I don’t know what the point of this sidetrack is, but OK. Let’s accept that there is nothing inevitable about misogyny and patriarchy.
Do you think that defining woman (or female) so that anyone can opt into it is going to address misogyny and patriarchy? Or will it just change the nature of misogyny and patriarchy so that instead of “bitches be crazy”, we will hear “biological bitches be crazy”.
Instead of the Karen meme, we will have the cis-Karen meme.
It would be only fair to have a trans-Karen meme, right? I mean, if we allow cis-Karen to be a laughing stock, then it seems to me we should be able to turn trans-Karen into a buffoon too. But I doubt that will be allowed. I doubt transwomen will allow themselves to be laughed at and humiliated. But biological women will continue to be. We will still hear men insult each other by saying like “you throw like a girl”. We will still have to endure jokes about “being on the rag” or “being hormonal”. People will still tell us we’re being “hysterical”. People will still condescend to us about how weak we are or unmechanically inclined we are, even when we prove them wrong. They will see that the stereotypes don’t apply to transwomen, but that will not change how they perceive ciswomen because “woman” is imaginary. Femaleness is real.
That’s why disregarding biology is inconsiderate and harmful. It’s basically telling women that our struggles have been inflicted on us for no reason and that all we have to do is say “We’re the same as men!” and suddenly we’re free. But that’s not how it works.
I don’t know what to say to this. Who has said anything about it being inevitable? It just was. Never would I have thought you would reveal such a shallow understanding of sexism.
I’m extremely curious what you think is the root cause of female oppression, if you don’t think it’s female biology.
I’m sure it’s much more complicated, but if I have to sum up - female oppression is caused by the perception powerful men in the past (and present) had of female biology and how they thought they could use it to manipulate and control others. But their perception was misogynistic (and false), not factual.
Absolutely not, and it’s not meant to (and this is too simplistic anyway - not anyone can “opt in”, only genuinely trans women are women, not anyone who feels like it). It addresses transphobia and the shit way our society treats trans people, but it definitely doesn’t address misogyny and the patriarchy.
Which leads me to suspect something - that maybe some of this consternation could be caused by the varying speeds of how our society is (hopefully) trying to get past transphobia vs misogyny. Transphobia may not be nearly as deep or ingrained as misogyny, since trans people weren’t widely understood until very recently (and they still may not be widely understood). But women have been treated like shit for centuries and millenia, far and wide. Maybe we’re significantly further along on trans rights than women’s rights, even if we still have a long way to go on both.
Do you understand why a lot of women don’t see what they gain (politically speaking) by allowing transwomen to hitch their wagon to theirs? All we can see is that concepts that used to be easy to talk about will now be overly complicated. Like, we won’t be able to talk about “women’s health”, because there will be shrieking over how non-inclusive that is. If we change it to “female health”, we will still hear that shrieking. If we want to keep male-presenting males out of women’s shelters and support groups, we’ll have men lecturing us on how evil and wrong this is, when women had worked so hard to fight for those spaces and to convince men the importance of respecting those spaces. Female empowerment used to mean something very concrete and measurable. Now it means “anyone who says they are a woman is a woman” empowerment. It’s squooshy and impossible to measure. If something isn’t measurable, it might as well not matter.
Of course - it’s new. There are some complicated and difficult questions even for well meaning people. It’s outside most folks’ conventional understanding of the world. There’s a lot of scary stuff out there, much of it false and manipulative. And there are a few trans assholes that make it harder to be allies.
But most of the feminist cis women I’ve spoken to and read from see it differently - they see it just like gay rights, civil rights, etc. - that this is a group that is indisputably treated like shit by society, and they need help. Not only that, but they could be helpful allies against misogyny and the patriarchy and other shit parts of our society. And that with goodwill and compassion we’ll be able to iron out those very rare circumstances in which it’s possible a trans person’s interests could conflict with protecting cis women.
Maybe we’re significantly further along on trans rights than women’s rights, even if we still have a long way to go on both.
I think the rapid progress of trans rights relative to women’s rights is both a positive thing and eye-rolly thing. As harsh as it is for me to express it that way, it’s true. Since the beginning of time women have been brutalized by men. We’re still being brutalized. Expecting members of a brutalized group to suddenly become indifferent about who they allow themselves to be vulnerable around is super unrealistic. Seems to me anyone who has studied feminist history would understand what this is super unrealistic. And yet that understanding seems to be missing in a lot of trans allies and trans activists. It isn’t enough that they want one’s gender identity to be respected. They also want folks to gloss over the last 2 million years of human evolution and have everyone pretend things that aren’t in evidence (namely, that biology doesn’t matter).
I can go with some sociological fluff just to be a go-along-to-get-along progressive. But no one can convince me that biology doesn’t matter to gender or sex. You can be my sister without bleeding every month or experiencing pregnancy. But you can’t be my sister if you tell me a certain biological reality isn’t the substance of my gender. Once you go that far, I won’t be able to celebrate your successes. In fact, I’ll probably resent you.
Every group has a diversity of opinions. Also, remember that not all voices have the same access to microphones and platforms and not everyone is aware of all the arguments and ideas that are out there. I’m only aware of them because I have way too much free time on my hands.
