Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

don't really know the backstory of "cis" as the prefix tho, haven't done the appropriate reading

The word has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis, meaning "to/this the near side," which is antonymous with the Latin-derived prefix "trans." This usage can be seen in the cis-trans distinction in chemistry, or in the ancient Roman term "Cisalpine Gaul", i.e., "Gaul on this side of the Alps". In the case of gender, however, "cis" refers to the alignment of gender identity with assigned gender.

i am making a concerted effort to keep my mouth shut itt btw

ime straight white dudes have a bad habit of loudly disagreeing with (everyone but especially) women about what it is like to be (anything other than a straight white dude but especially) a woman instead of listening to their stories of that experience and i'd rather not play into that

That Guardian excerpt was fascinating, Lechera! I feel like every paragraph needs to be unpacked and supported like 10x more and it would still be interesting.

First thing, though, was story about the man who fell ill and feared his sickness was punishment for once ATTEMPTING to have sex with some young woman, who rebuked his advances, but because he besmirched her, the elders brought her from another town to stand trial and be found guilty of adultery, and hanged along with the failed rapist. The criminal injustice of it and the bottomless pit of his selfishness in pulling her down with him have me just....

i like that discourse is (slowly) starting to incorporate a greater variety of gender-identities and modes of "having" a gender. on the other hand, id like to see more about how gender is (imo) inherently disruptive, for everyone, and that, at best, its something we only have relationship to as a performative or prosthesis (our gender is almost a difference within ourselves) rather than just a multiplicity of possible identities.

Re: cis. It's still used in romance languages, so West Bank becomes Cis-Jordanie in French for example.

Yo HOOS, I did answer that upthread. Bloody straight white dudes, ignoring the wimmins over here. (j/k, but if you missed my earlier post I did also respond to something you said.)

This part broke my heart, and is also why I love to read diaries.

The effects of this sharpened double standard can be seen everywhere in 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century culture. James Boswell's diary records the tragic story of Jean, the brilliant only daughter of Henry Home, Lord Kames, one of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment. In the early 1760s, when she was only 16 or 17 and already married, she embarked on a passionate affair with Boswell, arguing to him that they were doing nothing wrong.
...
A decade later, when her husband divorced her over another affair, she declared "that she hoped that God Almighty would not punish her for the only crime she could charge herself with, which was the gratification of those passions which he himself had implanted in her nature." But her father, the scholar and moral authority, took the conventional view that adultery in a man "may happen occasionally, with little or no alienation of affection", but in a woman was unpardonable. After his daughter's divorce, he and Lady Kames exiled her to France and never saw her again.

Given the context provided by LL's entire excerpt, I am thinking that being "exiled to France" may not have broken this poor woman's heart. What's missing is whether she was reduced to penury, or still maintained her position as a member of the upper class.

Which doesn't mean that her parents and most of those around her were not acting oppressively.

i am making a concerted effort to keep my mouth shut itt btw

ime straight white dudes have a bad habit of loudly disagreeing with (everyone but especially) women about what it is like to be (anything other than a straight white dude but especially) a woman instead of listening to their stories of that experience and I'd rather not play into that

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, February 14, 2012 1:57 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am doing the same but for different reasons. It often feels like "what it is like to be a woman" is some sort of set experience that all women share and relate to which is most certainly not the case. Unfortunately when women have tried to express that on other ILX threads it's been met with a response that has felt pretty condescending and dismissive at times in a way that has put me (and other posters I've talked to offline) off participating in this discussion entirely. I am reading though and it's pretty interesting. HS on the money as per usual.

Yo HOOS, I did answer that upthread. Bloody straight white dudes, ignoring the wimmins over here. (j/k, but if you missed my earlier post I did also respond to something you said.)

― emil.y, Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:09 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh i must have missed that. thx!

Btw, despite his excellent patronage, Kames was lamentably a polygenist.

