Radical Feminism: Discuss

I have a pretty strong interest in politics and am currently doing what I can to help the Dean campaign in my city, and while uncompromising and radical viewpoints might indeed serve to make other political groups more centrist & mainstream, I have difficulty understanding.. uh.. how one can really espouse radical views for any length of time without stagnating.

It is interesting to note that according to what you have written, liberal feminists, (perhaps I should include myself in that category,) think radical feminism is helpful only insofar as it makes liberal feminists look reasonable. Which is to say, radical feminism is only helping the mainstream feminist cause, in this schema, by the negative effects & reactions it provokes.

Of course the come back is, 'well you can't agree on everything'. Of Course you can't but there are so many groups fighting for equality a a central plank then we might all as well fight for it together rather than apart. Single issue politics are the enemy of social progress. Yeah sure you can have your passions but in the end a few hundred people can't shout as loud as a few millions.

Orbit, I wasnt referring to any one thread (I actually had about 4 in mind, one of which I don't even recall you commenting on). My opinion above was actually a general one in my own life, not just online (I was thinking of people I knew who were feminist cinema theory students, for example).

The fact it is being discussed here has merely helped me to mull over why I feel the way I do, and while I respect anyone's view on the subject, I really don't understand why you seem to have such a persecution complex and think everything said is some direct attack on you. I even made a point of saying I was commenting on what you listed (which I found quite interesting) and not on you personally - ergo, I never implied you were in any way speaking for me.

Actually this just underlines why this topic makes me want to back off screaming. So I will. Ugh. Sorry everyone, I'll let those with more knowledge continue.

I used to find it neccessary to wave my feminism high like a flag. I was the chairperson of NOW at the largest uni in America throughout my college career and regularly spoke in front of crowds of tens of thousands folx, protested, once got punched by a priest in front of an abortion clinic, etc.

Then, I grew up.

I think we should speak of the post-identity politics personality as a 'patchwork' or 'paella' personality. For instance, a person might make the following statements about her identity:

I am a woman.
I am white.
I am middle class.
I am an English speaker.
I am an asthmatic.
I am a nature lover.
I am disabled.
I am rich.

and so on. Now, each of these mini-identities (and they could be extended infinitely) is pegged somewhere different on the scale of satisfaction, the scale of 'equality', the scale of objective advantage, pegged to earning capacity, pegged to social credibility, and so on. Let's imagine a revolution happens which benefits the disabled. Does it also benefit the rich? No, they have to pay more taxes so that wheelchair ramps can be built. Let's imagine black middle class asthmatics start a party which is swept to power. They immediately begin a program which benefits people like themselves at the expense of white working class paraplegics. And so on.

It's not that identity politics is wrong, it's that the world is 3D and shoe-horning something as complex as a human being into a single issue identity is never going to work.

also, perhaps a variety of patchwork politics is better than an overarching political stand, (which is actually a fallacy, because general politics is identity politics anyway)

Like Trayce I'm not university trained (not in this anyway) but I don't mind theoristy talking, as long as it's properly explained so we can understand it without too much prior knowledge. So far that's happening, so good.

Your list of 5 types of feminism is very useful Orbit.
There are obvious differences but they all seem to have the same goal of 'equality' between the sexes.
What strikes me is how, while seeking equality, they all intrinsicly treat males and females differently, somehow attempting to raise the esteem and opportunites given to women to be the same as that given to men. (I personally don't necessarily think that men have more opportunities or greater social standing).

I think what I'm trying to get at is that men and women _are_ different in so many ways. I bet you've at least consiodered my gender whilst reading this.
In my experience, for example:

Women are more playful;
more likely to be interested in flowers;
able to give birth.

Men are more likely to get physically agressive;
taller;
more interested in microelectronics.

Most of those things are general tendencies, obviously there are violent women and men who grow roses.
By treating 'men' as one group and 'women' as another feminists are confirming that they are different.

So what does equality mean?
In maths, 1+1+1+1 = 2 + 2 = 1 + 3 = 3 + 1 = 4 = 8/2 = etc.etc.etc.,
but whole numbers have just one property, namely what number they are.

