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by JackRiddler » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:15 am
by Project Willow » Mon Sep 26, 2016 3:56 pm
Heaven Swan » 25 Sep 2016 20:58 wrote:
Re: multiple personalities I have at times wondered how much dissociation plays into shifting trans identities. If you read articles and blogs by detransitioners (I'm referring mainly to F to M here) many have come to the conclusion that trauma was the source of their 'dysphoria' and dissociation was a major player. One that I was reading recently (Mark/Mariza Cummings) said that transitioning feels like the witness protection program- you can leave your old self behind and become somebody else- and if you don't like yourself that can be quite appealing.
by Grizzly » Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:30 pm
Society always seems to offer some new side route around confronting trauma.
by American Dream » Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:52 pm
THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH ANTI-TRANS FEMINISTS
By Cole Parke, on August 11, 2016
Intersectionality /ˌintərˈsekSHənˈalitē/ noun the linking of different systems of power and oppression (e.g. racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ableism, etc.), which can occur at different levels—individual, interpersonal, family, community, and institutional.
Since American professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first introduced the term in 1989, “intersectionality” has become 21st Century activism’s favorite buzzword. Nearly 30 years later, though, social justice organizers are still struggling to get it right; meanwhile, the Right is more than happy to exploit our yet-to-be-fully-realized aspirations, effectively taking advantage of internal conflicts and rifts to further advance an agenda that does deep, deep damage to all of us.
In this current political moment of heightened anti-trans targeting, when school boards and legislatures across the country are debating whether or not transgender people should be allowed access to public facilities, one wedge of particular note and intrigue is the Right’s assertion that the bathroom hysteria they’ve whipped up isn’t an anti-trans campaign, but rather a pro-woman one. As Joseph Backholm, executive director of the right-wing Family Policy Institute of Washington State, argues, the “transgender phenomenon” isn’t just an attack on women’s privacy, but a “war on womanhood” itself. And under the guise of feminism, they’re ready to go to battle, their patriarchal battle cry being, “Protect our girls!”The Right is selectively highlighting and leveraging the scholarship of a fringe group of highly controversial academics collectively labeled “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists” (TERFs).
Although there’s a strong and growing presence of trans-feminist thought and activism, the Right is selectively highlighting and leveraging the scholarship of a fringe group of highly controversial academics collectively labeled “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists” (TERFs), a term coined in 2008 by cisgender women seeking to name a dangerous vein in the feminist movement and assert themselves as trans allies, distinct from their anti-trans counterparts.
Although most categorized as TERFs reject the label (as well as the term cisgender) and consider it to be insulting, they openly espouse their anti-trans notion that trans women “aren’t really women”—that real womanhood is exclusively determined on a natal, biological level. These arguments (key elements of what’s called “gender essentialism”) align themselves with and fuel the flames of right-wing transphobia. TERFs also maintain that trans men are simply women who are “traitors,” but like the Right, most of their venom is saved for trans women.
The current surge of anti-trans attacks cropping up in legislatures and school boards across the country has come as a shock to many LGB activists. Still basking in the glow of last year’s marriage equality victory, many failed to realize that the trickle-down justice strategy of mainstream gay rights organizations was inherently flawed. That 2015 was also a year in which more trans women were killed by acts of extreme violence in the U.S. than any year prior on record makes this painfully evident.
In response to laws like North Carolina’s HB 2 (described by Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, as “the most extreme anti-LGBT bill in the nation”), activists quickly mobilized resistance against some of the most obvious targets—people like Gov. Pat McCrory and other Republican leaders responsible for hastily forcing the law through the state’s legislature. Others attempted to pull back the curtain, calling out the role of national right-wing organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom, a massive and deep-pocketed network of conservative lawyers that has spent the last two decades manipulating and redefining religious freedom in order to advance their Christian Right agenda.
As noted above, however, the forces at play in this current anti-trans offensive are not exclusively right-wing operatives. TERF scholarship laid a cultural and intellectual foundation upon which the Right could build an argument that would appeal to both conservatives and certain sectors of the Left.