Am sorta feeling ENBB on this... honestly not sure I even know how to join in but I am v interested in what everyone is saying

The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century

Adulterers and prostitutes could be executed and women were agreed to be more libidinous than men – then in the 18th century attitudes to sex underwent an extraordinary change

Not sure if it's shitty or not, but the excerpt was entertaining at least.

― Laura Lucy Lynn (La Lechera), dinsdag 14 februari 2012 19:39 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just read a lengthy, glowing review in a newspaper of this book the other day! Cut it out and it's on the "need to buy"-pile!

don't really know the backstory of "cis" as the prefix tho, haven't done the appropriate reading

cis- and trans- are common chemical prefixes eg double bonds and "trans- fats"

cis-kel and trans-bert

also i m dum and was ON IPHONE and did not see that this had been covered

I like the word 'cispontine', which means 'on this side of the bridge' and was used in the Victorian era to designate London proper as opposed to the scandalous south of the river.

my gender is racemic

gender politics of this are mindboggling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0vQOnHW0Kc&feature=player_embedded

PETA are pretty well known for ghastly campaigns that go well beyond making any kind of point and just into the realms of rampant misogyny.

Yeah I can't even begin to handle that. I mean seriously, fucking hell.

the mysogyny thing is not something I've noticed about them before, this just seems so extreme

Oh man, you've been missing out. Just a few of the first links that google comes up with for 'peta misogyny':

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/03/04/peta-misogyny-strikes-again/

http://feministlookingglass.com/2010/05/22/peta-strikes-again/

http://bastardlogic.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/peta-misogyny/

http://fengi.livejournal.com/1287486.html

PETA is like the all time worst. "secret fascists" imo.

That's fucking dreadful.

I don't think they're very secret about their fascism!

I mean, I realise their ethos is 'shock tactics', and while I do eat meat I understand where that comes from. But they consistently target, objectify, and demean women and women alone. They are fucking horrible.

I'm a vegetarian and I'm p horrified by PETA most of the time, especially the misogyny. But they wouldn't be the first organisation w progressive (or whatevs) agenda to have appalling gender politics. It's endemic.

just observing the thread, just want to echo WCC, peta's gender politics are wretched and set back animal rights as a srs political issue to boot

I guess I was aware of their "veganism = sexy naked babes" angle before but this just seems next level with the whole sexualized violence thing.

point 1 - thanks people who talked about libidousness and "the feminine", i was posing my questions from a position of genuine ignorance and like so much else on this thread i feel like a world of reading/ideas has just been flagged out for me :)

point 2 - in my opinion the repressive narratives of an org like PETA are reproduced by plenty of "progressive" communities eg Green movements on class and race - this is the point of the idea of kyriarchy, surely i.e. "friendly" power structures still riddled with inequality etc

ENBB, the idea that "what it feels like to be a woman is emphatically NOT something that all women share and relate to, that being a woman is NOT a monolithic entity" is something that's pretty central to most (at least) Third Wave Feminism.

I can understand how, if you walk into a thread where a group of women have had a specific set of negative experiences are talking about them, and you say something like "well, I've never had those experiences (and can't really understand or relate to them)" that could be a pretty alienating experience. For *both* sides. But I do think there's been quite an effort on "the ILX gurl community" (through Jenny's (I think?)) manifesto (which may have got lost on the Sandbox) saying something like "it's valid for women to have these experiences and express them, it's valid for women to not have those experiences and express that, neither invalidates the experiences of the other." I'm sorry if you feel condescended to by that, but I'm not sure what else you want?

I watched the ad without sound (I'm at work obv).

but, wha?

isn't whether one has had certain experiences oneself actually...not relevant? what's important is the recognition that in other circumstances they could easily have happened to you.

i was never bullied at school for being gay, i've never been beaten up for being gay, i've never experienced homophobia in the workplace, marriage is something that i personally can take or leave, but those are all crucial to any discussion of gay rights and i recognise that. i certainly don't feel alienated when people talk about issues i haven't experienced. alter my circumstances or character slightly and it could easily have been me. i mean, all of that is why i'm in a thread about women's issues (along with several other dudes) even though we *can't* have experienced the things described here.

