Tag: Non-men

Green Party Women has been answering questions on that terrible post today, and answering them so cluelessly it’s clear they haven’t understood a word anyone said.

Their reply to Magdalen Berns for instance.

Magdalen Berns As a lesbian, I am particularly offended by the implicit homophobia and misogyny underlying your baseless assertion that womanhood is somehow a gender; it’s as if you believe female people somehow choose to be subjected to sex-based oppression and that you’re saying women who don’t present themselves in a stereotypically “feminine” way are not “actual women”, but “non-males”. I hope the Scottish Greens don’t win a single seat in the Holyrood elections this May as a direct result of your disgraceful disregard for the humanity of 51% of the population.

Green Party Women Magdalen Berns Thank you for your feedback, and very sorry for any confusion – as per the statement above, GPW would like to reassure our sisters that we by no means intend to erase women’s identities by forcing members to define relation to men. “Non-male” and “women” are not synonymous – it was used in this instance as an umbrella term for women PLUS non-binary individuals for example. We certainly do not believe that women who present in a way that isn’t stereotypically feminine are not women, and we believe all individual’s affirmed gender as valid :)

Or Ellen Pasternack Murray’s:

Ellen Pasternack Murray Not sure why a self described ~~women’s group~~ should be erasing women in order to include people who don’t even consider themselves to be women.

Green Party Women Hi Ellen, very sorry to see this, and thank you for the support you have given the party up till now. We very much want to reassure our members that the term non-male was used in the context of reserving spaces for marginalised/oppressed groups withinour political structure. The Green Party Women’s group remains the group in the party for women, and we do not believe that the terms “non-male” and “woman” are synonymous

But it doesn’t. The Green Party Women’s group doesn’t remain the group in the party for women, because it’s expanded it to include other groups, including ones that explicitly do not “identify as” women.

And Victoria Smith:

How do you understand the structural oppression of someone who is non-binary? Many feminists would argue that everyone is non-binary if what we are aiming to capture is some “inner essence” beyond gender as a social hierarchy. But you seem to have decided that people who see gender in terms of inner identity rather than class and choose to access a particular vocabulary to describe it are more marginalised than “binary” women – even, one assumes, if these people present as and are taken to be men. How does this marginalisation function? Whom does it benefit? It just strikes me that this is all coming close to not really thinking sexism exists as a meaningful axis of oppression. Instead you see your role as offering succour to anyone and everyone who feels a bit bad about gender. But that’s not politics and it’s not going to liberate anyone.

Green Party Women Hi Victoria Smith, apologies for any confusion, GPW strongly believe that sexism exists as a meaningful axis of oppression. As part of the wider party, we respect and support individual’s affirmed identities, whether that is non-binary, or as women or men. GPW remains the group for women in the party :)

And it just goes on like that, the same reply pasted in in multiple places, complete with smiley.

Hopeless.

Glosswitch again says what needs saying.

She starts with a discussion, via the also wonderful Janet Radcliffe Richards, of “feminine” and “masculine” as part of

a system that places women and men under very different social pressures, the primary aim of which is “to ensure that women should be in the power and service of men”.

It’s not about inherent qualities, it’s about subordination. That’s basic feminism.

Fast-forward 36 years and it seems we’ve forgotten the basics.  It’s not that we no longer use gender to extract resources and labour from one class of people for the benefit of another. Men still own the vast majority of the world’s material resources. Women still struggle for safety, visibility, education, reproductive autonomy, freedom from abuse. But for some reason we’ve stopped bothering to analyse gender as a social hierarchy. Perhaps it got too hard, or maybe it just got boring. Either way, these days it’s every woman – or non-man – for her/theirself.

That’s exactly it, and exactly the problem. I’ve been stewing over it all morning. Identifying out is just trying to save yourself at the cost of abandoning everyone else. It’s the negation of the political and the embrace of the Me First Always.

In 2007’s Whipping Girl Julia Serano complains of “the scapegoating of femininity”:

Until feminists work to empower femininity and pry it away from the insipid, inferior meanings that plague it – weakness, helplessness, fragility, passivity, frivolity, and artificiality – those meanings will continue to haunt every person who is female and/or feminine.