How can such complicated things as human beings ever be equal?

Orbit, when you said this:
dunno.
-- Orbit (cstarrcstar...), August 31st, 2003.

I think that's great and it's the sort of answer that we need more of on ILE. Admitting you (I don't just mean you, I mean anyone) don't know something, or maybe haven't made up your mind or might change it should be such an easy thing to do but it rarely happens here, or anywhere else. It's also great that Orbit and Trayce had a misunderstanding and got over it and made up.
I'm glad you're staying.

Maybe all this makes me sound like a chair-person or something but all I'm trying to do is point out what I think are good things in simple language. Please take what I say at face value and I'm not trying to be patronizing (or matronizing!)

But if you put 'gay' in front of men, does all that remain true?

General statements about gender tend to cleave to stereotypes and to conjure a male whose maleness is not just stereotypical, but is his 'master identity' rather than just another petal in his 'identity bouquet'.

throwing the baby out with the bathwater isn't a good idea though.

i definitely identify as a feminist, i guess i am a cultural feminist. i used to have a lot stronger opinions about feminism but these days i am more about asking questions than giving answers. i might write something better on here when i'm less tired and distracted.

Personally, regarding this radical feminist thing, I'm not convinced that history has given us lots of examples of revolutions that achieved their aims, and I think there are still lots of gains to be had in the current sociopolitical structure, so I'm still in favour of pitching for gradual change. There is still loads for feminism to do - the number of countries with equal pay for women: zero. The number of women killed by their partners a week in the UK: two. The number of women victims of domestic violence, a crime still not taken very seriously by much of the legal and political establishment: MILLIONS!

I'm as quick to jump on language (for instance) that I think is sexist (or racist or homphobic, etc.) as anyone, and I frequently get angry about such things, even here, but I think the general atmosphere, the ground attitude, here is about as anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-homphobic and so on as anywhere I've ever been, and far better than almost anywhere. There's the odd misogynist (or racist or homphobic) person who turns up, but they are not welcomed and it's rare that they stick around. If the best someone can cite as ILX's hostility to women is someone saving IM chats involving women that's pretty good, I think. (That it turned out that he just saves chats generally is a separate point.)

Some liberal feminist theorists may highlight extreme radical feminism as a boon to the liberal cause. Just as Orbit says, "[radicals] make mainstream feminist organizations like NOW look more reasonable in comparison". What they also do - not intentionally, but by allowing a target for easy exaggeration by anti-feminist media - is create a highly negative and all-pervasive image of "The Feminist", that boiler-suit-clad bulldyke bugbear of the eighties, all pamphlets and man-hatred. And even after this fades from the public consciousness you're left with the idea that there is only one feminism and to disagree with one of its precepts or behaviours is to be a non-feminist. Which is the equivalent of saying "a woman is a human being who wears skirts: I do not wear skirts, therefore I am not a woman."

I consider myself a feminist, and I'm grateful for the things which previous generations of feminists (including in this def. suffragists and anyone who has supported the equality of women) have given me the possibility to do: vote, work as a plumber, plan to go to university and get a degree, support myself without losing social status, &c. What they've given me is a greater equality of opportunity than I might have had in other eras. Ideally, equality of opportunity should work across the board, for all people, regardless of gender or race or economic status: feminism is only part of the struggle, can alone only deal with one set of problems tied to one factor.

I think, Mei, it's not really a question of "how can such complicated things as human beings ever be equal?" - people will never all be of equal economic status, equal interest in film, equal map-reading ability. But they should, and I believe can, be given an equal right to choose what to do with their lives; to be constrained by temperament and personal ability, not by a blanket definition of what 'their type of people' should do, how 'their type of people' should live. If a woman wants to be a housewife, she should be allowed to; if she wants to be an academic, if she wants to be a sex worker, if she wants to clean toilets, if she wants to drive trucks, if she wants to be the CEO of a lucrative company - if it's within the bounds of ethics and within her ability, a woman should not be prevented by her gender from doing anything that she wants to, or needs to, do. That, to my mind, is the heart of what feminism is about.

she shouldn't be forced to be financially dependent for this, either, of course.

if it's within the bounds of ethics and within her ability, a woman should not be prevented by her gender from doing anything that she wants to, or needs to, do. That, to my mind, is the heart of what feminism is about.

