A day late for #transdayofvisibility, here's some TERF-bashing I just published in the @nytimes. https://t.co/RRIENvwr9E
— Carol Hay (@DrCarolHay) April 1, 2019
Oh. Ok. Always fun to read more about bashing feminist women.
Who counts as a woman? Is there some set of core experiences distinctive of womanhood, some shared set of adventures and exploits that every woman will encounter on her journey from diapers to the grave?
That’s the wrong question. It’s a leading question, set up to bash “TERFs” for claims they don’t make. The point isn’t about adventures and exploits, and it isn’t about who “counts” as a woman – it’s not a contest or an exam, it’s just a brute material fact.
It’s not about “counting” as a woman; it’s about being female and thus being subject to all the subtle and not so subtle cues in the culture that female people are 1. different and 2. subordinate. I say “subordinate” instead of “inferior” because many of the cues aren’t specifically about inferiority, but they are about “femininity,” delicacy, prettiness, compliance, seductiveness, flounces, stiletto heels, thongs, waxing, giggling, submitting. The subtle and not so subtle cues in the culture that male people get are different; they’re the ones appropriate for the sex that gets to dominate.
We’re treated to a quick visit to Judith Butler via an explanation that bad old feminism was about “the experiences of the wealthy, white, straight, able-bodied women who already have more than their fair share of social privilege.” Then we arrive at:
Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among women, in other words, has the inescapable result that there is some correct way to be a woman. This will inevitably encourage and legitimize certain experiences of gender and discourage and delegitimize others, subtly reinforcing and entrenching precisely those forces of socialization of which feminists claim to be critical. And what’s worse, it will inevitably leave some people out. It will mean that there are “real” women whom feminism should be concerned about and that there are impostors who do not qualify for feminist political representation.
The women who are accused of being impostors these days are often trans women. You might think that a shared suspicion of conventional understandings of sex and gender would make feminists and trans activists natural bedfellows. You’d be wrong.
It’s all Janice Raymond’s fault, apparently.
Feminists who deny “real woman” status to trans women seem to rely on a false assumption — that all trans women have lived in the world unproblematically as men at some point — and claim the importance of affirming the identity and experiences of those who’ve spent entire lives in women’s shoes.
Wait. One, as far as I know we don’t assume trans women – or for that matter any men – have lived in the world unproblematically as men at some point. The expectations of boys and men are far from unproblematic, and feminism has been underlining that since forever. Two, it’s not a matter of denying anyone any status, it’s simply a matter of declining to play let’s pretend forever. Being a woman isn’t like being upper class or a Nobel laureate, it’s just a brute fact. If we say that enough times maybe it will sink in.
After that the piece falls off a cliff, as she agrees how repellent it was when Caitlyn Jenner made it all about the clothes and says you can see why feminists wouldn’t like that, and then just says “but suck it up anyway.”
Nah.
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9 responses to “Thanks I guess?”
“Right way to be female?” What a category error! There’s a ‘right’ way, more or less, to be feminine, which is what trans women evidently want to be*. That doesn’t mean being feminine in appearance and manner makes them a woman with respect to reproduction, athletics, or locker rooms. Being a woman has a much larger context than being feminine, and yes, it does involve a lifetime of being treated like a woman.
* – I suppose some trans women wish to appear as butch lesbians, which no doubt isn’t appreciated by other butch lesbians.
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a womanblack? Is there some set of core experiences distinctive ofwomanhoodblackness, some shared set of adventures and exploits that everywomanblack person will encounter on her journey from diapers to the grave?Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among
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womenblack people who are accused of being impostors these days are oftentrans womentrans racial. You might think that a shared suspicion of conventional understandings ofsex and genderrace would makefeminists and trans activistsblack activists and transrace activists natural bedfellows. You’d be wrong._________
Well, when you put it that way…
After this, she abandons the word “female” altogether.
She makes a huge leap, from “female people’s experiences as females are very different” to “therefore femaleness is not essential to womanhood and men can be ‘women’”.
And another thing: if, per Butler, womanhood is merely gender performance, on what basis is anybody, woman or “trans woman”, who mixes gender signals (by being butch, say,) a “woman”?
If there is no right way to be a woman – or to be a man – then how in the world can anyone know that they “feel like a woman”? That is the main question we are asking. We are not the ones assuming there is a “right” way to be something, and therefore the idea that one who doesn’t “feel” right needs to be the other…CAN THEY NOT EVEN SEE THE ILLOGIC? (sorry, I know the answer to that).
Seriously, some of the speakers at freethought conferences (the black speakers) have seemed to imply just this…that all black people experience the exact same thing, and that no white person can experience any of it because we are just so different, and they are so alike.
And the goals of feminism – equality of pay, right to decide what one does with one’s own body, right to have the same opportunities and rights as males, right to work at a job of our choice – I am so tired of having these seen as straight, rich, white women’s issues. The idea that those of us born poor (as well as those not straight and/or not white) somehow don’t need or deserve or want those things? I’m calling bullshit. I grew up in squalor and filth, and feminism was a glorious light that helped point the way out of that gutter. Poor women need these rights even more than rich women; black women are searching for these things as much as white women; lesbians needs these things as much as straight women. Yeah, there have been some missteps in feminism, but the fact that feminism was led by straight, white, rich women (mostly middle class, if we want to be honest about it, but calling them rich makes it seem even more removed from “real” women) is a factor of time – the rest of us didn’t have time to fight that battle while working 3 jobs, raising kids, keeping house, and doing all the things that feminism tried to help us with (helping us a lot more than our husbands, in most cases). For those of us who have moved into that status of middle-class, we now have joined the fight only to see ourselves dismissed as “rich” (I am not), “white” (I am, but I know many feminists who are not and march in the same marches I do), and “straight” (I am, but so what? My lesbian friends also want the same things I do, except sexually).
As someone who was able to pull herself out of the squalor because of feminism, I think it’s time for people to shut up until they actually inform themselves about things. Thanks.
A recent thread on this by Alessandra Asteriti. tl:dr; essence, shmessence.
Re. Butler: The odious Giliell at Pharyngula recently tried to dimiss me by demanding ‘Have you even read Butler? Have you? HAVE YOU???‘ (bolding and superfluous question marks her’s). By that stage I had already declared that I had had enough and was out of that conversation, so didn’t reply with ‘No; I haven’t read Kierkegaard, either, but I still reject the idea of God’. Had I responded, I might also have been tempted to add that her interrogative style did nothing to dispel the Germanic stereotype.
I’d rephrase that as ‘therefore femininity is neither essential nor exclusive to womanhood, therefore men can be feminine without needing to believe they are women’.
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Nthing the suggestion that in this case ‘being Black’ might serve as a helpful analogy–I’ve tried asking people with a problem with this, ‘would you say that Beyonce and Trayvon Martin have anything at all in common, in terms of their life experience?’