Which gender are you?

[backtoiam]

hey, i knew you would run in on this and i dont care. maybe you enjoy this bullshit for some reason. i don't. but rig int deserves defending and today i decided to do it. if you cannot read back over this thread and see the blatant bullshit then i don't know what to tell you.

[Elvis]

i have enjoyed the semantic gymnastics because it gives me practice.

That was quite a workout, you must be exhausted! Pace youself, you could sprain your medulla.

[backtoiam]

it would not be the first time elvis. but damnit, bullshit, is bullshit

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^^ My point, exactly.

[guruilla]

hey, i knew you would run in on this and i dont care. maybe you enjoy this bullshit for some reason. i don't. but rig int deserves defending and today i decided to do it. if you cannot read back over this thread and see the blatant bullshit then i don't know what to tell you.

But that sort of defense only reinforces the original offense and clutters up the discussion with pointless schoolyard ragging. RI already has a competent moderator, why does it need defenders?

The net result is that the original comment that stirred up this little tizzy, whatever it might have been worth, gets lost in all clowning.

Can I press "reset"?

Two questions:

Can't misogyny be practiced by women as well as men?

Doesn't the existence of misandry (which at this point may be easily as prevalent as misogyny, and is way more socially acceptable) show that the System as is, while it may play men against women and vice versa, is equally demeaning and oppressive to all (save possibly a tiny oligarchical few)?

One more: Is anyone going to say there's nothing suspicious about the massive increase in unnecessary hysterectomies and (since A Jolie) breast-removals practiced by a military-medical industrial complex for profit?

I think there is a war on biology itself, beginning with the female body; and that there are deep but also quite obvious psychological reasons for it, besides parapolitical ones.

[American Dream]

Can't misogyny be practiced by women as well as men?

Sure- is this supposed to somehow "disprove" institutional Male Supremacy, or something?

Doesn't the existence of misandry (which at this point may be easily as prevalent as misogyny, and is way more socially acceptable) show that the System as is, while it may play men against women and vice versa, is equally demeaning and oppressive to all (save possibly a tiny oligarchical few)?

Equally? Not at all!

One more: Is anyone going to say there's nothing suspicious about the massive increase in unnecessary hysterectomies and (since A Jolie) breast-removals practiced by a military-medical industrial complex for profit?

Who gets to define "unnecessary"? And since we did capitalist profit-seeking disprove the existence of Patriarchy, or anything remotely like that?

[Iamwhomiam]

To your first, I would say "No." However, woman are fully capable of sadistic behaviors towards other women.

I highly doubt misandry approaches a fraction of the level of misogyny existing in society.

I cannot imagine having to make such a choice as Jolie - another benefit of being a man.
No. Misandry is an outgrowth of misogyny.
Were you faced with the high probability of inherited testicular cancer, you would have your balls lopped off in a heartbeat. I doubt there's a conspiracy to lop of women's breasts.

[Joao]

Because male-based generics are another indicator -- and more importantly, a reinforcer -- of a system in which "man" in the abstract and men in the flesh are privileged over women. Some say that language merely reflects reality and so we should ignore our words and work on changing the unequal gender arrangements that are reflected in our language. Well, yes, in part.

It's no accident that "man" is the anchor in our language and "woman" is not. And of course we should make social change all over the place. But the words we use can also reinforce current realities when they are sexist (or racist or heterosexist). Words are tools of thought. We can use words to maintain the status quo or to think in new ways -- which in turn creates the possibility of a new reality. It makes a difference if I think of myself as a "girl" or a "woman"; it makes a difference if we talk about "Negroes" or "African-Americans." Do we want a truly inclusive language or one that just pretends?

Before I discuss how benign-sounding words like "freshman" and "you guys" reinforce the gender inequalities on my list, above, let me tell you about an article that made a difference in my own understanding of sexist language.

