As a heterosexual GC/Radical Feminist, how can I support the LGB community?

submitted by _d33n3r_ from (self.LGBDropTheT)

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[–]BEB 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

I think you make some valid and interesting points. But one thing I think that almost every male misses is that many, if not most women, live their lives in fear of male violence and especially sexual violence, usually after their first few encounters with it.

Men can't begin to imagine how fraught with anxiety women's live can be, but imagine this: you're a handsome and not very strong man about to be sent into the general prison population and the guards have deserted the jail.

That's what life is like for many women every single second of every single day. Not every man is a predator, in fact the majority aren't, but women are always the prey.

So, for women, the presence of men (transgender or not) in their vulnerable spaces leads to a sort of primal, panicked terror, that a man would probably not experience if confronted by a transgender person who was born a woman.

In addition, women can get pregnant as a result of rape and in many, if not most places on Earth, she will be forced to carry to term and most probably raise the child. Allowing men into spaces where women are vulnerable dramatically increases the chance of rape - ask any humanitarian aid organization.

Also, all over the world women are denied rights that men take for granted: education, credit, land-ownership, voting rights, bodily autonomy (like being allowed to use birth control), freedom of movement...

In many countries, feminists are still fighting for bathrooms, as American women had to do, because without public bathrooms, women can't leave the house for any length of time and so can't enter the public sphere.

My own grandmother couldn't vote until she was in her mid-twenties. She was the first woman to do the job she did, which was a secretarial-type position that tens of thousands of men did as a matter of course. My mother couldn't get a line of credit without a male backer and I myself was denied classes "for boys" until after Title IX.

Women are sex-trafficked at a much higher rate than adult men. They are taken as the spoils of war and forced to bear children for their captors.

All to say that there are concrete reasons for women to rail against the "patriarchy" - it's alive and well all over the world, including in the US (look up the Democratic-Biden- backed Equality Act to see an example)

And the feminism of today is not the feminism of my youth, which was called "second wave" - the change is deliberate. Second wave feminism was after very concrete rights for women, like some of the ones I mentioned above.

It was destroyed - I don't know by whom - to make way for Gender Studies and Queer Theory baloney, maybe because women were actually becoming liberated.

So the young women who call themselves "feminists" today - the Lib or Fun or Intersectional feminists - have almost zero relation to actual women's rights movements. In fact, I would call what is described as "feminism" today a Men's Rights Movement, as evidenced by these young "feminists" full on support for gender ideology, which is very destructive to women's (and gay) rights.

But it's not actual feminism, and young women are indoctrinated into it, much like young kids are being indoctrinated into gender ideology. Do you understand or do you want me to explain further?

[–]MezozoicGayoldschool gay 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My own grandmother couldn't vote until she was in her mid-twenties.

After my father died, my mother was forced to register lands and bank accounts to her brother, as she could not own that by herself. And here women had more rights in general, than in Europe or USA at that moment. And that was not even legal issue, but social issue (while in many European countries it was legal issue, in some EU countries up to 1980-90s women were not able to take loans or own a land).

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

Thanks for that information - fascinating.

Whenever I hear men (or women), both Progressive and conservative, say that feminism has gone too far, I just shake my head, because in my own lifetime, women were legally denied rights that men have as a matter of course.

[–]szalinskikidproblematic androphile 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Thank you for the detailed reply! I want to reiterate that I agree with a lot of GC feminist talking points/issues, I understand where you guys are coming from.

It's the conclusions for specific contemporary (and sometimes even historical) questions, especially the trans debate, and the absolutist idea of a universal patriarchy that I think are too narrow to bring radical feminism and the entirety of the LGB community together.

I also understand the difference between radical and liberal feminism, but I think your conclusion that the latter is a "men's rights movement" does three things: It diminishes the complicity and personal agenda of women; it denies the link between intersectional feminism/identity politics and the preceding radfem ideas of a patriarchal system and an existing oppression hierarchy; it ignores the fact that (gay) men are just as much under attack in liberal feminism as they are in radical feminism.