This I agree with 100%, so I thank you for saying this cis, you've helped clarify my thoughts even further.

I have two brothers and no sisters, and so I've grown up very comfortable and "I can hold my own" around men of all ages and attitudes. I'd just as happily call out a brother, boss or stranger if I felt my personal rights were being impinged upon. I won't let anyone get away with shit at a personal level. Obviously though I'm less able to influence things like my level of pay compared to men, media attitudes, or sex selling cars on TV. I think I feel there's the personal and the universal kind of feminism, and my life view, selfish as perhaps it may be, tends towards the personal, and in that arena I feel I can be and am being all I want to be.

I hope I'm not being too muddled here! Heh.

Surely this statement is in itself slightly misandrist (sp.?). Why can't we put identityback where it belongs, i.e how we define ourselves, instead of using it to define our tribal selves against one another.

good feminists are already aware of this.

ed, i don't see how thats a misandrist statament at all.

Does Momus read his own posts and ask "is this actually germane to the discussion, or is it just me again, trying to put spin on something that makes me feel uncomfortable?"

I don't think we can define ourselves as *ourselves* until we stop defining ourselves so much as part of a tribal self, and the only way to lessen the impact of the tribal-self concept is to try and ensure that no tribal self is strengthened above any other.

i have run into many bad feminists in that case. i'm really not trying to pick any kind of argument or anything here, just that after several years in academia doing an arts degree at within a gender and sexuality-obsessed faculty, i react reasonably badly to capital "F" feminism simply coz i found a huge amount of it kneejerk, nonsensical and vastly counterproductive in the sense that it obscured debate on wider issues such as class and race, which i happen to think were far more germane in a predominantly white middle-class environment (as most university english departments are!), especially when no one in three years made any discernible misogynist or homophobic statements. to be fair, no one ever stood up and said "hello my name is heinrich and i am a committed national socialist" either, but i hope you can see what i am saying in relation to concentration on an issue which i see as having already won many of its ideological and practical battles preventing an insititution/group looking at itself and noticing how its predominantly white, middle-class bias was indicative of other social issues which needed addressing far more urgently... i think this works in the context of society as a whole, too, not just my own academic experience. i suppose we all have our own concerns/biases/chips on shoulders etc which make us want to prioritise certain issues (mine being fairly transparent here) but the fact that i think class and race are for more important issue than sexism now solely focuses on the fact that i think feminism has, for the most part, achieved its goals. not that there aren't still certain inequities, but they're now much less pressing than those of poverty, racial prejudice etc in my view. of course, i consider myself a reasonable human being and as such would say that i am a pretty decent advocate of women's rights (or as decent as i can be!) but only as part of the bigger picture...

Hey nice floral metaphor btw.

Feminism, although it's a social science like economics, has a much different history because of the ideas/tradition of social change and consciousness-raising that's gone on in the various 'waves' of feminism. Because feminists in leadership positions promoted their ideas as something everyone could participate in, there is a sort of popular language and understanding of feminism (for better or worse) as an activist/participatory culture. Everyone sort of understands economics a little bit, but no-one is having kitchen table meetings to talk about how they can affect the demand curve.

This could be a terribly faulty comparison; the point I'm trying to make is that feminism is in a difficult place because it's at once tied up in the language of academia and the issues of everyday people.

Aw, this is too bad. Can you imagine the heated debates over diminishing marginal utility and how much it *should* affect the demand curve? *grins* Besides, it is sorta nice in a math/econ geek sort of way to think of giant whiteboards being installed in kitchens everywhere across the country so that P-Q plots can be drawn up.

yes it is it is...

--academia -- academic feminists participate in activism and grassroots organizing. they also participate in policymaking and advocacy for those who don't have the power to protect their rights. there may be a difference in film crit/lit crit, where they might not to the extent that the social science people do.