I haven't watched the PETA video partly because, no bandwidth, partly because I know it's something that will upset and offend me and I don't want to expose myself to that when I already know what PETA's tactics can be like.

But that idea behind kierarchy? kyriarchy? (that word seems to be spelled about half a dozen different ways over the blogosphere - it's from the same Greek as Kyrie as Kyrie Eleison (sp?) that some of us sung in church choirs meaning lord or master, but in a more gender neutral way than "patriarch.")

So many progressive movements have been riddled with both inequality and a kind of refusal to admit or acknowledge oppressions other than the one they have come together to fight. It is ironic that late 19th C First Wave Feminism (at least in the States) was partially born out of dissatisfaction with the amount of outright sexism in the Anti-Slavery movement. (And likewise Second Wave feminism being born out of sexism in the 60s Anti-War and Civil Liberty movements.) Only for the Feminist Movement(s) itself to fall prey to huge amounts of endemic racism and classism.

I'm still trying to get my head around kyriarchy. It seems like this way of trying to acknowledge that oppressions don't cancel each other out, they intersect - often in multiplying or exponential ways, rather than merely additive - and often come from the same root, no matter what the expression. That the privileging of male over female, white over black, light-skinned over dark-skinned, straight over gay, cis over trans, middle class over working class, upper class over all - that all of these things, rather than being separate systems are part of the same interlocking system designed with the idea of keeping the same few kinds of people bobbing up to the top every time. So that no, switching the straight white dude at the top with Margaret Thatcher OR Barack Obama, although symbolically powerful, does not make THAT much of a structural difference, UNLESS you start to dismantle the entire systemic structure of privilege that props it up. (Which, clearly Thatcher did not do, and Obama, the jury is still out on.)

It's hard, because there are some systems of privilege I instinctively grok, and others that I don't, that I have to try to imagine or project or extrapolate based on the experiences of others (and the Othered.) But one of the first steps is acknowledging that the experiences of others are real, are meaningful, even when they don't align with your own. Still working on that one. Trying, at least.

isn't whether one has had certain experiences oneself actually...not relevant? what's important is the recognition that in other circumstances they could easily have happened to you.

I think that bolded bit is important.

Anything I say that follows, it would be very easy to interpret as having a go at ENBB - it genuinely is not. I don't know ENBB that well, I can't say whether this applies to her or not. Any attempt to say that would be projection, and that *would* be condescending.

This is a thing, that I have seen many times, in women I do know well:

1) Women who do conform to their culture's expectations of "femininity" (and indeed women who can) - either through nature (they are just naturally pretty and chipper and people-pleasing!) or through carefully controlling their appearance and behaviour - these women often get an easier or simpler or less complicated ride through society. Conform to The Rules, you don't feel Patriarchy's teeth quite so hard. This is the way it works, this is why it's so effective.

(This also doesn't go into the hidden cost to some of these women - as we talked about on the Girl Thread, that maintaining ~nice-face~ can come at the emotional cost of suppressing one's true emotions and reactions, which *hurts*, and also that maintaining the right physical appearance leads to huge costs in terms of self esteem, image problems, body dysmorphic disorder. Some women are naturally thin, pretty and smiley. Some maintain this pose at huge costs to themselves.)

2) Some of these women draw conclusions from their experiences that either a) all women surely get this easier ride, and anyone who doesn't is moaning or making it up, or, somewhat worse b) that women who don't or *can't* conform to society's expectations of femininity are bringing it on themselves, whether that's harassment, bullying, rape or not just getting the promotion because someone mistook your assertiveness for being a bitch.

It is very hard for me, personally, as a non-conforming woman not to do the automatic cringe - when I encounter a woman who seems to be like paragraph 1, I expect paragraph 2 to be in the post, shortly behind. I'm sure that is unfair, because not all paragraph 1 women go on to paragraph 2, many of them are able to recognise there but for the grace of god go I when they see me get shit. But enough of them don't, that it's a natural defensiveness to expect 2 to follow 1.