Holy fuck that’s a clueless thing to say. “Femininity” is a euphemism for subordination. It’s incoherent to tell feminists to “empower” subordination. The fact that some people love Manolo Blahniks and eye shadow doesn’t change that one bit.

Like many female people encountering Serano’s work, my first thought was “but my problem isn’t femininity – with which I don’t particularly identify – but being seen and treated as a woman. I don’t feel like or identify as a woman, but that’s the class in which I’ve been placed, and the whole point of feminism is surely the liberation of this class.” In response to this I was told by well-meaning liberal feminists “you don’t notice that you feel like a woman because you’re cis. You only prioritise class over identity because you have cis privilege.” But how could other people be so sure I had cis privilege? “Oh,” I was told, “not knowing you have it means you have it. It’s like having white privilege.” But, I countered, I know I have white privilege even if I don’t always recognise when I’m benefiting from it. As a woman, on the other hand, I know I am disadvantaged and I certainly don’t identify with my subordinate position. “Well,” I was told, “if it bothered you that much you’d identify as trans or non-binary or agender. As it is you’re cis.”

And that’s where I feel my hands balling into fists. No no no no no. It does bother me that much and that’s why I’m a feminist. Trying to magic myself out of it by “identifying” as trans or non-binary or agender would be just a personal fix, and I don’t fucking want just a personal fix – I want the system to change. Telling women to identify out of being women in order to escape oppression is like telling slave labor to identify as slave owners. Even if that worked, it still wouldn’t solve the problem of slave labor. It’s good that Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery, but you’ll notice he didn’t content himself with that; he went on to be a prominent abolitionist.

This never felt quite right. Looking back, I can see it was gaslighting of the highest order. Female people are so privileged they don’t even know they’re privileged.  What kind of nonsense is that? And why was I being told that my only choice would be to identify my way out of womanhood? Sure, I could identify as non-binary. But what good would that do? I wasn’t sexually assaulted for being non-binary. I haven’t been asked about my pregnancies in job interviews for being non-binary. I’m not afraid of street harassment because it would mean someone had “mistaken” me for a cis woman. My primary problem is not that I am identified as a woman despite not feeling like one. My problem is that women are treated like shit.

Identifying out just leaves that intact.

Being misidentified is not our problem; being identified as feminine is not our problem; being identified as women and hence inferior and exploitable is our problem. Only we’re not allowed to say this. Today we must all pretend that the difference between, say, Richards and Serano is that Serano is “more inclusive”. We must pretend, as the Green Party are doing right now, that a class analysis of female oppression can coexist with an identity-based one, regardless of the fact that the latter contradicts the former.

And the identity-based one is individualistic and hence, frankly, selfish.

In what sense, if we are including “individuals of non-binary or no genders” in our group, are we assuming the remaining women to “have” gender?  Is it not conceivable that many women – we used to call them feminists – have no inner sense of “being a woman” but feel class solidarity with everyone who is treated as one? Where do these women – who, on a desert island, would surely be non-binary, but within a class hierarchy wish to stand up and be counted as members of the oppressed sex class “woman” – find themselves represented? Nowhere in this fragmented, messy non-category.

Emphasis added.

Margaret Thatcher famously said “there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” Now the Green Party – who would surely condemn such sentiments – is saying “there is no such thing as a class hierarchy. There are individual non-male identities, and there is gendered oppression.” In both cases we are dealing with individualistic bullshit, coupled with an absolute refusal to ask why things are unequal and who is benefiting from whom.

Women – who exist, regardless of whether they feel like the creatures men tell them they are – deserve better than this.

Yes we do. Not just the non-binary special women, but all women.

Continuing our suddenly regular feature, Comments On Bonkers Green Party Women Posts on Facebook, I give you some comments from the post that explains to us slow women that the group for women has to include non-binary genders and other gender identities, including those that say they are not women and resent being called women.

