The art of persuasion
Everybody’s favorite Veronica Rachel winning hearts and minds some more.
Gotta love an academic who calls people “dumbass” on Twitter.
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Everybody’s favorite Veronica Rachel winning hearts and minds some more.
Gotta love an academic who calls people “dumbass” on Twitter.
The way transgender activists see it, adults don’t persuade, badger, or bully kids into being trans — it all originates with the child! Totally!
Which isn’t the way it works, either. There are looks, suggestions, hints, questions, encouragement, validation, and everything else which effectively persuades.
And there’s Tumblr.
https://www.piqueresproject.com/blog/tumblr-a-call-out-post-by-helena
And misery always loves company.
…a set of conditions that, as has been noted at this blog already, is more demanding of boys than girls, thanks to widespread distain for anything classified by society as “feminine”. Men don’t get to wear dresses and pretty makeup and fancy hairdos without social consequences, as feminine as they may like to look/act, which then contributes to the vehemence with which trans-women argue they aren’t men. Girls and women are more likely to get away with violating gender norms (not 100% consequence-free, to be sure, but more so than boys and men in otherwise similar circumstances who try to do the same), so unfortunately I doubt touting tomboys-turned-feminine-women as counter examples are going to provide feminine men any solace or a way out of the mess they’ve found themselves in.
Unfortunately, those transgender men who have taken the tack that they ARE NOT women, and ARE in fact men who nevertheless like to wear dresses and have long hair and act in stereotypically feminine ways catch flack (and yes, threats) from men who call themselves transwomen and refuse to believe that such people exist, so the latter end up digging themselves deeper into a delusion in an attempt to carve out a place for themselves (from women’s spaces, of course) that allows them to not challenge the actual underlying problem, the perceived superiority of all things coded as Male.
Sigh. Can’t we just disassemble useless gender stereotypes, already?
‘Girls and women are more likely to get away with violating gender norms (not 100% consequence-free, to be sure, but more so than boys and men in otherwise similar circumstances who try to do the same)’
Well yes and no. This isn’t part of my own personal experience, but it seems distressingly common that women who feel compelled to be ‘not women’ often feel this because NOT violating gender norms (ie becoming the object of a terrifying male gaze, and more than a gaze, beginning in puberty) is rightly perceived to be dangerous to them. The consequence of conforming to gender norms is perceived to be more dangerous than not conforming.
And I would argue that there are more consequences for being a non-conforming female than people like to believe. We have simply moved the goalposts on female to allow things like pants and short hair, but women get severe penalties in many cases for not complying. Just ask Hillary Clinton – and when she worked to comply with gender norms, there were severe consequences, too.
A woman will be told to smile – that doesn’t seem severe, but when you hear it all the time? A woman is required to keep her figure and face and hair; not doing so may not get her the same consequences as a male, but there are serious consequences.
The thing is, for a woman, the most severe consequences come from conforming, because a feminine woman will not be taken seriously, will not be listened to, will be treated as a sex object, etc etc etc. Gender-conforming women may find themselves trapped in a set of expectations that curtail their dreams; if they don’t conform, they may stand a better chance of succeeding, but at what cost? “Men don’t like smart women” (some do, sorry). “Your eggs are going to dry up and shrivel; you’ll never be a mother”. Yeah, we get that. All the time. We are EXPECTED to be mothers, and that expectation is used to keep us lower on the pay scale, lower on the power equation. And once a woman gets past child bearing years, she is ignored totally, whether she conforms or doesn’t conform, because she is no longer worthwhile to men as a woman. Sure, there are high profile women who are older – but seriously, Hillary was the youngest candidate last time once the field narrowed to her, Trump, and Bernie – -which one was deemed “too old” to be president? I’ll give you a hint. It was someone who lacked a Y chromosome.
In short, the consequences are more severe for both sexes if they are feminine in appearance and behavior. Women who act feminine, men who act feminine – one is conforming, the other is not, and both find their highest level of penalties in acting feminine.
but the argument that things are worse for men wanting to be feminine makes it difficult to explain why there is such a rage among young girls to trans, in much higher levels than young boys. Lesbians, usually.
‘dumbass’, ‘no cure for stupid’, failing to be ‘pro-reason’ and to take into account ‘basic facts’. Veronica is supposed to be a philosopher, isn’t s/he? Why is it that in the twitterings of Veronica and hir like, there is never the beginning of an attempt to explain what these ‘basic facts’ are, or any reasoned argument: merely abuse and bullying?
I keep asking the same thing. Veronica is not a credit to philosophy.
I really would like to learn some ‘basic facts’ in this connexion, assuming that there are some. I would like to hear some sort of reasoned argument that addresses reasonable concerns.. But there never is one. Just self-indulgent rantings.
When this is the case, I usually assume there are no reasoned arguments, no basic facts that will support their case. Just like creationists – just look at the evidence! (No, I’m not going to show it to you, what am I, Google? – no, you are the one making an extraordinary claim) – they hand wave toward some vague “science”, always done by sympathizers to their cause, and always lacking robust methods or analysis, often not even saying what they think it says.
Just came back in and realized I messed up my blockquote! Ooohh. Hate no preview button