-sex vs. gender: Gender is the social meaning given to biological characteristics (sex)

-theory vs. praxis: Is feminism a philosophy, and therefore useless mental circles that can't change anything OR is feminism something that happens in women's everyday lives, and is about activism and changing the world that is immediately around *you*?

-the gender binary: current thought is this--gender is a two sided coin. you can't talk about women's oppression without realizing that men also contribute to excluding women AND other women exclude each other as the price of being accepted in a make world.

patriarchy oppresses men by imposing an oppressive masculinity that estranges them from culturally unacceptable feeling (emotions) and expects them to act in callous ways (the locker room, the can't-you-take-it [pussy] attitude, equating women with weakness, women are an insult (bitch, cunt, pussy, whore, ho, skank, slut vs. the one word we have for men: dick and no word that is equivalent to the others).

Patriarchy (meaning society is set up by and for men because we can't escape the history that made it that way--it's in place, what we inherited) oppresses men and women by demanding compulsory heterosexuality.

--gender and sexuality are now discussed as a continuum, where there are degrees of:

1. conforming to the gender stereotype of the culture you live in
2. conforming to the biological sexuality you have (e.g. intersexed babies, ambiguous chromosomes, sex assignment at birth surgery, transsexual)

--diversity and inclusion: see bell hooks "All of the men are black, all of the women are white, but some of us are brave". recent feminism has indeed pointed out that every individual is a collection of difference social, economic, cultural, and historical standpoints, and people and institutions in society treat them differently as a result. feminism has grown into a movement that seeks a more just society in general, and race, class, and gender all intertwine.

--feminism and change: feminism is about viewing things simultaneously from your standpoint and connecting your experience to that of women as a group. There will be some things you share and some things you don't. For example, women still make about 75 cents to the man's dollar in wages for doing the exact same job. [these are US gov't figures, so look it up, don't de-rail by asking me to look it up for you. start at www.fedstats.gov]. If you are a woman, you share that with other women, even though you might not share other ideas about sexism, or what is and isn't sexist. So you might want to join other women in actions that aim to close the wage gap.

--privilege: sexism like racism, is institutional. meaning
prejudice: the beliefs an individual holds
racism/sexism: social institutions and laws are set up in a way that systematically denies opportunities/ignores the concerns and realities of the lives of the group involved. Example: gay marriage. That is is illegal in most of the US ignores the reality of lesbian and gay lives. The structure is not set up to take them into account. This is just one example.

--privilege: no one thinks they participate in a racist/sexist system, and no one thinks they have privilege. Example: a black person applies for a job and doesn't get it. they wonder "is it because i'm black?" if you are white you never have to ask the question. You are free from that and you don't even realize it. if you are male and you tell a sexist joke you don't have to wonder how it might make women around you feel, because the social pressure on them is so great you know they won't say anything about it. This is called "silencing". Silencing the voices of others includes belittling them, trivializing thenm (don't you have a sense of humor?) [when it comes to serious issues being trivializes, and as domestic abuse and childhood abuse survivor NO I DON'T because it is not funny. Do I have a sense of humor when people are not trying to trivialize serious things? YES I DO].

--being a woman doesn't mean you have a feminist political awareness (meaning are you really up in it, do you know what people are discussing or just your stereotype of it)

--there are all kinds of feminists, feminisms, and definitions of feminism and the good thing is when people talk about them.

"two weeks."

In that case I might just be a feminist, because I too believe any woman should have the right to do all those things.

I'm trying very hard to think of examples of something men can do that no woman can, or vice versa, and failing. Child birth maybe.

i mean unless you wanna be history's greatest monster who is only defending a principled position for the sake of women and female-only spaces, then you're supposed to

ok :)

Yeah, no, it's bad.

I do tend to avoid using TERF, though, mostly because I feel like these people aren't actually feminists, no matter what they say. They're transphobes and I call them that.

a euphemism for a euphemism

I think there's an honest argument to be made that gender itself is a patriarchal tool. However, that relies on the identification of gender with gender role, and that's not uncontroversial. Some folks believe gender to be a private mental object rather than a public social one, or some combination of the two.