Comic strip by Barry Deutsch: leftycartoons.com.
by Luther Blissett » Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:06 pm
by Heaven Swan » Tue Sep 27, 2016 6:37 pm
The Christian rights love affair with anti-trans feminists"
by Project Willow » Tue Sep 27, 2016 6:50 pm
Luther Blissett » 27 Sep 2016 12:06 wrote:Are we allowed to gas trans men, women, and children?
by Project Willow » Tue Sep 27, 2016 7:07 pm
‘We need to be braver’ — women challenge ‘gender identity’ and the silencing of feminist discourse
Women who challenge discourse around “gender identity” have been largely isolated on the front lines for the past decade. Liberal feminists and progressives have chosen identity politics over feminism many times over and this is no exception. Those who are not invested in women’s liberation are well aware that the power they seek cannot be gained from supporting the independent women’s movement, and most haven’t bothered to think hard enough about the roots of patriarchy to understand what it is we are fighting in the first place. But even many of those whose politics are otherwise rooted radical feminist principles have felt afraid to publicly question the dogma of gender identity discourse. We are only too aware that refusing to accept and parrot back commonly accepted mantras places you on the wrong end of a modern witch hunt.
I don’t deny that I felt afraid, for many years, to take a firm position on discourse surrounding gender identity and trans politics, despite my opinion that women-only space and organizing is central to the feminist movement and to supporting women recovering from male violence.
In fact, for many years, I wasn’t quite sure what my position was, and worried that speaking out against the naturalizing of sexist gender roles that has come hand in hand with support for what is called “trans rights” would distract from my fight against the sex industry and violence against women. Punishments for questioning trans politics include losing one’s job, censorship, blacklisting, being physically and otherwise threatened and attacked by transactivists, and social ostracization — all things that prevent women from speaking out. (I have suffered many of these punishments already, of course, for failing to toe the party line and for allying with women labelled “TERF” or “transphobic.”)
We live in a time wherein basic feminist ideas have become unspeakable, while anti-feminist slurs and smears are widely accepted and even celebrated by those who claim to be social justice activists and progressives.
Regardless of the risks, I cannot, in good faith, support the neoliberal, individualistic notion of “gender identity” — not as a feminist who understands how patriarchy came to be and continues to prevail or as a leftist who understands how systems of power work. I do not wish to be silent in the face of regressive and anti-feminist discourse, because I know that my silence does not help empower other women to speak out. I do not wish to abandon my sisters who have already suffered immensely for speaking out.
In July, a conference organized by Julia Long took place at Conway Hall in London, England — the aim was to question the unquestionable. Thinking Differently: Feminists Questioning Gender Politics featured feminist speakers such as Sheila Jeffreys, Lierre Keith, Julie Bindel, Stephanie Davies-Arai, Mary Lou Singleton, Jackie Mearns, and Magdalen Berns. They discussed the silencing of feminist speech that has been taking place across the UK (and beyond), as well as the impact of trans discourse on the ongoing fight for women’s rights and towards women’s liberation from patriarchy. Video recordings of the talks were released just last week.
Sheila Jeffreys argues, in her talk, that “transgenderism is an invention that is socially and politically constructed” and that, rather than being innate, exists in direct connection to the forces of power that exist in a heteropatriarchal society.
Jeffreys connects the notion of “gender identity” to American neoliberalism in that it is, of course, a very individualistic notion, but also in the way that it connects to capitalism and the cash cow that transgenderism is for Big Pharma, gender identity therapists and clinics, and cosmetic surgeons. It seems odd to discuss gender identity outside the context of capitalism, considering the way “identity” and “expression” is so connected, in modern society, to consumerism. Femininity itself has been marketed to women for decades in an entirely sexist way, yet suddenly we are expected to accept things like cosmetics as “empowering” because men claim it as part of their feminized “gender expression.”
In fact, Jeffreys suggests feminists drop the term “gender” entirely. She says instead, “We need to talk about sex class or sex caste” as “gender” has become meaningless and conflated with biological sex.
As feminists, what we really are doing is working towards an end to gender — a thing that was invented and imposed in order to naturalize the sex class hierarchy that positions men as dominant and women as subordinate. One has to ask how progressive it is, from a feminist perspective, to accept the notion that gender is both real and innate — a thing that one can be born with, as this is precisely the tactic used historically by men to defend the idea that women should not be permitted to vote, work outside the home, or hold positions of power in society. Women were constructed as naturally “feminine,” which meant we were too emotional, irrational, and weak to engage in the public sphere as men did. Men, by contrast, were said to be more suited for public office and to hold positions of power as they were innately assertive, rational, unemotional, and tough.
Are we, as feminists (and as a society) really comfortable moving backwards in this way, by accepting gender roles (which exist only to naturalize and enforce sexism) as innate rather than socially constructed?