In 1986 Douglas Hofstadter, a philosopher, wrote a parody of sexist language by making an analogy with race. His article ("A Person Paper on Purity in Language") creates an imaginary world in which generics are based on race rather than gender. In that world, people would use "freshwhite," "chairwhite" and yes, "you whiteys." People of color would hear "all whites are created equal" -- and be expected to feel included. Substituting "white" for "man" makes it easy to see why using "man" for all human beings is wrong. Yet, women are expected to feel flattered by "freshman," "chairman" and "you guys."

And can you think of one, just one, example of a female-based generic? Try using "freshwoman" with a group of male students or calling your male boss "chairwoman." Then again, don't. There could be serious consequences for referring to a man as a "woman" -- a term that still means "lesser" in our society. If not, why do men get so upset at the idea of being called women?

[Sounder]

More later, gotta go, but certainly there is as AD asserts an ' institutional Male Supremacy', ever since Plato with his deifying of the intellect, accompanied by the devaluing of felt experience.


Funny story later, on topic too, on what I presumed was a junk thread.

[guruilla]

To your first, I would say "No." However, woman are fully capable of sadistic behaviors towards other women.

As a curious side point, I always read yur user name as "Iamwoman."

Your interpretation of misogyny is a lot narrower than mine (tho admittedly it is not a word I would ever normally use). If we mean by it a rejection/fear of and hostility towards femaleness and/or feminine attributes, then women can certainly be capable of it.

I highly doubt misandry approaches a fraction of the level of misogyny existing in society.

Perhaps not at surface social level, as regards discrimination in the workplace, etc (tho I don't have a workplace, admittedly; my guess is, as posters here have suggested, that it may be more or less "equal rights" now, in terms of "sexism"); but if you look at mass media and the dominant ideology, I think it is significantly more acceptable to be disparaging of men, as a sex, than of women. There's a whole book about it, if you are interested. (Not a great one, but it does present the evidence.) I think it's another case of something being so endemic to our culture that we barely notice it, if at all.

No. Misandry is an outgrowth of misogyny.

How so? Oh, you mean people only hate men because men hated women first? Then how come it's an indiscriminate form of discrimination? Even if true, it doesn't speak to the prevalence of it. Rock n' roll was an outgrowth of the blues, too.

Were you faced with the high probability of inherited testicular cancer, you would have your balls lopped off in a heartbeat.

That's the second time someone has made a sweeping assumption about my choices around medicine in order to win an argument. You are 100% wrong, however. I am 98% sure I would not make that choice.

I doubt there's a conspiracy to lop of women's breasts.

I'm afraid you may be wrong about that too. Here's something to mull over:

Gynecology could be said to have been founded on misogyny. Gynecology arose in the latter half of the 19th century, during a time when women’s sexuality was thought to make them ‘mad’. Gynecology was founded amidst claims that women were deteriorating and that doctors could help them. Physicians believed that masturbation, orgasm, the use of contraception, and abortion were all symptoms of mental illness and starting in the 1860s, surgical treatment of psychiatric disorders was common.

Because women’s organs were thought to cause insanity, the obvious cure was to remove them.
http://hysterectomyconsequences.com/unn ... n_the_rise

One in 3 American women will have her uterus removed by the time she turns 60.

in nearly 38 percent of those cases, alternative treatments weren’t attempted before the hysterectomies. And in 18 percent of cases, pathology reports indicated that the hysterectomies weren’t medically supported.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... roids.html

many women are getting their breasts removed for no good reason — meaning that such decisions are often not based on sound medical judgment but more on the basis of other factors, such as a woman’s income, the training of her doctor and where she lives.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117849&page=1

The rate of bilateral mastectomy increased from 2.0 percent in 1998 to 12.3 percent in 2011, an annual increase of 14.3 percent.

Compared with breast-conserving surgery with radiation, bilateral mastectomy was not associated with a mortality difference, whereas unilateral mastectomy was associated with higher mortality.
http://www.mysuncoast.com/health/news/i ... b2370.html

Women diagnosed with unilateral breast cancer are increasingly opting for bilateral mastectomy, but a study of nearly 190,000 women shows no survival benefit with this aggressive approach.
http://medicineinspace.blogspot.ca/2014 ... se-in.html

Dr. Gareth Evans, who studies medical genetics and epidemiology at the University of Manchester, said the phenomenon could reflect the strength of Jolie’s image as both glamorous and strong. It took the taboo feeling away from both the testing and procedure.

