What can these crazy evil feminist women possibly mean?
So this is a thing, is it? People feeling that they “don’t fit” within some category or other, and thus needing to move to a different one, and thus having a right to order the rest of the world to “validate” them as being in that category as opposed to the one they were “assigned” to at birth? It works across all categories, does it?
Well, no, it doesn’t. We know that. Some categories can be exchanged for different ones, but others can’t. People can join some categories via choice or work or both, and others they can’t. People can become builders or doctors or poets or engineers; people can’t become rabbits or gods or Shakespeare or motorcycles.
This isn’t some evil conspiracy by feminists. We’re not big meanies who just won’t let men become women. It’s not our doing, it’s not our fault, any more than it’s our doing or fault that we are women.
I think Laurie Penny is the one who needs to explain. I think she needs to explain why she thinks sex can simply be swapped the way one might swap jackets with a friend.
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23 responses to “Fascinated to know”
Because feelings are more important than facts of course. Trans dogma 101. :P
But, I think that she also needs to explain why gender
structurestricture is so sacred that sex must conform to gender. It seems to me to be in conflict with a main premise of feminism.I hope my tag works. I’m out of practice on HTML.
Jesus christ, talk about disingenuous. She cannot possibly pretend that no one has explained that ‘gender critical’ means criticism of gender itself, and thus means the elimination of the boxes she wants to maintain.
And even those category changes that can be attempted are not guaranteed. How many people tried to be a builder, a doctor, a poet… and failed? Changing categories has never been a given. Biological categories in particular.
Well, Holms, it’s a rhetorical question because she’s not “fascinated” enough to actually absorb what is being said about gender.
How about a world in which the variety of human personality in each sex is so well-understood and accepted that any type or degree of preference is seen as normal for either sex? How about a world in which no man should want to pretend to be a woman because he can act however he wants as a man? A world in which women are likewise free to act as they feel, without having to label themselves “men” to do so? A world in which nobody bothers men for being nurturing and sweet, and nobody bothers women for being ambitious and strong?
In this magical world of feminist imagination, there would be no gender identity. People would live as the sexes they are, but they’d live however they want to live. Like it is in the real world, someone who is born male remains male for life; in the ideal world, however, this male would not feel the constraints of rigid gender roles, and would have no reason to develop an obsession with displaying stereotypical markers of the opposite sex. He could live freely, however he wants, without having to pretend or hide.
A major problem with that answer is that feminism has been urging it for decades and it’s not happening. There’s more freedom from gender rules in some ways, but less in others, and over all it’s pretty minimal.
@Papito;
Well put.
There’s something odd about this question. It seems to be taking the form “explain how, if you are right, you’d try to deal with being wrong.” By using phrases like “assigned male at birth” Penny is subtly assuming the truth of Gender Identity Theory — people “trapped in the wrong body” and by all rights and reason the opposite sex. Whereas, what she’s labeling “gender identity “ we label something else because it’s not the same thing.
It’s like a Christian asking “In an atheist universe, how would you deal with God’s miracles?” You either enter into a hypothetical or you don’t.
I also think that most people have a distorted view, or incomplete view, of feminist thought. They think it means that women are victims (yes, I actually have seen memes that say “I don’t need feminism because I am not a victim,”) or want power over men, or don’t like sex, or in the charitable versions just want equal pay and other forms of shared power in the workplace. I think that’s the sort of feminism that is referred to when people announce “Feminism is for ALL women” referring to including transwomen. Don’t harass them, and don’t tell them they aren’t women, sister, or you’re out of the feminism club and into the TERF pit.
What would gender identity look like? It wouldn’t because it doesn’t. No one has a “gender identity”, except inasmuch as there may be facts about ourselves not integrated into our self-conceptions.
What would be the acceptable ways for someone assigned male at birth who did not want to be a man? I assume that’s meant to end with “to act on that”. Also, “the acceptable” is a weird choice. I would have gone with “a permissible”. Additionally, the only assignation of sex at birth is by Nature; do not pretend it is a social act. Our amended question is now, “What would be a permissible way for a male who did not want to be a man to act on that?” But even this must be divided into two questions, because believers in gender identity have muddied the meanings of basic terms like man.