“Cis” is another term that has been adopted by those who wish to see themselves or present themselves as progressive but that is rejected by radical feminists. “Cis,” we are told, means “a person whose self-identity conforms with the gender that corresponds to their biological sex.” Therefore, a “cis woman” would be a woman who identifies with femininity, which I most certainly do not, nor do many other women. I reject the notion of femininity and I therefore reject the notion that women who have femininity imposed on them are either privileged or are naturally inclined towards their subordinate status. “Cis” is a regressive term, as it pretends as though women somehow identify with their own oppression. Nonetheless, women who reject the term are labelled “transphobic” — yet another way feminist speech is shut down and the general questioning of gender politics is disallowed.
Like Jeffreys, Lierre Keith connects the concept of gender identity to liberalism, pointing out in her talk that radicals understand that “society is organized by concrete systems of power, not by thoughts and ideas.” Therefore, she says, “the solution to oppression is to take those systems apart.” She points out that racism was reinforced through propaganda that said black people were naturally inferior, in the same way women and the lower classes were said to simply have different (inferior) brains, effectively naturalizing inequality. Gender, like class and race, is not a binary, Keith says, but a hierarchy.
Keith knows as well as anyone how scary it is to speak out. “My career is over,” she says. “I can’t ever speak at universities — even if I get an invitation, within two weeks it’s rescinded.” She compares this trend to McCarthyism, saying, “There’s this lock down on public debate — you have to follow this certain line.”
Julie Bindel, a prolific and established feminist journalist, has been officially no-platformed by the National Union of Students (NUS). She explains, in her talk, that a motion against her, enshrined at an NUS conference, read only, “Julie Bindel is vile.” Her crimes included an article written in support of Vancouver Rape Relief’s fight to define their own membership, after Kimberly Nixon, a transgender male, attempted to sue the longstanding rape crisis shelter after being refused training to become a counselor for rape victims and which argued against the sexist stereotypes transgenderism appears defined by. Bindel’s vilification was also based, she explains, on a 2007 article she wrote about trans people who were pressured into and regret having “gender-reassignment surgery.”
Many women refused to support Bindel back then out of fear, and some feminists still, she says, tell her they can’t put her on their conference programs lest their event venue get shut down. “This is not the way we should do feminism,” she says. “We are leaving behind young women in university who are desperate to be out and proud radical feminists and cannot.” Despite what many believe, this silencing of discourse is not about supporting marginalized people — it’s about destroying feminism.
Essentially, political critique has been relabeled as “phobia,” thereby shoving what is a feminist analysis of male domination and systemic power into the category of “bigotry,” which serves to justify censorship. And this is specifically happening to radical feminists who, Bindel says, refuse to “capitulate to the identity politics that is liberal or ‘fun feminism.'” Meanwhile, misogynists and pornographers are permitted on campus without protest.
Ironically, it is university students who seem to be leading the charge — bullying radical feminist students into silence, banning women from their campuses for challenging liberal doctrine. (Something Magdalen Berns speaks to in her talk, as she was banned from just about every women’s and LGTB group at the University of Edinburgh in her final year — an institution that has apparently placed a “trigger warning” on radical feminism itself.) I say “ironically” because it is, of all places, on university campuses that these conversations should be encouraged, as indeed higher education is about studying ideas and learning how to think critically.
It’s time to put our fear aside. Here is what I have learned about feminism (the real kind of feminism — not liberalism, not queer politics, not pro-capitalist rhetoric centered around personal feelings of “empowerment”): Regardless of what we do or say, as radical feminists, we are persecuted, smeared, and silenced. This happens because we stand up for women, hold men accountable, and criticize patriarchy unapologetically. We are called “SWERF,” “TERF,” “whorephobic,” “femmephobic,” “transphobic,” “anti-sex,” “moralistic prudes,” and so on, not because we are terrified of trans people, prostituted women, and sexuality, or because our politics are centered around “excluding” particular individuals (unless, of course, those individuals are anti-feminist — then yes, you will likely feel “excluded” by feminism), but because these terms and slurs effectively silence and exclude us. We are no-platformed and blackballed, discredited at any opportunity, to the point that others cannot associate with us, support us, or share any of our work (regardless of the content of said work), lest they too be tarred with the same brush.
It is a strategy used to keep other women afraid and silent, and it’s working.
