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Consider this conversation and then juxtaposition it with all the chatter one hears about ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’. Add to your lens the notion of male privilege and how it often plays out when it comes to respecting the boundaries of females.
(not) Funny how that works.
http://auntiewanda.tumblr.com/post/160517895825/cecaeliawitch-this-was-a-pretty-grand-moment-and
“Every single time I hear a transactivist or MTT person call us ‘cis’ or ‘cis privileged’ as a woman I am going to assume that they think the following experiences of being a woman privilege us:
The number one greatest industry in the world is the buying, selling and trafficking of women and girls for sex trade.
Every year, millions of little girls and babies have their genitals mutilated, stretched and cut for the benefit of men.
Girls who have been raped by men all over the world are encourage to marry their rapist instead of press charges against them.
If you are a woman, you are instantly to blame for any sexual violence or domestic violence you ever experienced either by characterological blame or situational blame.
Millions of girls each year are victims of forced marriages to older adult men. Women still don’t earn as much as men in the same jobs as them.Women are expected to look and act a very specific way else be cast out in every sense of that phrase. Women are objectified and dehumanised through porn which is ALWAYS filmed from the perspective of the man and has been filmed by men for men ever since filming began.
Women are still minorities in STEM jobs and academic positions. Women are still minorities in boardrooms and in government parties.
One of the most lucrative medical industries in the world is the cosmetic surgery of women to look more like fucking porn stars (boob jobs, vaginoplasty).
Research into medicine and health has always been done on men and male animals and has never before actually been tested on female species or female humans – so all medical research findings are assumed to be the same for women despite us being completely different biologically. When medical research actually included women, it has exploited the bodies of women of color. Examples include James Marion Sims who used slaves as guinea pigs, unnecessary hysterectomies done on poor black and Puerto Rican women to give doctors in training a chance to practice their skills, The Tuskgee Syphilis Experiment, and the Henrietta Lacks story.Women have been historically sectioned and locked up in asylums and mental health centres for showing emotions or for stepping out of their gender roles.
Women are still being oppressed all over the world by their cultures and their religions which are a tool for a patriarchy. Women have to battle the ‘Oh she’s just a stay at home mum, nothing to add to society’ bullshit versus the ‘oh she works all the time so she’s a bad mum’ bullshit. Women who work are constantly being shown as taking on significantly more home duties than male partners despite also working full time – they are still doing all domestic duties too.Women in serious pain in a hospital are significantly less likely to receive adequate pain relief or the right care because gender roles taught doctors and nurses that women are more emotional and sensitive to pain so are probably exaggerating symptoms.
Women are the ones saying to each other ‘let me know you get home safe’ or ‘text me when you get in’ – MEN are not doing that with each other because they don’t have to think about personal safety.
Black women in slavery were used, raped, trafficked, beaten and repeatedly impregnated and used as ‘breeders’ for slave owners. Chinese women for hundreds of years have been encouraged to wrap their feet to make them as small as possible for the pleasure of men (specifically a male emperor). Women who do not conform to gender roles are seen as deviant and deserving of harm in all societies.
In China, over 200 million baby girls were killed as newborns or in infanticide/female abortion because they were not BOYS under the 1 child policy. In Africa and all across the world now, girls are being abused by breast ironing which is the use of hot rocks to pound, massage or beat the breast tissue of prepubescent girls to stop the growth of breasts for a number of extremely misogynistic reasons (shame on the family, to prevent them being raped, to prevent men getting them pregnant too young).
Women are shamed for their menstruation in all cultures, all countries and all religions – periods are seen as nasty and gross despite being the only thing keeping the human race reproducing. Women have not been equal members of society (and still aren’t in many respects) for the ENTIRE HISTORY OF HUMANITY.
We haven’t chosen to be women.
We haven’t chosen to be discriminated against and oppressed our entire lives.
We want liberation from gender roles and patriarchy.You decide you feel like a woman, demand that everyone colludes with you, claims to be the ultimate oppressed class, won’t use ANY male facilities and force your way into female only spaces and then claim it’s women who are the problem. You make up a fucking term to elevate the privilege of women so that you can Trojan horse feminism and womanhood.
Let’s be clear here, there is no fucking way that women could ever infiltrate men’s circles and spaces and cultures and movements the way men are currently doing under the banner of ‘transactivism’. Second, look at the way transmen are treated and look at their communication styles versus transwomen. Transmen are not the ones threatening to make us suck their dick on twitter. Transmen are not launching campaigns about wanting to be able to access male facilities. Transmen aren’t aggressively trolling men and forcing men to change all of their language and discourse and biological facts.
You know why?