“I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.”

The researchers found that in June and July of 2013 — immediately after Jolie’s announcement — referrals for genetic testing increased 2.5-fold when compared with the same period in 2012, from 1,981 to 4,847.
http://www.inquisitr.com/1487921/angeli ... cer-tests/

“The news of Angelina Jolie’s ‘preventative’ mastectomies sent Myriad’s stock soaring by calling attention to the genetic tests available for increased cancer risk. The company performs about 250,000 tests a year, and more than 1 million women have been tested.”
http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies ... _jolie.htm

Angelina effect:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/15/t ... -revealed/
http://www.medworm.com/rss/search.php?q ... s=1&page=2

[minime]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Project Willow]

The majority of the trans people I know were raised as "girls" and ironically enough would probably have a fairly easy time getting into those "womyn's only events" .

This means that the majority of trans people I know and hang out with were assigned female gender all their childhood, and then as young adults- mostly through being politically and culturally radical, lesbian/bi, reading and studying lots and lots of Feminism, decided to bust out of strict gender conformity. They are most always welcomed (and indeed honored) in womyn's spaces.

Equatingt trans people with stereotypical transwomen is, in my experience, a big myth.

No myth, and anyone who says so is completely ignorant of basic stats and the power structures in play. I have read at least half a dozen accounts by de-transitioned trans men who claim a history of severe sexual abuse and who center those experiences, as well as lesbophobia, as causes for their adoption of trans ideology, which they now regret.

Anyone who actually studies "lots and lots of feminism" should be aware of its gender critical views, and should be cognizant of the fact that contemporary queer theory lies in stark opposition to those views, and serves to prop up the stereotypical gender roles upon which patriarchy depends. Your story doesn't pan out, it is internally inconsistent.

And fuck this "assigned at birth" shit. It is not the exercise of observing biological fact that is the cause of suffering, it's the meaning our culture imposes on observable biological fact that is problematic. This is just one area where your ideology gets it completely wrong.

Placing this here more for the benefit others reading, and to reinforce the fact that trans and queer ideology is the equivalent of pounding sand in the face of patriarchal sex role socialization.

So for many of those who endorse the idea of gender identity, the oppressive thing about gender is not that it is a hierarchy; it’s that it is a binary. Once you detach the notion of gender identity entirely from both biological sex and gendered socialization, there is in principle no reason to limit the number or genders that are purported to exist to just two. Hence the oft heard phrase that “gender is not a binary, it’s a spectrum”, and the emergence of individuals identifying themselves as “non-binary” or “genderfluid”, some of whom claim to variously experience “male shifts” and “female shifts“. We now have fifty-six different genders recognized on Facebook, though if you go roaming through the wilds of Tumblr you will find many, many more, along with a whole range of special pronouns. The logical question to ask the proponent of gender identity as a spectrum is: how many genders would we have to recognize in order not to be oppressive? And the only consistent answer that can be given to that question is: 7 billion. We would have to acknowledge that each individual can have their own unique gender identity. But if there are 7 billion different genders, a unique one for each of us, then it’s not clear that it makes any sense, or adds anything to our understanding, to call this “gender” at all. Gender is a system that ties certain desirable personality traits and behaviours to reproductive function. As soon as we detach these traits, behaviours and forms of appearance from biological sex, what we have is simply human personality, in all its variety and complexity. For this reason, every single one of us is non-binary. None of us is a walking gender stereotype. Gender is not just the name we give to the set of tastes, preferences, and dispositions that an individual happens to have. It is a system that ties biology to personality and behaviour, and puts people into pink and blue boxes according to the set of genitals they possess. The solution to that is not to create ever more boxes, nor to allow that some special non-binary individuals get to be gender revolutionaries who are able to move between the boxes at will, while the rest of us must stay put, and are told that we like it that way. The solution is to get rid of the boxes – to abolish gender altogether.