I don't know if this applies to the women that feel alienated from these discussions. But that is what goes through my head, so if that's what's reading as being condescending or dismissive, I'm sorry it comes across that way. But it's bad enough going through negative experiences without it being implied it's your own fault for being yourself, and not like someone else.

ENBB, the idea that "what it feels like to be a woman is emphatically NOT something that all women share and relate to, that being a woman is NOT a monolithic entity" is something that's pretty central to most (at least) Third Wave Feminism.

Yes, I know that. I know quite more than you'd probably expect about feminism in general and particularly Third Wave Feminism. I was saying that it often *feels* that way on ILX discussions though. That said, I don't feel like you were really having a go at me but thanks anyway for the disclaimer.

You raised some really interesting points and I think that you've definitely hit the nail on the head in some respects and not so much in others but I need to get my ass in gear and get ready as I'm already late. Will respond later from work or tonight once I've had time to think about it some.

I am also sorry if I come across as preachy or 'splainy - I didnt go to school for this stuff, it was pieced together thru experience and research so I never know what's common knowledge and what's obscure to the point of requiring explanation.

I also get that the nature of ILX is such that the same experience can feel different ways to participants in the same thread. Like when I said on the blog thread that I *felt* like ppl were trying to tell me that my emotions were invalid - and in the process of ppl trying to say "but we didn't *mean* it like that!" some bloke came along and did *exactly* what I was afeared of, thus totally justifying the feeling.

Feelings and intentions don't always align; we need to recognise both. (this is a note to self as much as anything else.)

hey folks. a few things:

1) the first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century souns v. interesting, so thanks, LL, for the tip

2) peta r vile

3) while i'd love to further discuss the impact biological gender has (and/or doesn't have) on human behavior, it seems that this probably isn't the best place for it. aok.

there's been a lot of talk on the thread about men being unable to escape their own privilege, or being unable in most cases to really understand what certain experiences are like for a woman.

I feel like both of these stances, while almost always true, are more counterproductive because they smuggle in through the backdoor exactly the kind of thinking I'd want to avoid. there's nothing theoretically impossible about someone gendered as a man understanding someone gendered as a woman's experience. there's nothing necessary in either experience. again, i dont think there's any such thing as a gender identity, and i neither do i think anyone has a transparent relationship to their privilege OR their oppression. it's not as if there's a group of privileged people on one side and oppressed on the other.

now is it almost always true? again, yes. but i feel like there's something at stake in making this (very fine) distinction.

I could very well be wrong about this, so I'd love to be schooled on it.

I don't really see the point of saying in 3000 different ways that not all men have benefited equally from privilege and not all women suffered equally from the lack of it. If we couldn't talk about THE EXISTENCE of the phenomenon just because it wasn't applied equally to every person ON THE FUCKING EARTH, we couldn't talk about it at all, ever. So what is your point?

acutally i'll revise a bit. what I'm worried about above is an essentialist "Men = priviledged, Women/Other = oppressed" dichotomy that basically repeats the gender binary that I'd want to avoid in a Utopia.

maybe NOT being in utopia means that dichotomy has some pragmatic value in certain circumstances, though not all.

I think it's important to realize that men stand on privilege at every turn whether they are nasty, unfeeling, or power-hungry or not. Even ones who are allied with women, working to help women, etc. Like if you can't get that then you will always be having the wrong discussion.

― Melissa W, Monday, February 13, 2012 2:39 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

certain circumstances = basically all of the circumstances you're likely to experience throughout the rest of your life, yes.

saying men have privilege in a patriarchal society is not essentialist.

i think the discussion you want to have, ryan, about ensuring that men still try to understand these things, is not blocked, but rather facilitated by acknowledging the workings of privilege

no of course. i wasn't try to get rid of the idea of privilege! i apologize if that came across. and trying to see your OWN privilege is always a hard and constant task i think. and yes of course being humble and shutting up sometimes and hearing others is often the best way.

if i rephrase it as a question, i asked: is making this distinction worthwhile? Thread (sensibly) answers no.