I think gender ideology has been able to take hold because it is primarily spreading in the echo chambers of the internet rather than out in the free market place of ideas. If we had politicians and talking heads debating each other PBS or CNN the way we’ve been talking in this thread, I don’t think my opinions would be seen as fringy by the audience watching at home. I think the “anyone who says they are a woman is a woman” notion would be the fringy one. But we don’t have public debates like we used to have. People receive their opinions from family and friends and don’t really stop and think that maybe people who feel differently have valid reasons.
Trans rights is indeed fringe right now. I recognize I’m in the minority, though I am where I am on this issue precisely because of what so many cis women feminists (most of whom are strong trans allies, by my reading) have said and written. I think it’s less fringe than just a few years ago, and moving fast. And I’m hopeful trans rights advocacy will continue to grow just as fast as gay rights did over the last two decades.
It’s wrong (and offensive) to reduce this to a false perception. Men have been wildly successfully at using female bodies to manipulate, control, and amass disproportionate shares of power. They’ve been successful because the reproductive burden carried by women has been used as a weapon against them for ages. And continues to be used as a weapon, as the victims of FGM can attest.
Males—whether they identify as trans or not—come into this world as members of the sex class that has not been oppressed like this. They belong to the class that has benefited from the oppression. So it makes no sense to entitle them to all the rights and protections that women receive.
You pretty much wrote what I was going to, but I’ll add physical strength to the factors. It’s a biological fact that men tend to be stronger than women. Historically, if woman didn’t do what a man wanted her to do, he could just beat her up (or threaten to). There’s no false perception here; it’s absolutely true that barring other constraints, men can use physical force to get what they want. Fortunately we have a society that’s gotten past, like 80% of that, it’s nowhere close to done.
Transwomen on hormones might not be as strong as cismen, but they still have the musculature, bone structure, etc. of a man and are going to have advantages over ciswomen. Even aside from the sports thing and the “I only mentally identify as a woman” thing, it’s not hard to imagine this leading to problems.
But that’s only a part of it. And when so much of this was based on mythology and superstition, how is it wrong to call the perception false? Not only was there superstition about reproduction, but there was the false insistence that women were less intelligent, more emotional, etc. How is it wrong to call the vast majority of this stuff false perception? These assholes were wrong, very wrong, about women, including about biology.
I’m kind of gobsmacked that the response to me basically saying “the misogynistic assholes who were in charge in the past were wrong about women, both factually and morally” has been something close to “no, they were actually right on the facts”. That sounds like red pill or MRA nonsense to me.
I must be majorly missing something. If I’m misunderstanding the response, I hope someone can explain it to me.
What you’re missing is that no one has said anything about right or wrong here. Of course men are wrong to use women’s reproductive systems against them. But it’s a physical fact that there is a difference here, and recognition of this fact underpins a vast swath of feminist advances. Why else would abortion rights be considered such a cornerstone of feminism? It’s not because of any false perceptions about women’s bodies or minds.
All that other stuff is secondary, invented by men to justify their actions after the fact. Of course it’s false, but the biological reality is still there.
But those false perceptions exist - that women are sluts who will get pregnant and kill their babies with impunity. That women can’t be trusted with their own bodies. That only men can make these sorts of decisions wisely.
Aren’t those a huge part of this?
But the misogynist assholes of the past were wrong on the biology too. They thought women were mentally inferior, or even not fully human. They thought all kinds of crazy stuff about menstruation and pregnancy.
Obviously men, larger and stronger, could and did push women around (and much worse). But the patriarchal and misogynist systems and cultures were constructed, justified, and maintained using mythology, superstition, cruel rituals, etc. We aren’t apes in a cage, grabbing and raping the female within reach just because of an urge - it’s much worse than that. It’s generations of complicated and ingrained systems and institutions built on false notions about the inferiority of women. It’s daily reminders across the culture that women have different expectations placed on them and are in far greater danger, and it’s even instilled in girls that this danger is their own fault.
That’s not biology - that’s centuries of systems and institutions, built on top of and reinforcing each other, again and again, to ensure women and girls are raised to know their place and be subservient.
Surely you can’t be putting “women shouldn’t vote because they get hysterical” and “women have babies and men do not” in the same mental bucket.
Sure. But men were physically dominating women hundreds of thousands of years before humans were even capable of expressing thoughts like “women are weak, which proves that God meant for them to be subservient.” It seems obvious to be that the latter is just post-hoc justification for the former.
My point is that these awful systems were put into place for reasons of power and control, not for reasons of biology. I suppose those misogynistic assholes were correct that women had the babies and men didn’t. And they were correct that men are bigger and stronger. But it doesn’t follow that this must necessarily lead to brutality and oppression. Those were cultural systems deliberately put into place over generations, not biological facts already existing.
My understanding of feminism is that it’s about overturning these awful oppressive systems in our society and culture and replacing them with a fair and decent system.
In fact it is ABSOLUTELY true that (a) in the absence of contraception (the vast majority of human history) human adult females tend to get pregnant, and (b) while carrying, birthing, and breastfeeding a small baby, human adult females are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of power. It’s really easy to assert power over a person who is extremely busy with keeping a small person alive.
I don’t know how you get from there to “misogynistic assholes were right.”
The oppression was already there, though. The basic problems were there before humans had governments, cities, religion, even language. It could hardly be a surprise that when these systems did start developing, people continued the same behavior and then tried to justify it. And of course it got very far alone before there was any serious effort to unravel them, which made (makes) it all the more difficult.