Everything else

submitted by HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex from self.GCdebatesQT

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Omg that never even crossed my mind!

Nah you’ve honestly consistently given the best input in this sub imo. I appreciate a different generations view on what we discuss here.

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

Yeah, "flaming" used to be a synonym for such andro-homophobic slurs as "swishy," "bent," "limp wristed" and "light in the loafers."

Glad to hear my views are appreciated by at least one poster here. The common view in Western cultures and especially online is that people over a certain age don't know jack shit. But my experience is that a lot of older people know a whole lot. From study, from observation, from listening to others and from their/our own "lived experience."

It galls me to be told by a male person his 20s that he knows more about being a woman than an actual female person like me who has lived in a female body since conception, been subjected to misogynistic sex discrimination for decades, carried & birthed children, gone through menopause and is now dealing with the realities of what it means to be an elderly woman in a misogynistic, ageist culture & system.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Growing up with my grandparents taught me age doesn’t equal ignorance or any lack of intelligence. Hell I’d be thrilled to end up how you come across in the sub. Definitely seen a lot of dismissing older women in particular as being fussy and silly Having young boys tell you what womanhood is after experiencing decades of it is vile! I’m still in my twenties and hate it, for women who lived through even more misogynistic times it could only feel more demoralising I’m sure.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

For the record, this is the most misogynistic time (in the US) I've ever lived through. I often feel what's happening to girls & women in the US today is very much like what happened to girls & women in Iran in 1979.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That’s a really scary thought. To have gotten more misogynistic after everything done by those first waves of feminists.

I have no idea what happened in Iran ever but I’m gonna look into it cause this has peaked curiosity. I’m still brand new and ignorant to women’s history outside of Australia.

This is exactly why I love having women from different age brackets here. Y’all know so much more through experience and time.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

For the record, this is the most misogynistic time (in the US) I've ever lived through.

😥 Oh wow, that’s so depressing. I feel like this is the worst it’s been in my lifetime, but I never thought it was worse than those earlier times. I always thought pre-women’s lib would be worse.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

Depends when you think "women's lib" started.

The Second Sex was first published in French in 1949, in English in the USA and other countries in 1953. Both dates are before I was born.

Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" about women in the USA was published in February 1963, when I was 8. But the ideas she summed up & put into print were already out there circulating amongst women in the US & were very much a part of the convos women had been having amongst themselves for years.

Much of Friedan's research consisted of interviewing women now often referred to as "stereotypical 1950s housewives" - a much maligned group who IMO are very misunderstood & inaccurately portrayed. Given the long lead times of book publishing back then, Friedan most likely handed in the manuscript in late 1961. Assuming it took her a year to write, a lot of her research probably was done in the 50s. But the point is, she didn't invent the desire for "women's lib" - she expressed and publicized the sentiments she had found were widespread amongst the women she knew and interviewed.

Also, I make a distinction between sexism and sex discrimination and misogyny. Misogyny of course is what originally led to girls & women being treated like second-class citizens and to us being denied all sorts of rights & opportunities granted to males. But not everyone in an era of widespread sexism was misogynistic. In fact, it was precisely because a lot of the mostly male people in power in Western countries were not hardcore total misogynists at heart that they started listening to women and as a result began to vote in laws prohibiting sex discrimination such as the USA's Equal Pay Act of 1963, to open up opportunities for girls & women in education & the workplace, and to overturn laws and policies that were unfair to girls & women.

The world I grew up in was full of barriers for girls & women, but those barriers were being challenged & dismantled - & despite all the sexism, sex discrimination, sex abuse, sexual harassment, sex crimes and so on that girls & women faced, the future for girls & women seemed brighter than ever before in history. Progress was slow and spotty, but generally things were moving in the right direction. Whereas today, many of the basic rights, provisions & protections women fought hard for are under threat - & the future for girls & women seems bleak.

For most of my life, the beliefs of second-wave feminism were seen as respectable and reasonable. But today, women with second-wave feminist beliefs are considered the scum of the earth and likened to Nazis and racists.

