wire, axes, among others, all designed by men to kill feminist women.”
The male creators of the exhibit also included a helpful manifesto, blaming lesbians, feminists and other uppity women for causing more deaths (by “harassing” men with their dastardly opinions!) than all the actual real murders committed by violent men.
The display, launched mere days after the mass murder of women in Toronto by “incel” terrorist Alek Minassian and echoing his philosophy, was funded by the non-profit Friends of The San Francisco Public Library and created by The Degenderettes, led by Scout Tran Caffee, founder of Trans Dykes: the anti-lesbian Antifa. The group specifically targets lesbians as “oppressors” of men -because they exclude males from their dating pools. The men in the group identify as transgender and consider themselves to be male lesbians.
Materials include riot shields inscribed with the slogan “Die Cis Scum”. Cis is a transgender community term, generally used as a slur, for non-transgender people.
From the exhibit manifesto:
“The Degenderettes are a humble and practical club, fighting for gender rights within human reach rather than with legislation and slogans. Their agit-prop artwork has come to permeate internet trans culture, national television, and headlines as far as Germany.” [From the San Francisco Public Library website here: https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1032262901 ]
Posted at the exhibition, MRA/incel complaints of “reverse sexism”: The fact that violence against feminists and lesbians is considered more likely to be perpetrated by males (as evidenced by all crime statistics worldwide throughout human history) is a conclusion that discriminates against men. Hmm. Never seen that one before. (sarcasm). Explicitly states that acknowledging male violence against women is “anti-transgender”.”
Weapons to hurt the females that disagree with you. Using violence as a ‘debate’ tactic. Blaming women for the problem of male violence. These ‘women’ sure do sound a lot like entitled males who, at the drop of hat (bonnet?, because clothes make the woman amiright??) are likely to resort to violence to enforce and protect their male privilege (in this case, dictating not only their reality but what yours needs to be as well, because ‘fuck you’ and your bigoted transphobic dedication to the world/facts/objective reality).
I’m waiting hand-maidens.
I pine to hear your spirited defence of male violence and male privilege be sure to include a piece on ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘intersectionality’ it will make your empower your arguments, trust me. Make the case the against against what is right here in the open – the vulgar expression of male dominance and socialization – cloaked in the somehow-palatable post-modern liberal new-think/new-speak. Explain how amazingly progressive transactivism is, and how it should be a part of feminism proper.
I shan’t hold my breath.
I will, however, untidily weave my way back to the introduction and the soccer experience that Stephanie Labbé had and some possible solutions to her problem. With the current gender-identity fad (fap?) that is going on, she could very well self-identify as a man and under our oh so long sighted Canadian Gender Legislation go to court and sue the crap out of the Soccer association for not respecting the gender of her choice, after-all its perfectly clear that strong feelings and thoughts alone can change you from one gender to another (dicey though, because strangely, a female can say that are male, but society isn’t obligated to respect her worldview, or her gender identity especially because society tends to discount the female view/opinion on everything). This solution (if it works) though is less than optimal because she would still be playing within the patriarchal superstructure of gender that at its very foundation lays the tenets for female oppression and male domination. Certainly, she could be advancing her individual cause, but as to other women who suffer under patriarchy would that be the solution for them as well?
Why are not females by the tens of thousands flocking to the trans banner and identify as trans-men to get all the sweet sweet benefits that come with being a man? It seems like a rather easy fix no?
Look at what is happening in the real world. Trans identified males are getting the headlines and are the leadership of the transactivist movement. Shouldn’t the trans identified women – now with male privilege, because transmen are men, – be leading the way? Currently though, what are trans identified females getting lauded for? Hmm…giving birth… of course, nothing says male privilege like having a baby.
No amount of ‘queering’ the system will change the fundamental rules that underlie the power dynamics of our society – sex based privilege and sex based oppression are some of the prime movers in society and no amount of language deformation and gender bending is going to change that. Playing within the toxic game of gender and gender roles only strengthens the justifications for keeping the status quo intact, when in fact, the problem is the very game itself and that is the problem that needs to be addressed.
Do away with the conception of gender and we’re suddenly one step closer to that free and equal society people keeping pining for.
Meghan Murphy is one of Canada’s leading Feminists. This quote is from her article – “Thanks to trans activism, 2017 saw a return to old-school, sexist dismissals of women and women’s rights.” Definitely worth your time to go and peruse the entire article. What I would like to focus on is how well this quote highlights one aspect of the feminist struggle against the various incarnations of patriarchy and men’s rights activism.