We are losing the right to speak about our bodies, as Berns points out. Women have rights that are directly connected to the understanding that we have been oppressed, historically, because we were born female. Patriarchy only exists because 6000 odd years ago, men sought a way to control women’s reproductive capacity. “Gender” was solidified in order for men to claim ownership of women’s bodies and in order to naturalize their dominance. Feminists had to fight for women’s rights on the basis that females were not inferior and that they needed special protection — not because of their personal feelings or “gender identity,” but because of their biology and the discrimination attached to that biology. “You might be worried about your job or your friends, but your rights are more important than anything else,” Berns says.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no point in living in fear of being labelled in these ways — with various acronyms or as some version of “phobic.” It is nothing more than a divide and conquer strategy. There is no avoiding these witch hunts, unless we are prepared to lie or be silent — something that is, in my opinion, a much worse sentence than being smeared, targeted, and called nonsensical names by anti-feminists.
I do not ever again wish to put any energy into hiding from these slurs because in doing so, the goal is achieved. I stand by my sisters who speak out and continue to speak out, despite being no platformed and attacked.
You can call us whatever you like, because we know what you really mean: Feminist. Not the fun kind.
Anti-feminists are winning and will continue to win so long as we stay silent. They will continue to claim the identity of “feminist” while smearing and vilifying movement women. Leftist men will continue to proudly call us anti-feminist names and censor our work, comforted by the support and silence of these “queer activists,” “sex worker rights activists,” and liberal feminists — people who have shown themselves as traitors to women and whose politics consist of inventing new words to disguise male supremacy and violence against women. It’s up to us to speak out and to stand by our sisters, despite the repercussions.
Bindel concludes her talk by saying:“We need to be braver… Those of us who are a bit older and who have been in feminism for longer owe it to the newer feminists and the younger feminists. Because how on earth do we expect them to ever be involved in a cohesive, vibrant movement if they are terrified of being thrown out of their friendship groups and their own communities?
… Please let’s not capitulate anymore. I understand how scary this is.
There are still feminists saying, ‘I can’t have you on our program, I can’t ask you to speak at this, I can’t include your name in that because they’ll come after us.
Well let them come after us — because we’re waiting for them.”
I’m with you, sister.
by brekin » Tue Sep 27, 2016 7:30 pm
by Agent Orange Cooper » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:09 pm
by American Dream » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:26 pm
Radical Feminists and Conservative Christians Team Up Against Transgender People
The right has been using the writings of trans-exclusive radical feminists to justify their crusade. It’s not the first time the far left and far right have teamed up.
When you read the Christian Right’s wacky, ignorant statements about transgender people, have you ever wondered where they get this stuff?
The answer, often, is feminists.
In fact, the surprising nexus between radical feminists and Christian Right culture warriors has been with us a long time. In the 1980s, anti-porn feminists like Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin teamed up with anti-porn conservatives like Edwin Meese, leading to the passage of laws censoring sexual speech in the name of protecting women. In the last decade, anti-prostitution feminists have joined forces with fundamentalist Christians to prosecute sex workers under the aegis of sex trafficking laws.
And now, some essentialist feminists – pejoratively nicknamed TERFs, for “Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists” – have provided the pseudo-philosophical basis for fundamentalist Christians’ anti-transgender laws. Not all feminists, of course; in fact the term “TERF” was coined in 2008 specifically to distinguish radical feminists who welcome transgender women as women, and those who insist that biological sex determines one’s gender identity.
Cole Parke, LGBTQ & Gender Justice researcher at the left-leaning think tank Political Research Associates, has been tracking what Parke describes as a “symbiotic relationship” between TERFs and the Christian Right. Parke cited ake for example an April 2016 op-ed by Jennifer Roback Morse (president and founder of the right-wing Ruth Insititute) where she said she's reading "very interesting book" called Gender Hurts, by Sheila Jeffreys, writing "I would not have expected to agree with a radical lesbian feminist. However, in this case, I absolutely agree with her: Bruce Jenner was never a little girl. I don’t care what kind of fantasy life he has. I was once a little girl. So was Jeffreys. Jenner never was."
Meanwhile, the author of that book, Jeffreys, approvingly cites the anti-trans scholar Paul McHugh, who was responsible for shutting down the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins University and is frequently cited by right-wing scholars and writers. Closing the circle, McHugh cited Jeffreys in a recent anti-trans position paper published by the American College of Pediatricians.
In a recent article, Parke cited a second example: a June, 2015, five-point plan issued by the right-wing Family Research Council (FRC) for “responding to the transgender movement.” Its co-authors, Peter Sprigg and Dale O’Leary, have argued that transgender people suffer from “delusions” and should be sent to so-caled reparative therapy, or are “liars” who target children and expose them to “molesters and exhibitionists masquerading as sex educators.”