• As a lesbian, I am particularly offended by the implicit homophobia and misogyny underlying your baseless assertion that womanhood is somehow a gender; it’s as if you believe female people somehow choose to be subjected to sex-based oppression and that you’re saying women who don’t present themselves in a stereotypically “feminine” way are not “actual women”, but “non-males”. I hope the Scottish Greens don’t win a single seat in the Holyrood elections this May as a direct result of your disgraceful disregard for the humanity of 51% of the population.
• Since the focus is on gender balance: I’m interested to know what the committee’s position is on All Women Shortlists? And if in favour, would you also be in favour of renaming them All Non-Man Shortlists, and allowing male people who identify as non-binary to stand?
• Not sure why a self described ~~women’s group~~ should be erasing women in order to include people who don’t even consider themselves to be women.
• ‘Non-binary’ is not an alternative identity to ‘woman’. It’s an alternative philosophy to feminism, which sees all people as non-binary. Saying ‘I don’t consider myself to be female’ to me sounds a lot like ‘I’m not like other girls’
• I take it trans men, being men, are not included in the group of people you recognise as oppressed by gender?
• Basic politics fail. You don’t stand for what you are NOT. You stand for what you ARE (Green, Women, it’s right there in the name). You can’t win votes this way. You can lose them, though.
• The final paragraph is so loaded- ‘those that stand against sex workers’ rights’. I presume you mean End Demand..which most definitely promotes sex worker safety. However, this straw-non-non-man is an attempt to caricature those who disagree with your position as exclusive at best and bastards at worst. Arguing against being defined against the oppressing group is not a ‘disagreement on terminology etc’, it’s a fundamental tenet of feminism. One thing did ring true- your statements, including this one, do tend to be incoherent.
• Well done, Green Party: you just lost my vote.

  You are supposed to be the Green Party WOMEN group. If the Green Party wants to support other marginalised groups, fine: you can do that. You can’t do that by re-defining ‘women’ as ‘non-men’.

  I strongly support everyone’s right to live as they want. Male and female gender stereotypes are discriminatory and soul-destroying and have resulted in mental and physical harm to generations of women.

  I reject these stereotypes with everything I am. The are unfair to men and women. They artificially limit the wonderful scope of every individual’s capacity and personality.

  Without these stereotypes, the term ‘non-binary’ has no meaning.

  I am a woman, because of my female biology and the gendered socialisations I have experienced since birth. I am not the same as someone born biologically male, someone raised male, who identifies with the female-gendered stereotypes I reject. You want to represent the specific interests of groups such as these, who undoubtedly suffer discrimination and need support? Fine. Good. But DON’T abandon women in the process. Or women such as me will abandon you.

Just a small sample.

Green Party Women on Facebook:

A recent issue, taken out of context of its intent, has arisen and caused quite a stir. As a result, the committee of Green Party Women would like to reassure our sisters that we by no means intend to erase women’s identities by forcing members to define [in] relation to men. “Non-male” and “women” are not synonymous.

However, Green Party Women are happy with uses of the term “non-male” as an umbrella term when gender balance practices are conducted. This umbrella term groups together all who face gendered oppression; women, transgender women and individuals of non-binary or no genders. We all deserve to be recognised and included.

For too long, marginalised women have been excluded from most women’s movements and circles. As a group we affirm that trans women are women, and that non-binary genders and other gender identities experience oppression and deserve respect. After all, we are part of a political party, The Green Party, which has a proud history of inclusivity.

We stand alongside our sister group, Young Greens Women, on the events that unfolded recently and apologise for any misunderstandings caused through incoherent statements on our part. We have since removed any posts that are not clear enough on this emotive issue, as some have left stances open to too much interpretation.

There will always be members who are anti-choice, anti-sex worker rights, disagree with terminology etc, as women are not a homogeneous group and occasionally members will disagree with each other. However, it is our duty to look out for and campaign with the most marginalised women in our society, and we would like to assure members that we remain committed to do so.

Green Party Women Committee

‪#‎greenpartyfeminism‬

Sure, “non-binary genders and other gender identities” deserve respect. Everyone deserves respect. But how does that mean that non-binary genders and other gender identities need to be included in women’s groups even if they’re not in any way women? As I’ve asked before, why is it always women who have to move over?

Also, I dislike that dogwhistle “anti-sex worker rights” in the last paragraph. People who oppose full unregulated decriminalization are not anti-sex worker rights. On the contrary. I’m very sick of that calumny being thrown around.