When I grew up, the airwaves were full of boys & men singing sappy love songs about girls & women. Today, girls & women are constantly told that we have no right to use those terms solely for our own sex anymore; that it's hateful for us to acknowledge or discuss biology; that simply being female amounts to a hate crime & act of oppression against males who wish they were the opposite sex; that girls & women have no right to dignity, privacy, peace of mind, fair play in sports, physical safety from males, or to have any place where we can rest assured that males won't be able to barge in, look & leer at us, police our speech & use the size & strength of their male bodies & their penises to intimidate us or worse. Moreover, we're told that wanting the right to any of these things means we are evil bigots & "transphobes."

Under the cover of "trans rights," males and many females across the Western world on a daily basis demonize women, tell us to STFU and threaten us with death, rape & the most gruesome physical and sexual assaults whose details they spell out with glee, and produce publish endless books, articles, academic papers & media that say the most disgusting, demeaning things about female people whilst simultaneously denying that biological sex really exists or matters. And politicians, the mainstream media, most powerful institutions and everyone who consider themselves "progressive" side with the people doing this.

I was one of the first women to attend a previously all-male Ivy League university - and in that process dealt with a lot of misogyny. But the misogyny that's afoot today & which so many young men - and unfortunately many women too - feel totally comfortable expressing freely and openly for all the world to see & hear, strikes me as far worse. Today, people who claim the mantle of "trans rights" are actually praised and celebrated for being blatantly misogynistic & regressively sexist. And today people who commit or advocate child abuse and the sterilization of confused minors with mental health issues under the guise of "trans rights" are hailed as humanitarians. What's more, it's the educated classes that are doing the praising, celebrating and hailing. Whereas in the 1970s, being misogynistic, sexist and in favor of child abuse were widely seen as backwards & unenlightened, things to be looked down and remedied. Certainly not championed the way they are today.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Thanks for sharing your perspective! Your comments are always so detailed and well thought out.

I usually think of women’s lib as like the civil rights act with title VII and title IX and other legislation in the 60s, and then sort of ending after the defeat of ERA. You are totally right that it was building for longer though. You could go back further too with like the suffragettes, Margaret Sanger, and Seneca Falls.

The 80s also seemed like it was better too. I was born in the 80s, but wasn’t old enough to remember them.

Totally agree. I feel “trans rights” provides the excuse so many people (mostly males) were waiting for to express their misogyny. They can say any vile thing to women and be cheered on as long as she is a “terf” or transphobic. Deep down, so many men take real pleasure in degrading and demeaning women. I’m always so surprised more people don’t see it in what is happening now.

That’s really neat that you were one of the first women to attend your college. Thank you for doing that! I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Peaking, first off I want to say that I am sorry that what is going on in the world today has put people like me at loggerheads with people like you. Women like me used to be the staunchest allies of homosexual men who were labelled "effeminate." During the AIDS crisis, it was women of feminist sensibilities who took the lead in providing care and compassion to male transvestites and transsexuals with HIV at a time when many other gay men wanted nothing to do with their "swishy" brethren. There's a reason that the 1990 film Paris Is Burning was directed/made by a woman.

But with the rise of misogynistic "trans" politics, women like me have had to stand back & draw our boundaries, siding with the 51% of the human population who are of the female sex rather than with persons of the male sex who buck sex stereotypes.

One of the differences between what's going on today with women's spaces and the male college/uni I went to is that women like me did not show up en masse on previously all-male campuses one day and say "we belong here now and if you disagree we'll rape and kill you." What happened was that the all-male boards of trustees of these institutions absorbed what feminists were saying, deliberated about whether to admit girls/women, decided yes they should, and then put out press releases asking female students to apply for admission.

Another point that I feel does not get enough emphasis - and which gets me into hot water with other feminists for bringing it up - is that the 19th amendment to the US constitution that extended voting rights to women was passed by an entirely male federal legislature, and ratified by state legislatures that were almost entirely male as well.

Similarly, all the landmark civil rights laws that have extended other rights and provisions to female people have been passed by predominantly male lawmakers. The SCOTUS jurists who decided Roe v Wade in the US were all male.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wish we weren’t on opposite ends of this. I always felt like we were, or should be, allies to you too, and I worked for feminist causes when it could (still do). This all used to feel so much simpler. I felt like we had the same interests and still do, but “trans rights” trying to take women’s rights away means we can’t be a part of the same movement that way anymore. 😢 I hope it isn’t forever. Maybe this moment will pass.