Feminists (those who struggle for the emancipation of women from patriarchy) are being attacked for merely naming the problem that they face. Gender is a problem, it is a toxic hierarchy that hurts both women and men. The liberal mainstream won’t have any of it though (quelle suprise~!~). Instead, the notion of gender identity is being enshrined in law and shoehorned into society which of course is good for men, but bad for women. Women brave enough to challenge the ideology of ‘gender identity’ are are routinely misconstrued, harassed, and marginalized. Why?
Questioning the dominant patriarchal narrative – and yes the transactivist narrative is inherently patriarchal – is challenging male dominance in society, and will always be vilified and marginalized.
The good news is that the dictates of reality defying ‘gender-identity’ platform, even if just superficially examined, are unpalatable to not only to the so-called ‘mainstream sensibilities’, but also to those who value rational arguments based on material reality and fact.
Feminists have known this pretty much since the beginning and the radical vanguard are now slowly being joined by those who appreciate the strength of radical feminist arguments and analysis.
Let us hope this trend continues and intensifies, because Patriarchy 2.0 is in dire need of a serious blaming.
“The notion that “gender identity” exists at all flies in the face of feminist analysis, which says being born female is what forces women into an oppressed class of people, regardless of whether or not they identify with that position. But this point, as well as the concerns women have expressed around the impact of writing something as vague and as regressive as “gender identity” into legislation, including questions around whether males should be permitted in female prisons, change rooms, and transition houses, go unacknowledged and unaddressed by trans activists and queer theorists like Barker. Instead, she paints challenges to this ideology as nothing more than a hateful, unfounded, irrational attack on trans-identified individuals, writing:
“A moral panic is the process of arousing social concern over an issue. Moral panics often involve scapegoating a particular group as the ‘evil’ responsible for a range of societal ills.”
Indeed, Barker sounds no different than the anti-feminists over at Spiked, who claim the #MeToo campaign is a “harassment panic” that demonizes men unfairly. She claims trans-identified people are vilified by challenges to and questions about transgenderism, trans activism, and policies that allow men to enter into women-only spaces, simply based on self-identification, intentionally declining to acknowledge that what women fear is not an abstract trans-identified person, but men, specifically. No one has argued, as Barker claims, that trans-identified people are specifically dangerous or violent. What has been argued is that males are a threat to females, regardless of how they identify. If this fact is indeed considered a “moral panic” in the eyes of people like Jones and Barker, then they are better suited for the alt-right crowd than they are among progressives.
Barker says that this kind of “moral panic” (commonly known as “feminism”) exists to “enable us to attack a specific group for problems we’re all implicated in”… As though we have no idea who is doing all the raping and beating in this world and as though women are equally as culpable…”
Men will do pretty much anything to blame others for their problems. Including telling a false narrative and trying to subvert the feminist movement for their own ends. Sorry for the segmented presentation, but it is the best twitter has to offer.
Gender is a deliberate, carefully constructed edifice of patriarchy that is designed for one purpose. The oppression of females. Playing around with or in the more edgy nomenclature ‘subversion’ of gender roles – “I’m a non-binary, pansexual-genderqueer-demi-gurl” [wtf?] – is nothing more than a horizontal shuffle of the gender deck. The hierarchy is not disturbed or affected in anyway. Well, maybe women’s position in society is further eroded because of the flak they receive from delusional dudes who ‘deeply feel’ that they are female. Being labelled a T*RF or an exclusionary bigot for talking about female bodies and the processes associated with them is yet another man-made hurdle women (adult human females) must face.
It (gender and the transactivism that advocates for it) is a rather large crock of shit. Feminism is the class based movement that struggles from the emancipation of females from harsh strictures of patriarchy. By necessity feminism is a exclusionary movement- males, the oppressor class, do not get to be centred in, or lead the movement. One doesn’t invite the people who are oppressing you, to lead your movement – it is as asinine as expecting the KKK to be a central part of Black Lives Matter. So kindly, handmaidens and dudes, gtfo with your bowdlerized version of intersectionality and vainglorious struggle against ‘exclusion’ – if you spent a minute observing the societal and class dynamics at play you might see the magnitude of the latest gender Trojan-horse and maybe, just maybe, stop exuberantly pulling it through the gates.
bleatmop
The Intransigent One
Mystro
The Arbourist
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