More comments on the Green Party Women post

• I’m so encouraged by the political intelligence in this thread. 🍾A tiny number of people subscribe to this women erasing nonsense. If the Greens don’t want to become a political irrelevance they’d do well to remember that simple fact.
• I’m a floating left-wing voter – I’m nowhere near 100% happy with WEP, Labour, Lib Dem or Greens, but my vote has to go somewhere. Well done for ensuring it won’t be here.
• Women are not “non-men” – this is Handmaid’s Tale stuff. Get a grip and stop promoting the erasure of women as policy – if you’re bothered about keeping and attracting voters, that is.
• Are Green Party Women happy with the term ‘non white’, too, to describe people of all black and minority ethnic heritages?
  No? Good. Nor should you be happy with ‘non men’.
• I know lots of men who classify themselves as feminists, I know transgender individuals who have fought for the right to be called women, I’ve never ever heard anyone campaign to be a ‘non-man’.
• What about women? Male as default marginalises women everywhere.
  When do women get to exist in our own right, as opposed to as in the shadow of men?
  So profoundly disappointed by a party that has done this to women while pretending to care about marginalisation.
• As a Green Party Not-Man, I’m not sure I like “not-man”. Can we go with something more all encompassing please, I’d like to put forward “other” or better still “alien”
• Non-men? Is this April Fools Day? My cat is therefore a non-dog. My sofa is a non-table. My TV is a non-radio… and YOU are non-sensible. Furthermore you’ll be making a laughing stock of the entire Party and all it represents by persisting with this bloody stupid idea. Regards, a woman.

Me, I identify as a non-cheetah. Might as well go with an elegant sprinter to not be.

Green Party Women did a public post on April 4:

Green Party Women, as a whole, are happy with terms such as ‘non-men’ to be used to describe women, including transgender women, and non-binary people as a collective term. This is to avoid further marginalising certain groups of women, particularly those who have been excluded from women’s movements for far too long.

That’s incoherent. Women are women. People who aren’t women aren’t women. It’s incoherent (or so self-evident as to be meaningless) to say people who aren’t women are being excluded from women’s movements. Non-binary people say they are neither women nor men. It’s not women (or men) who exclude them, they exclude themselves.

Be that as it may – three hours ago Green Party Women (i.e. someone speaking for them) left a follow-up comment, probably in response to Caroline’s tweets yesterday and the Indy article:

This morning I have been out in the bitter cold supporting a pro choice demo blockading a catholic church that planned a picket of a local clinic. I was there as a greenpartywomen and with women and men. The demo was organised and led by (people who presented as) women. Possibly there were people who are trans or gender fluid or identified differently in some other way there, they were invisible (to me). We were on the side of the less powerful against the more powerful and we were successful there. I support “avoiding further marginalising certain groups of women, particularly those who have been excluded from women’s movements for far too long.”

There are many many many furious comments. So many. A sample:

• You can support who and what you like. Just do it under your own name, not under the name of “green party women”. I am a green party woman (not a non-man) and you do NOT speak for me.
• By defining women as anything other than ‘women’ you are contributing to the oppression and marginalisation of women. You are removing power from women and handing it over gladly to whoever finds it useful to deny us our voice.
• Can you please advise why a women’s group (that’s your name) should feel obliged to include people who are not women. Thanks.
• Everyone agrees with avoiding marginalising women. What we disagree with is that that can be in any way achieved by calling women “non-men”.
• I am sorry you were out in the cold this morning, but you had better get used to it, as calling women ‘non men’, is going to result in the Green Party staying there for good.
• There’s trying to be understanding and aware, and avoiding offensive terminology, and there’s being a numpty.
  This kind of thing could make the Greens a laughing stock. Makes me wonder if you’re an agent provocateur.
  Yrs, a ‘non-cat, dog, or indeed budgerigar’
• I don’t give a toss what you were doing this morning. I do, as a GP member care that you are misrepresenting our views to the general public. You are doing something dangerous. You will lose us votes. You are losing us members. And you are doing this with no mandate. So wind your neck in, issue an apology. Explain this is your own personal gibberish and quit trying to destroy the reputation of the party.
• Many of us have worked hard for years to help turn the Party into an electable organization. This vapid, ill-conceived crap is dragging us backwards. Please, I implore you. Take this post down and issue an explanation that you do NOT speak for Green Women and absolutely no – ‘most’ women do not think they are ‘non men’.
• You shouldn’t be happy. Women are not “non-men” and it makes no sense to describe us as such. Is this Green Party Non-Men? Women are not “non-men” and it’s hugely damaging to define us by what we are not. This sort of nonsense is precisely why male is the default, and you are absolutely making it worse.
• Why would anyone who does not believe themselves to be a woman think they ought to be included in the women’s movement, anyway? The clue is in the name. It’s a movement for the liberation of women. If you’re not a woman, why would you think it appropriate to demand that that movement include you and centre your interests?
• Not to state the bleedin’ obvious, but what business does anyone describing themselves as non-binary, or even the ridiculous “non-man”, have in a Women’s party?! It makes as much sense as complaining that a vegetarian society isn’t inclusive of meat eaters.
• This is genuinely the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a while from a ‘progressive’ group. If you want to be inclusive of gender identity there is a handy word called ‘people’ that would suffice. Otherwise, ‘woman’ is a perfectly good word for anyone who identifies as one. Whoever has done this should apologise to all the women you just offended by defining their existence in relation to men.
• I would be quite interested to meet the 2 or even 3 green party women who are happy to be defined as “not default human”. This is a ridiculous state of affairs, it makes the greens sound regressive and frankly ridiculous. I am not “non-male” I am a woman, and, despite a lifetime of assumptions being made about me because of my biology, I am proud to be one. Greens obviously don’t want women like me as part of their voter base. I shall, as a well socialised woman, obey.
• So votes for women SHOULD have said votes for non-men? I can’t WAIT to read the race policy …..anyone on here non-white?#Iamawomannotanonman
• I’m a green party member and I am not at all happy about this. By calling us non-men you are marginalising all women. I’ll be cancelling my membership and you have also lost my vote.

That will do for now, but I may post more later. They’re valuable comments – angry but reasoned.

The Greens again. “Non-men” again. The Independent:

Feminists including leading activist Caroline Criado-Perez have attacked an invitation to “non-men” by the young women’s arm of the Green Party.

“Women/non-men who are Young Greens can find and join our Facebook group ‘Young Greens Women’”, they tweeted on 26March.

But on Friday Ms Criado-Perez, who led the campaign to keep a woman on English banknotes and co-founded feminist media website The Women’s Room, called the tweet “the most anti-woman anti-feminist ignorant bullshit I have seen in some time”.

“Women are not “non-men”, she tweeted, urging the Greens to “sort your shit out”. “You do not include people by establishing men as default human,” she added.

Ms Criado-Perez later took to rephrasing well-known feminist texts.

Rewriting Simone de Beauvoir’s famous sentence, she tweeted “one is not born but rather becomes a non man”.

“For most of history, anonymous was a non man”, she added, recasting Virginia Woolf.

Under the hashtag  #greenpartyfeminism, other Twitter users joined in, substituting “non-man” for “woman”, “girl” and “mother” in famous song lyrics.

There’s a lot of good mockery and rage on that hashtag.

Scarlett Brown, PhD gender reseacher at King’s College London, told The Independent: “You can interpret the tweet in two ways. Firstly, that they are emphasising, without even realising it, that we live in a society that defines by not being a man. That’s been a big feminist critique for a long time.”

“It depends on what you determine the slash [between women and non-men] to mean. If you think women and non-men are the same thing, that’s not on. That’s what most of the criticism is about.

“But if you read it as ‘the people we want in our group are women and non-men’, then what they’ve done is include a non-binary category. If that’s the case, that’s an important thing and I fully support that. It’s just they’ve done it clunkily and haphazardly.”

Wait. Why? Why is it an important thing, why does she fully support that? Why are women – and women only – expected to “include” people who say they’re not women? Why are women, and women only, expected to keep redefining themselves every five minutes? Why are women, and women only, under constant relentless pressure to stop organizing as women?

Scarlett Brown doesn’t say.