Among the sources cited in the FRC report was Janice Raymond, whom Parke describes as “a lesbian scholar and infamous anti-trans activist” who authored the 1979 book The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male and proposed legislation in 1980 for the “elimination of transsexualism.”
To be clear, writers like Jeffreys and Raymond do not represent the majority of feminists, or of radical feminists. On the contrary, the status of transgender women has been a long, intra-feminist controversy that reached its greatest boiling point in the cancellation of the famous Michigan Womyn’s Festival (MichFest) over the question of whether or not to allow transgender women to attend the women’s-only festival. MichFest shut its doors rather than allow trans women to attend.
by tapitsbo » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:39 pm
by American Dream » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:45 pm
Gender is a Weapon: Coercion, domination and self-determination (2004)
by sallydarity
I was on the bus recently, and a guy about my age got on the bus and sat across from me. He and some others were looking out of the bus windows at some men in red dresses. We didn’t know why they were wearing dresses, but the guy across from me said, “That’s scary.” Another guy said, “Whatever, as long as they don’t come on the bus.” I wanted to say “what’s so scary about men in dresses?” But worrying that I might look enough like a dyke to him to get shit for it, and worrying that the effort and fear involved with confronting someone might make me cry, I didn’t say anything. I just wondered. What makes a guy in a dress so scary? And what about homophobia, transphobia, or whatever you want to call it without knowing why that guy was wearing a dress, causes men to bond by shit talking about it? There are many ways in which we are taught what our appropriate gender is, and when someone feels threatened by a gender identity or expression, we can guess that there lies the key to our struggle.
Gender is used against us, but we can also use it to free each other and ourselves. If we start undermining the rules and constraints of gender, we can more successfully fight patriarchy and domination. By writing this, I hope to plant seeds of gender rebellion, solidarity, and gender freedom.
Here’s a term you may not have come across: gender self-determination. Self-determination means each person or community being free to determine for oneself the way they want to live and the decisions that affect their lives. In the context of a struggle for gender self-determination, it means, “honoring the rights of each person to make their own choices concerning their body, their identity, their languages and the way in which they present their gender… It is about… being committed to building a world where each and every person is able to express and live their gender and bodies in ways that are liberating, full, and healing… It is our work to challenge the numerous obstacles that encroach on people’s abilities to make those decisions for their own.” Michelle O’Brien
So in what ways do we not have gender self-determination? To some people it’s laughably obvious, and to others perhaps it’s not so obvious. How are you not completely free to determine what you do with or what happens to your body? How are you not free to determine your own identity and gender presentation?
The acceptable genders in this society are man or boy and woman or girl. For most of us a medical professional determines our sex the moment we’re born. If our genitals are ambiguous, they might further determine who we are and alter our bodies to fit the male or female box without our permission. Then most of us have to wear pink or blue and of course many of us know how we’re treated differently as we’re growing up depending on if it’s been determined that we’re male or female. It’s often determined for us what we wear, what we can play, what toys are fit for us, what we should be interested in, what skills we’re encouraged to have, etc. Not only are these things pushed on us, but we might be punished in one way or another if we don’t fit accurately and acceptably into the male or female box. If it’s determined that we’re male, but we’re not masculine enough, we’re called sissies, fags, pussy-whipped, etc. If it’s determined that we’re female, but we’re not feminine enough, we are called bitches, whores, or dykes, or we will never get a boyfriend/married (and therefore have no value). All around us we’re coerced into fitting into the male or female box and we’re taught how we have to fit; we need to fulfill certain requirements starting with our bodies and including our sexuality, how we act, how we look, and what we value. We are made to think there is such a thing as a real man and a real woman, and that we’re supposed to be one or the other. We are virtually imprisoned by gender, though we may have some freedom, if we don’t behave appropriately, there are plenty of prison guards to attempt to put us in our place. To what extent do we choose this arrangement or our place in it? What would gender look like if we had gender self-determination?
If we’ve agreed that we are socialized to fit into one of the gender boxes, even coerced into it, then perhaps we can agree that we are still without choice in many ways.
Is this the natural order of things or does power play a role in the division between genders? Think about why white supremacy/racism exists and how the division between white people and other races is reinforced in different ways. Not to imply that white supremacy and patriarchy affect people or function the same way, but comparing the two can offer us some insights into how they are based on power and how they interconnect.