Cos they were socialized as women using all the oppressions above – and they would never have the class power to force men to accept them in the way transwomen are currently forcing women to accept them.
The idea that feminism is the movement to liberate women from patriarchy (a notion lost to much of the befuddled third-wave) is finally beginning to (re)gain some traction as more women see what the unctuous morass of neo-liberal identity politics inflicts upon their mass movement.
“It saddens me to see the inclusive liberal feminism I grew up with reduced to a grab-bag of competing victimhood narratives and rival community-based but essentially individualist identities jostling for most-oppressed status. We need a better reaction to the election of a man who cynically responded to the center-left’s fragmentation by celebrating his own angry populist’s definition of white identity. Can’t we rise above the sniping about “privilege,” “white feminism,” “intersectionality,” and hierarchies of grievance in the face of Trump and the dangers he poses to the American and international liberal world order and women everywhere?
Such an approach doesn’t mean ignoring the differing experiences of women, or the history of racism between women, but confronting them empirically and resisting blaming each other for systemic disadvantage. Despite rampant inequality in the U.S., the word “class” doesn’t get a mention in the ‘Guiding vision and definition of principles’ of the march. Yet trans women/youth/migrants receive six references.
Cursory attention is given to the structural inequalities that limit all American women, regardless of their race, religion, sexual or other identities. American women across the board face huge barriers to labor force participation and achieving work-family balance compared to their sisters in Europe and other comparable developed countries. The vision document doesn’t even call expressly for nationally mandated paid maternity leave of at least three months — it describes “family leave” vaguely as a “benefit” rather than a right, in contrast to LGBTQIA human rights.”
It is almost like Ms.Symons is getting annoyed by the fact that the issues that are directly affecting women aren’t being centred in the march by and for women.
Fancy that.
Let’s see some transactivism in action shall we? Elizabeth Harrington, reporting in the Washington Free Beacon writes:
“Transgender activists are upset that the women’s march over the weekend was not inclusive to biological men who identify as women, as the protest presented an “oppressive message” that having a “vagina is essential to womanhood.”
Saturday’s event to oppose the inauguration of Donald Trump was largely a “white cis women march,” with too many pictures of female reproductive organs and pink hats, according to trans women and “nonbinary” individuals interviewed by Mic.com.”
Wow! Are you seeing the benefits of inclusivity? (I most certainly am!) I mean, the feelings of men at a woman’s march should definitely be prioritized as their gender-feels are profoundly more important than the onslaught women and their rights are being subjected to as a class.
“The women’s march had an over-reliance on slogans and posters depicting gender norms, like using pink to represent women and girls, said some transgender activists who boycotted the march.
“The main reason I decided not to go was because of the pussy hats,” said one transwoman from California. “I get that they’re a response to the ‘grab them by the pussy’ thing, but I think some people fixated on it the wrong way.”
“I believe there’s a lot of inequality that has to do with genitals—that’s not something you can separate from the feminist movement,” the transwoman added. “But I feel like I’ve tried to get involved in feminism and there’s always been a blockade there for trans women.”
The ‘blockade’ being that effective feminism is about he liberation of females from patriarchy. If you aren’t female, then this particular movement just isn’t about you. If you would like to show support for, and be an ally and reinforce the Feminist movement – that would be great – but have the common decency to not co-opt the feminist movement for your own agenda.
“Signs that said “Pussy grabs back,” “Resistance is Fertile,” and “Pussy Power” sent a “clear and oppressive message to trans women, especially: having a vagina is essential to womanhood.”
The article explained that transwomen are weary of “trans-exclusionary radical feminists.” “TERFs” are people who “equate womanhood with having a vagina” or feminists who “argue trans women are actually men in disguise trying to infiltrate their spaces.”
I’m guessing that women (and by that term I mean adult human female) are quite weary of having men (for centuries) try to define their reality for them.
Clearly, acknowledging sex-based oppression -in a feminist movement – is quite beyond the pale. Reflecting on the quote above, if one cannot distinguish between the notion of women being nothing but vaginas versus the notion that women have vaginas, then one probably shouldn’t be speaking about woman’s issues in the first place.
Finally, hopefully we can see what the transactivist movement brings to the table –
So ya, it is time for transactivists to acknowledge the fact that feminism is for females (this should not be controversial) and work in solidarity with Feminists toward feminist goals – or start your own movement that centres your own particular goals.
**UPDATE** – Trans solidarity with women? F*ck that noise. Further evidence of the need for a strong cleavage between feminists and transactivists.
http://tehbewilderness.tumblr.com/post/156776500409/did-the-national-womens-march-call-for-pussy
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