I've mentioned this elsewhere but I do know a trans person who self-describes as gender critical

The trans folks I speak with pretty much all don't care for gender roles and all they imply. So at least that approach to the issue seems amenable in principle to trans people. On the other hand, just about anyone defending the idea that gender roles are a biological imperative is going to run into a lot of static.

What I'm getting at here is that I think the relationship between the public and private concepts of gender are key to understanding radical feminist positions on the matter of trans identity in a larger cultural context.

luckily all the other problems with the relationship between public and private have been sorted out already so this one last thing shouldn't be too tough to handle

'gender critical' is just classic transphobic 'feminist' rhetoric - take what seems to be/should be a fairly innocent feminist-sounding phrase and turn it into a dogwhistle for 'transphobic biological essentialist' and in doing so attempt to falsely position their ideological enemies (anyone pro-trans rights) as in favour of gendered oppression and supporting gender roles etc. which is obviously untrue

Yeah to be "gender critical" sort of presupposes being "sex uncritical"

At first I thought 'gender critical' was a tautology: like, of course gender is a critical notion.

Anyway, what I find especially worrisome is the intersection between 'feminist' transphobic discourse and archaic, borderline ecofascist concepts such as the Great Mother.

I can't take euphemisms like "gender critical" or (another one I have seen) "trans skeptical" any more seriously than old military euphemisms like "collateral damage". It's not just that such terms are inherently weaponized - mostly I'm not entirely sure they're effective. I can't speak for other people but when I see people making arguments using, with a straight face, weasel words like those, I find it relieving. When people use those words, to me it's indicative that they're not arguing in good faith, and opposing them becomes a simple matter of pointing that out, if absolutely necessary, and just plain ignoring them as toxic, if not.

I too try to avoid the word "TERF", not because I feel it's necessarily inaccurate, but because I do think it's a loaded and contentious word that has, I think, done a lot to undermine radical feminism. I find "transphobe" (or just plain "phobe", as I've started abbreviating/generalizing it) is more broadly applicable.

But I'm also a descriptivist, and I don't expect "TERF" to go away any time soon. I certainly have little sympathy for anybody who characterizes it as a "slur".

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

If that all sounds vague and new age-y, a specific example: When I first started coming out, I had a lot of frustration regarding my perception that gender was an arbitrary social construct. I was sympathetic with those who wished to abolish gender entirely. Since reading about what John Money did to David Reimer, I've walked back that position. To me, Money is a perfect example of someone who let their abstract ideals take precedence over, really, the basic human rights of another human being. If I have a broader criticism of radicalism (in a feminist context or otherwise), it's that I worry that it can sometimes create a context where such behavior is excused or defended.

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

Well said.

My experiences is that as I've encountered more and more trans and genderqueer people, as I've listened to more and more people's experiences, my willingness to make broad and sweeping statements - radical statements - has decreased. My focus at this point - and this may change with time - is on celebrating and affirming diversity rather than on interrogating and criticising discourse. From where I am right now, compassion and kindness are more important than critical interrogation. The two approaches are not incompatible, but there's definitely a tension between them.

isn't this is basically a small-c conservative position though, one that leaves the status-quo in place, a status-quo that benefits men and damages women? one could still argue that it's the right position to take despite this, but my impression is that many/most of the anti-TERF/anti-'gender critical' ppl deny this tension you acknowledge between kindness/cautiousness and critical interrogation, deny that accepting trans and gender fluid identities blunts critiques of patriarchy

I have never understood the argument that accepting trans and gender fluid identities blunts the critique of the patriarchy and honestly it’s not something that stands up to scrutiny. If it was the case, you wouldn’t hear about butch (cis!) women being harassed entering women’s toilets, or see the bleed into blatant homophobia. Neither of these outcomes are opposed by the patriarchy; quite the reverse in fact.

accepting trans and gender fluid identities would seem to mean accepting there is such a thing as a person's 'real' gender outside of 1. their physical sex and 2. how they are socialised and hailed or recognized by society - there's clearly a tension between that and radical feminist critiques of gender

What are the radical feminist critiques of gender that I’m clearly missing then? Cos all I’m seeing are people engaged in constant vicious attacks on trans people and dogwhistling constantly about the safety of children.