[82_28]

PW, for the company I work for, all of my bosses are women. It's a nationwide also worldwide company. There is no gender gap in pay. Women get promoted far more often than men. There is precisely NO misogyny in this huge company. Not only is it not tolerated, but doesn't seem to be a thing even if it were tolerated. Even bartending for the past whatever years I did it, there was no misogyny -- more camaraderie than anything else. When was the last time you had a job in which you witnessed any of your claims? At 40 years of age I think you're full of shit. Sorry, but the world you envision outside of your art colony does not exist the way you think it does. It's good to be aware of the possibilities if it did exist -- but it doesn't in real life.

I concur with this observation, ...

Heh? That misogyny does not exist?

Not in the way PW framed it. Which is why I phrased it as I did. Misogyny DOES exist but not in the way she sees it (which me writing that means probably I could be a misogynist to a certain few). I just have never seen it tolerated anywhere I have ever worked, went to school at, stores of all kinds, parties. I occasionally dabble in the "women are crazy" thing around men, but it's just a yeah, I know what you mean. Many of my best friends are women, they know me and unanimously say the same things about their fellow women. Dudes are just dicks, but I don't know any -- I semi have a few grudges in which I could do financial damage to, but don't do it because the whole once you follow the path to the dark side, there's no turning back. I don't get any sort of not getting along. When it happens it is heartbreaking.

[Project Willow]

Two questions:

Can't misogyny be practiced by women as well as men?

Doesn't the existence of misandry (which at this point may be easily as prevalent as misogyny, and is way more socially acceptable) show that the System as is, while it may play men against women and vice versa, is equally demeaning and oppressive to all (save possibly a tiny oligarchical few)?

One more: Is anyone going to say there's nothing suspicious about the massive increase in unnecessary hysterectomies and (since A Jolie) breast-removals practiced by a military-medical industrial complex for profit?

I think there is a war on biology itself, beginning with the female body; and that there are deep but also quite obvious psychological reasons for it, besides parapolitical ones.

C'mon guruilla, I already covered question one, it's called internalized misogyny. Both sexes are soaking in it, like we're all soaking in racism, and we all have to devote serious work to undo the conditioning, which, needless to say, those who benefit from either system are far less inclined to do. But if you want examples of flamboyant internalized misogyny, just look to the Phyllis Shlalflys or Sarah Palins of the world, it's not that hard.

Misandry is the label hurled most often at feminists who seek to rise above their lower caste status. There really is no way to discern its existence or prevalence as long as there are structural power imbalances between men and women. You cannot do so without reading the minds of members of an oppressed group and trying to pry justified anger apart from some sort of integral bias. It's a moot point really.

Two: The war on the female body is not new, it has existed as long as the patriarchy and will continue to convolute through various permutations coinciding with technological advances and cultural changes. A hundred years ago, women diagnosed as hysterics were treated with stimulation to climax by their doctors, once a week. Others were treated with clitorectomies. The single underlying force in all of this is control of female sexuality. There is no great mystery in any of it.

[American Dream]

Here is my experience, admittedly my experience but it certainly does shape my view of things;

The vast majority of the trans people I know/have known could be called womyn by some- not because they are transwomen ala RuPaul and Caitlin Jennings but because they were born and raised as women- feminists all- and now bend their gender in one way or another. Most I know don't have much if any surgery and don't even do much hormones either.

Sometimes I do see what you might call "transwomen" or "transmen"- people who do try to "pass" on the binary- and I would strongly guess (or know) they do hormones. I have no idea what they have in their pants and I feel it is really none of my business anyway.

What I do know is that the vast majority of "trans" people I interact with are gender non-conformists and are generally very left oriented- into Prison Abolition, anti-Zionism, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Organic Gardening, Black Liberation, and all kinds of things.

That is what I see.

Your mileage may vary.