If by “be a man” we mean “adhere to the normative prescriptions and proscriptions society assigns to males”, then the answer is simple. The physical reality of sex is per se already such a significantly differentiating factor that we don’t need to add to it. In an ideal world, there would be neither prescriptions nor proscriptions overlayed on one’s sex, as we would recognize that all personalities, preferences, and predilections can manifest in people of either sex. Women and men ought live as they will without unjust handicap linked to being female or male. In an ideal world, he would be unable not to want to be a man, because “to be a man” would have no meaning aside from “to be male”.
And if by “be a man” we mean “be male”, the answer is also simple. As with all things, he is permitted any course of action that does not impinge on others, taking care that he force neither his belief nor its consequences on others. However, as what he wants is impossible short of suicide, what he ought do for his own health is seek counseling and learn to accept, rather than loathe and deny, himself as he is.
What would be the best way to live for someone who felt they didn’t fit within the categories of male and female? Here’s an equivalent question, for which the answer is the same. What would be the best way to live for someone who feels that two plus two doesn’t equal four?
At least this is a fun Mad Lib.
Alternatively, since “‘[stupid/debunked thing A] critical’ [P, opposed to A]” is quite redundant and aggressively mendacious, we might simplify it to “[P]”.
What would divinity look like? It wouldn’t because it doesn’t, except in the sense that “divine” is synonymous with “extraordinarily or asymptotically good”.
What would be acceptable for someone touched by God– Stop right there. God doesn’t exist, so no one is touched by Him.
If someone felt they they didn’t live in a world without any gods–then they’d be mistaken. Such a person would be free to believe whatever, but not free to impose that belief or its consequences on others.
We could also reverse the relations.
Well for starters, I don’t think the question is worth answering. Not just because it’s incoherent on the face of it, but because I don’t believe for an instant that Penny is on the level. This is exactly the sort of tweet I’d expect to see from someone – anyone, these days – who has a book coming out on an unrelated subject and is on an eyeball-fishing expedition.
Penny recently admitted to Helen Staniland (in public, on Twitter) that she couldn’t say out loud what she really thought on this subject because she’s frightened of the repercussions. This is as close to an outright admission that she thinks it’s all nonsense as it’s possible to get.
Note that the question is also phrased for plausible deniability. I’m not buying it and I wouldn’t dignify it with an answer, even to pick apart its incoherence.
BUT HAVING SAID THAT, I might just have a stab at part of it, this part:
Oh, I don’t know, Laurie, how about this, completely off the top of my head:
There is already The Staniland Question; it should be bookended with The Rowling Answer.
Sal Grover’s reply was also near-perfect:
I also just noticed that a few people had posted JKR’s words, as I did above, and Pullman’s “GC, what does that mean?” (or whatever the exact wording was), which made me laugh.
It looks like a world where people can wear what makes them happy, have a hairstyle and accessorize in a way that makes them happy, work in jobs that make them happy, engage in hobbies and pastimes that make them happy, love the person who makes them happy, express their emotions as they wish to (so long as they aren’t being psychopathic manipulators), and not be discriminated against or be told they have the wrong genitalia to do those things and must have surgeries and change their body chemistry. It doesn’t look like a world where men claim they have the ability and right to menstruate, gestate, and breastfeed or to be in spaces reserved for women, especially if being naked is involved.
I’d say that everything before the bolded part depends on the bolded part.
Indeed. Without the bolded part how do you even know what rape is?
We keep finding out, over and over again, that you don’t.
Laurie Penny can proclaim theirself to be whatever theirself pleases. That is freedom of speech. Theirself’s listeners can believe what they are being told, or otherwise. That is freedom of thought.
I think the bolded part was a great big and fully intentional fuck you to Laurie Penny. That’s exactly Sal’s style, she doesn’t waste a word.
I don’t know this Sal.
Found her.
David Bowie?
Sai Grover is the founder of Giggle: https://joinagiggle.com/
Look what Laurie Penny is saying today, after the many thoughtful answers she received to yesterday’s ‘question’ (but did not engage with):
https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/1423861627418398721
For the blocked:
Yep, ‘transphobes’.
Now I’m going to have to try to find those tweets where she admits she won’t tell the truth about this because she’s scared of the consequences.
Some of the men don’t want to fight toxic masculinity from within; most of those don’t want to fight toxic masculinity at all because they are the embodiment of toxic masculinity. And that includes most of the trans women we are worrying about (though not all trans women, obviously, since some of them are surely living quite lives and going about their business without sending “girl dick” pics to everyone they don’t like).
How does she get it so wrong?
People who are male are boys and men, regardless of how they identify or how they were/are socialized.
The actual f-