I'm not smart or eloquent enough to articulate this well, but this gets at some of what I'm trying to say:

When I say that a person is male or female - a man or a woman, a boy or a girl - I aim to convey *only* some brute facts about the body, related to sexual and reproductive anatomy and functions. Those brute facts are very far from socially constructed. I defend the concept of two, and only two, sexes, because they truly are the facts of life - a constraint on our existence that cannot be escaped.

But, while I defend the reality of sexual dimorphism, I do not defend the gender binary, where ‘gender’ reflects social and cultural expectations of how each sex should think or act. The complexities of gender - by which I mean the social roles and expectations, cultural and symbolic significance, that societies attach to the sexes, and which are often socially, sometimes violently, enforced - were not the subject of my previous article. [trans and non-binary people] are actual males and females who are punished, bullied and vilified for acting in ways that are considered unacceptable for males and females to behave.

https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1250/sex-is-not-psyche/

accepting that gender (rather than sex) is a 'real' thing, that some people just are men or women or neither in a metaphysical sense, separate from their physical sex or how they are 'gendered' by society - this legitimises the concept of gender, and gender can't be separated from this division into an oppressor and an oppressed class. a distinction between sex and gender where 'sex' is objectively observable biological differences and 'gender' is the socially constructed system that legitimises patriarchy, i.e. in this definition 'gender' is specifically what is socially constructed, what *isn't* 'real', what can be challenged and critiqued and eventually demolished and consigned to the dustbin of history

and if accepting trans identities means supporting the idea that if one's gender identity does not match one's biological sex, then one can/should have their body modified to make it fit better, either with hormones or binding or surgery - this seems problematic if you believe that gender is purely socially constructed? why should these painful, potentially dangerous physical changes be necessary, why should there be a link between the physical form of your body and whether you are stereotypically masculine or feminine in your, thoughts, tastes etc?

you might say that physical modification is not compulsory and many trans ppl identify with a gender that doesn't match their biological sex without changing their body in any way - but from the radfem pov NO-ONE'S gender identity matches their biological sex, no-one is really inherently 'a male gender person' or a 'female gender person'. some trans ppl do not identify as male or female at all - but either you take the position that some people are male gender or female gender and some ppl aren't (which is incompatable with the radfem pov b/c no-one is really male gender or female gender), or the position that EVERYONE is not actually male gender or female gender, in which case you have reached a position that is indistinguishable from radfem perspective?

and even if body modification is not mandatory, the rise in ppl accepting trans identity and an inherent gender identity as a real thing has undeniably led to an increase in the number of people undergoing these body modifications with all the pain and suffering that involves. you might say that this is still an improvement and before scores of ppl were suffering in silence in bodies that they felt didn't match their identity, but as this kind of body modification becomes a socially accepted thing then doesn't that make it harder to fight for a world were ppl do not feel compelled to changed their bodies to match how 'masculine' or 'feminine' they feel? (or to avoid the harassment and abuse that comes with being gendered female?)

idk sounds like concern trolling to me

you might say that physical modification is not compulsory

and even if body modification is not mandatory

let me just state for the record: it's not

Yeah I was going to say. You can consider this debate to be about lofty and abstract ideas about gender and sex, but that’s not how “gender critical” is used in the wild, and that debate is very much of an exclusionary nature.

jesse singal wrings his hands similarly and constantly about FORCED BODY MODIFICATION FOR THESE CONFUSED CHILDREN WHO WILL REGRET IT and i continue to hope he explodes

I hope the same for Glinner.

