She stands by the vulnerable i.e. men
This is thinking deeply? I’d hate to see what shallow looks like.
By “the vulnerable” she of course means men who say they are women, as opposed to the women who say they are not.
How did we get here? How did we get to a place where adults solemnly insist that men who claim to be women are vulnerable while the women who say no they’re not are the bigoted persecutors of those poor weak vulnerable men?
This I find most suprising in the light of Caro’s other work. See https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/contributor/jane-caro
A steady diet of poisonous platitudes, I think. When we’ve made enough progress that where we’ve progressed from is a hazy memory at best for most people (which is generally the goal), they forget why we needed progress in the first place. Just look at all the examples of women who’ve forgotten that men have athletic advantages. The sport thing is kind of a perfect microcosm of the disconnect between belief and reality; it’s so extreme as to be Lysenkoist.
Yes, I think you’re right. I hate poisonous platitudes, and I really hate smug parades of them. I can’t imagine saying anything as preening and look at all the good I do as “I stand by the vulnerable.” Skip the boasting and do some thinking instead.
I wonder what Caro would say about convicted murderers and rapists who then self-ID as women and get sent to women’s prisons? Would the content of *their* character then be considered or the possibility that they’re not being truthful come up? Or would she just fob it off and avoid having to deal with the fact that sometimes people do lie about themselves for selfish reasons.
And just 13 months ago, she wrote this:
‘A years-long battle to have the psychological trauma caused by domestic violence correctly diagnosed and treated has finally resulted in Australia’s first specialised women-only mental health facility. By Jane Caro.’
No mention of the downtrodden trans. But I guess this has gone down the memory hole by now.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/health/2022/05/07/the-woman-who-would-not-give/165184560013826#hrd
What about protecting vulnerable people from harmful ideologies? Steering people away from facts and reality, and indulging their wishful thinking does actual damage. Is that not self-evident? No group judges people by the content of their knickers or reinforces stereotypes more than the trans cult does. Uncritically accepting the prevailing doctrine of trans activism doesn’t qualify as deep thought, nor does uncritically accepting anything for that matter.
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.
[…] a comment by Sastra on She stands by the vulnerable i.e. […]
That’s a pretty good rundown, Sastra. I think the mischief gets serious at thefirst step, though. That’s Queer Theory establishes its beachhead on “defined by” and where we get all the accusations of essentialism and reductionism. The thing about metaphorical language and memorable aphorisms is that they’re ambiguous by their very nature. Metaphors convey meaning through the ambiguity of similarity; aphorisms achieve memorability through the ambiguity of simplicity. Intelligent people with shared values, shared language, and shared culture can usually avoid falling into the nebulous moat surrounding the intended meaning of a figure of speech, but what of everyone else? Something as simple as, “you can be whatever you want to be,” or, “there’s no wrong way to be a girl or boy,” gets twisted when it encounters a mediocre or malicious mind. “Oh,” a pitiable one says, “I can be anything, so I can be a cat.” Another, less pathetic, says, “Since there’s no wrong way to be a girl, being male isn’t a wrong way to be a girl. I’m a girl now, so let me into your most private places.”
Because malignant patriarchy represents a genuine power binary of domination and subordination, and because the female is often a literal commodity in such cultures, step one is also where the writhing, tentacular mass of Marxism starts doing its impression of The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Why are stripping, “camming”, porn, and prostitution seen as liberatory sex work? Simple: they are ways of seizing the means of production. Rather than seek the negation of the male commodification of female sexuality, the Hegelian/Marxian Dialectic aims for the antithesis. That is:
Negation (strict): no male commodification of female sexuality.
Negation (broad): no commodification of anyone.
Antithesis: female commodification of female sexuality.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think the problem was that blacks were enslaved by whites, but instead that people were enslaved at all. Likewise, the problem isn’t that female sexuality is commodified by males; it’s that anyone’s sexuality is commodified at all. Why don’t we think about voluntary commodification the same way that we think about voluntary slavery?