Guest post: Confusion, analogy, and platitudes
Originally a comment by Sastra on She stands by the vulnerable i.e. men.
But the platitudes about “standing by the downtrodden” only make sense from a feminist perspective if you genuinely believe that men who sincerely believe they’re women really are women. How did we get there?
Confusion, analogy, and platitudes. Such as:
1.) Women have historically been “defined by” their sex, limited by patriarchal assumptions about how having a womb means you must have babies and being physically appealing to men means they can own you as a commodity.
2.) If only people would consider women as people in their own right, regardless of what’s under their skirts! Let women make their own choices!
3.) So let’s do feminism. Let there be more choices. Choice is good. Being true to yourself is good. Recognizing that every woman is different is good. Getting rid of stereotypes is good. Separating the woman as a person from the accident of her biology is good. Letting women “define themselves” is good.
4.) Therefore, defining “woman” as a sexual category must be bad. If we trust women to know who they are that must include trusting them to know they’re women in the first place.
5.) This naturally entails that trans women are women just like a black woman is a woman or a disabled woman is a woman. If it’s difficult to believe this — well, it’s always difficult to overcome entrenched bigotry and include people who are different. Those women who don’t even try to accept other women into feminism aren’t being consistent feminists.
I think the 4th step is where the mischief gets serious.
It’s the platitudes that do the most damage…or maybe I just mean that are the most irritating. But “Being true to yourself is good” is SUCH a wild generalization and SO wrong if you think about it for 5 seconds. Trump is true to himself. Hitler was true to himself. Next question?
Excellent roadmap to Crazytown.
So many people do not understand that ‘women=female people’ is not a limitation placed on the women themselves, it is a limitation placed on a word. That takes place at step 1, and so is fundamental to these often heated disagreements.
There’s also the connection with feeling good about yourself. Do we really want awful people to be “trueto themserlves” while “feeling good” about the terrible things they’re doing? A bit of shame and doubt about oneself can be salutary; feedback is important. “Don’t worry about what other people think” is another one of those generalizations that only works so far before it becomes destructive, encouraging rather than preventing thoughtless, cruel behavior.
I do recall a gil professor in college lecturing us about the absolute toxicity of “When you wish upon a star…”
BKiSA, that whole idea was pushed in my school (college never mentioned it) as well as the trope that in America you can be whatever you want to be.
Of course, they then steered all females toward what they were expected to be…wives and mothers. I think it scarred me for life.
@BKISA
Disneyland – “the h̶a̶p̶p̶i̶e̶s̶t̶ queerest place on Earth”. I’ve always had a visceral dislike of Disney’s tweeness. Now I have an intellectual basis for that.
BKiSA #4
“gil professor”
Is ‘gil’ a typo or an initialism?
Either way what does it mean?
I certainly agree with the professor about the toxicity. See also “The Secret”.