Gender and Power
I argue that power has a lot to do with why these social divisions exist and are maintained. In the case of gender, men in general benefit from this social division. Men are given more access, more privilege, and more value. A man must be masculine to climb up the hierarchy. A primary masculine trait that upholds patriarchy is domination. Masculinity does not necessarily involve domination, but domination is a highly valued masculine trait. Patriarchy allows and encourages men in general to control things that are deemed weaker or lower in the hierarchy. Some men even use the model of patriarchal masculinity against others by accusing them of being less than a man (i.e. insults implying homosexuality or womanliness), which is another example of how the gender dichotomy is based on power.
Being the breadwinner of the family has been seen as man’s proper role, but economic hardship due to racism and capitalism has caused situations in many families of color and poor families where men can’t make adequate money. Patriarchy (and white men colluding with it) has compelled many black men and women alike to defend black men’s manhood in the context of patriarchal racism, which reinforces the divide between men and women. In Killing Rage, bell hooks wrote, “Since most black men (along with women and children) are socialized to equate manhood with justice, the first issue on our agenda has to be individual and collective acknowledgement that justice and the integrity of the race must be defined by the extent to which black males and females have the freedom to be self-determining… [Justice] can emerge only as black males refuse to play the game—refuse patriarchal definitions of manhood.” Some black female authors have said that due to men’s need to defend their masculinity, fighting for the liberation of their race or class is a priority over the fight for women’s liberation (which, being detrimental to a struggle against racism and upholding patriarchy, benefits white men twofold).
Having to already deal with the patriarchal standards within their own ethnic groups, women of color also experience to different degrees being exoticized, sexualized, and otherwise dehumanized and treated as property by white people as well. It is the experience of many women that we are taught that the ideal womanhood is white economically privileged womanhood. Think about images of women in the media and who is favored and who is not. Think about how having money and time affects a woman’s ability to appropriately perform her femininity.
Patriarchy basically means rule by men. This works in abstract and systematic ways as well as tangibly between individuals. It is about discrimination and especially about control and devaluation. It manifests as abuse, violence against women, disrespect, control of sexuality and women’s bodies, objectification and beauty standards, and the devaluation of women’s contributions, views and opinions, etc. Many feminists have argued simply that women are the oppressed and men are the oppressors.
It’s obviously more complex than that. It is certainly (white straight able rich) men that are in control, but some women, queer people, people of color and other minorities are gaining access to some of the privilege in a bigger way than they had before. Do they have to buy into the system to get in? Do they have to dominate others to gain and maintain that position? Certainly, the system that they are privileging from is based on exploitation, greed, competition, imperialism, and hierarchy of social divisions. This system can succeed better by allowing a small number to access some of the wealth and power of the elite (and more people to lesser degrees). This is because the (often false) promise/possibility of wealth and power, or at least more comfortable living (as well as, on the other side of the coin, the reality of working constantly and struggling just to survive) keeps people from resisting or fighting the systems of power and that which hold them up. In addition, scarcity of wealth and power makes people with any privilege feel threatened, causing them to hold onto any power they can, keeping those social hierarchies in place. Capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, with domination as their base, work in interlocking ways.
Because of the complexity of which patriarchy must be viewed, we must consider patriarchy as not only the rule of men but also the rule of those that are colluding in and practicing what is a value of patriarchal masculinity; domination. Or perhaps we should only use the term patriarchy when we’re talking about the rule of men, and we should use the term gender oppression in other cases (when related to gender). Men aren’t the only ones benefiting from gender oppression. Heterosexual men and women privilege from the oppression of queer people. People who fit into their appropriate gender boxes better than others privilege from the oppression of people who cannot fit into those boxes.
I argue that gender divisions are, for the most part, created within the context of power and that the border drawn between men and women is a deception. I’m not arguing that there is no difference between men and women, but that gender is more of a spectrum than a dichotomy.
by brekin » Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:02 am
tapitsbo » Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:39 pm wrote:When I was in university syllabuses explicitly specified that the trans topic was off limits (mention of ideas like those in PW's article would probably have resulted in discipline from the administration)
Always interesting which ideas are discussed and which are untouchable
by Heaven Swan » Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:35 am
Well this just seems more the natural trajectory of "radical discourses". One can't really open the door to reclaiming/reframing/redefining categories and expect others to stop when you are good. That is being "traditional" and "conservative", and lets me honest, attempting to "control the discourse and dictate terms". Smash _____ is always going to evolve to the next thing. And while revolutions eat their young, they also eat their parents.
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