I didn't want to debate radical feminism or the patriarchy in their entirety, but just one thing to think about because you mentioned it: As an example, you talked about your grandmother and restrictive voting rights. Of course this was and in some countries still is a woman's issue. But that's one aspect of many, because while women couldn't vote on principle, many men couldn't either and when they finally could, the price was high. Before all British men were allowed to vote, poor young men had to be wounded in millions and to die in hundreds of thousands in a war from which all women were exempted solely by reason of their gender. Without any voice in the matter, every adult male was subject to military law. If he didn’t go quietly he could be forcibly removed from his home and transported to the front where, if he protested that he couldn’t see any sense in that insane conflict, he might be subjected to a cursory field court martial and executed by firing squad. Roughly 60% of adult men were then entitled to vote. Of course one can argue that wars are a product of the patriarchy, too, which I would disagree with as it's more of a human issue in my mind.

Another thing: You say that almost every man doesn't understand a woman's fear of male violence. I'm not a woman, I can't "truly" know what your POV is like. But I and every man I know, especially but not exclusively gay and gnc men, more than understand the fear of male violence. We experience it first hand since the day we're born. We're men, not fighters, defenders or survivalists.

Do (radical) feminists understand female violence, too? Conflating all men as "THE patriarchy" is a too simple world view that robs vulnerable men of a voice in my opinion. To stay on topic, I think that's an obstacle to overcome in the relationship between Radfems and (L)GBs. Gay men are no less complicit than feminists in enabling sexist gender ideology, don't get me wrong. I definitely see that. But that doesn't mean that gay men have universal power over women, or that they don't have to fear homophobic women and their agendas. More than once in my life I had to suffer violence in many different shapes or forms incited by a homophobic woman. She might not have performed the blow herself, but it was a consequence of her privilege, her power and her hate. Radical feminism does not take that into consideration. I'm ok with that, don't get me wrong: one of the many things I respect is their radical therefore exclusionary definition of feminism. It's not gay (as in: gay men) friendly, and it doesn't have to be because it doesn't act like it is. As long as we respect our very different POVs and problems and therefore recognize that some of our conclusions are bound to clash, we can tackle the issues that we agree upon.

[–]BEB 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are fascinating and thanks for all of that information! I'm really sorry about what's happened to you; it sounds horrific.

I do think that American LGB and GC feminists need to unite right now about the Equality Act, because if the Democrats win the Senate and do what they did in the House just after the 2018 midterms, i.e., pass the Equality Act immediately, and Biden wins the presidency, women and gays could face the loss of our rights by early 2021.

And, sadly, I'm the wrong person to discuss radical or intersectional feminism because I know just about nothing about either, but there are some radical feminist posters over on s/gendercritical who probably could have a really enlightening discussion (on all sides) with you over your concerns. I don't know if there's a GC debate sub on SAIDIT, but that would be a good place for a discussion too.

I do know that the feminists I have met along the way, most of whom were non-ideological feminists like me, were some of the strongest and earliest supporters of gay rights. We were non-ideological in that we were just fighting for women's rights, and safety from male violence, and weren't reading every single feminist tract or wanting to move to an all-woman island or things of that sort.

We no-name feminists were also some of the women who helped gay men during the AIDS crisis, because we didn't hate all men and especially not gay men, who we felt often suffered under "male chauvinist pigs" in many of the same ways women did. I think I still have PTSD over the AIDS crisis because it did have such a devastating impact on my gay male friends.

BTW: The true superstar women of the AIDS crisis were lesbians, who risked everything to nurse often abandoned gay men, so it really pains me when some gay men today dump on lesbians.

And to your point about gay and GNC men also fearing male violence, you have every reason to, but you will not get pregnant and not be forced to carry and raise a child for almost two decades as a result of male violence.

That's where men just don't get it. They have no clue what it feels like to gestate another human being and how much it takes out of a woman's body, and then to give birth - which is aptly described as squeezing a watermelon out of your nose, then nurse, and then to nurture and feel responsible for the rest of your life. When the child is the result of rape you are seeing the reminder every single day.

BTW: I have always supported the draft for women. But it has to be sensitive to what women physically can and cannot do (yes, I know, that's considered anti-feminist) as well as women's sexual safety, because women in the US military have astoundingly high chances of being raped, mostly by serviceMEN.

Please do try to engage with some radfems, especially if you're American, because, again, American LGB and feminists of all stripes need to unite and fight the Equality Act right now or watch some of the rights we fought so valiantly for be stripped away by the Democrats and their blind devotion to Trans, Inc.

[–]MezozoicGayoldschool gay 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

GC debate sub on SAIDIT

There is /s/GCdebatesQT but it is more about general GC, not just GC feminism. For example, there few transwomen on GC side, who are not feminist at all.