but once you take body modification out of the equation then what is left aside from a feeling of disconnect between your biological sex and the stereotypical qualities associated with or demanded of ppl with that biological sex in our society? unless you think that gender is a 'real', not purely socially constructed thing, then this disconnect exists for everyone, although it causes some ppl a much greater degree of distress and pain than other. and accepting that gender is a 'real' thing has actual material effects on people's lives, just like accepting race as a 'real' thing has actual material effects on people's lives, it can't just be dismissed as 'lofty and abstract ideas'

I think you’re confusing what I think. When I think of actual real effects on people’s lives, I’m thinking of how the constant demonisation and picking away at the right of people to live as they choose plays out in reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/14/homophobic-and-transphobic-hate-crimes-surge-in-england-and-wales
So no, I don’t really give much of a thought to the “gender critical” side of the debate considering it seems mostly to be used as a shield for bigotry.

generally i find people who hammer this hard on the ONLY TWO SEXES thing to be extremely fuckin suspicious

i guess i am really trying to engage with the ideas in your posts soref but i don't seem to have the same stakes or perspective in this argument? like if body modification isn't necessary and one's personal conception of gender can be disconnected from their appearance and the social expectations others have of them... that's... cool? doesn't seem to undermine any critique of the patriarchy which forces social roles onto everyone? "real" and "purely socially constructed" also do not seem to be opposite ideas to me. and from being friends with trans people i get the sense that people who gravitate toward body modification have thought about all of this shit relentlessly and come out the other side knowing that "gender" is ultimately construction and the sum of their experiences have told them that they're women and/or men, and if they can feel more comfortable in their bodies while doing this... good? we put on makeup bc the external doesn't match the internal, it's all construction, and it doesn't seem inherently contradictory to me. that we share a fundamental idea about gender with radfems is great except that transphobes in that community use it to undermine, exclude, and isolate trans people, it's a bad faith distortion on their part, which is the fuckin problem

On a slightly different tack this looks like a really interesting book - has had a lot of heat on its lines around the abolition of the family.

Abortion is a form of necessary violence. We need to move away from arguments designed to placate our enemies, and defend abortion as a right to stop doing gestational work | @reproutopia

Sophie Lewis is the author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family pic.twitter.com/qntnD2Zb3Z

— Verso Books (@VersoBooks) June 7, 2019

that we share a fundamental idea about gender with radfems is great except that transphobes in that community use it to undermine, exclude, and isolate trans people, it's a bad faith distortion on their part, which is the fuckin problem

From what I've observed, I don't expect any productive discussion btwn radfems and trans communities for exactly this reason. I do believe there are earnestly non-transphobic radfems but they're too closely enmeshed with the assholes we all hate

i was typing up a huge thing to try to engage with soref but brad said most of what i wanted to in a much more concise way so thank you very much brad.

there are and have been trans-positive radical feminists - there was an ideological divide amongst 70s radfems on the topic of trans people - but unfortunately the name of 'radical feminism' is very much tainted these days by the very vocal transphobes.

Over time I've become more accepting that there are groups whose frames of reference and basic understanding of reality are sufficiently removed from mine that good faith dialogue with them is impossible. I spend a lot less time arguing with people and more time trying to discern my own beliefs, because I at least trust that good faith dialogue with myself is still possible. :)

Most of the time it's much more useful to argue without using blanket terminology and just give three specific examples in lieu of the term. No one is ever talking about the same thing as you usually.

You can believe that race is largely socially constructed without then using a colourblind society which is not the case to steamroll over people’s lived lives; that cartoon people who believe that gender is bullshit find it so important to do this to trans ppl in particular suggests to me that these ppl are just arseholes

*CERTAIN people lmao fml

You can believe that race is largely socially constructed without then using a colourblind society which is not the case to steamroll over people’s lived lives;

I don't think this comparison works, TERFs aren't arguing that we live in a sex-blind society, or that we should act like we are. and most people who support the idea that you can identify as any particular gender regardless of your biological sex or socialisation as male or female would not support the idea that you can identify as any race regardless of what your physical appearance/dna/heritage or socialisation

Was the Cherry Jones character (and the friends at the woman-fest) on Transparent supposed to represent "terfs"?

yes. I thought the music festival episode was memorable

this thread has been interesting and educational for me