The very real and ongoing effort to censor the internet is years in the making and soon to be achieved. The establishment is getting creative in their methods.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-03T15:06:55+00:00

The problem is that essentialism was one of the tools used to exclude women from rightful access to education and career opportunities, among other things. It's also known as "lady brain". I'm not ready to completely discount the idea that some non-reproductive behaviors could be tied to sex, but being a scientist, you'd better damn well bring the evidence for me to not dismiss it out of hand. And I've read oodles of crappy science too. Most of the "evolutionary psychology" I've seen is just laughable motivated reasoning, and has less empirical support than the weirdest astrophysics.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-03T15:01:26+00:00

Yeah, I was kinda wondering about the security issues. Gotta admit I spent much of my wakefulness last night thinking about how to design an app that lets groups of potential radfems/GCers vet each other in person to weed out "bad actors".

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-03T14:50:53+00:00

Given how angry some of these TIMs can get when challenged, would you want to be the gynecologist who points that out to him?

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-03T14:42:01+00:00

Who said (and where) humans are the only species with no sexual behavior dimorphism? Cos that's silly: males and females have obviously different reproductive roles to play, which includes behaviors (like breastfeeding). I was a regular reader (occasional commenter - different username than here) for nearly 6 years on r/GC and I would see things like this only very occasionally, and they'd be challenged.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-03T14:15:44+00:00

Maybe "All women, even those with disorders of sexual development (aka "intersex"), have developed some or all of the human female reproductive system, which includes uterus, vagina, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and vulva."

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-02T01:38:07+00:00

Loving your rant, and glad you're here.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T23:12:24+00:00

Definitely a mistake. I remember having this convo somewhere (r/GC?) years ago: OK we'll agree to "woman" being a gender designation as long as we can always call ourselves "female" because sex is different from gender. In the years since I've seen TRAs insist they too are female, some even call themselves "ciswomen" if they assert they've transitioned "enough". It doesn't matter how we distinguish ourselves, TRAs will insist they should be included in that appellation eventually. I absolutely will not cede the concept of "women" to male people anymore, and even "transwomen" is suspect for me. Personally I consider them "hyperfeminized males". It's the most descriptive, yet simple. Doesn't get into the quicksand category of "identity"; it's an objective observation like sex. Instead, it's observing/noting behavior rather than anatomy, physiology, and genetics.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T13:51:04+00:00

LOL, we'll be lucky if these questions are systematically addressed anywhere. Final answers require people having plenty of time to explore issues in smaller settings where they can feel their voices are heard. And a whole lot of research.

Positive male and female role models is insufficient by itself for a healthy family. A healthy family has got to have so much more. You need role models to consistently demonstrate good emotional skills on the part of both sexes (looking at American history I'm not sure this ever happened on a mass scale - our history is full of families broken by alcohol, violence, and bad choices). You need adequate management of physical and mental health (problems will arise - best to plan for it and insurance only deals with the financial aspects). You need adequate caregivers (placing 100% of this role on one person is exhausting to the person). More than ever I'm certain children need way more than two responsible, caring adults in their lives and to see them with high frequency. Studies looking at post-birth maternal health (post-partum depression IIRC, but maybe also how the birth went) are finding that extended family structures are healthier for women than nuclear family structures. Before the mid-20th century nuclear family structures were rare in the US (and elsewhere). "The Feminine Mystique" is basically an expose of the isolating, crazy-making aspects of the nuclear family combined with suburban development and strict gender role enforcement. Prior to that mothers had significantly more support and more diverse (and challenging) contributions to the household.

So that's one alternative I think deserves better exploration. And that leads me to mitigating risks. Yes, I'm largely thinking of abuse (from any of the responsible adults). My family blew itself up in pretty fantastic style, but the emotional problems were compounding well before the breakup, and seem to have been multigenerational. The breakup was the beginning of healing. So can we support families in better emotional management? Can we interrupt abusive cascading behavior? Here's an article I found that suggests we can without breaking families up: How High Point, N.C., Solved Its Domestic Violence Problem.

The other risk mitigation and family structure thought I've had is - so your interventions could not prevent family breakup? Can you recombine broken families into larger groups of unrelated adults willing to be responsible for each others' children? Does it help if you contribute to mutual finances? This is an idea I've seen women talk about, but never seen any writeup of anyone trying it out and how it's gone.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T02:28:09+00:00

I feel like there's a larger divide between earnest people of various political dimensions who just want to talk seriously and solve problems and a huge set of deeply cynical people who can't take anything seriously and make life difficult for those who do, as if it were threatening. I'm OK with the deep cynics having their spaces, but can they let the rest of us have conversations? And then there's the people so serious, but operating on some philosophy that keeps them from making any sort of peace with others - a cynical philosophy perhaps? I bend liberalish (but seemingly less every day), but value conservatively-minded people who can civilly explain where they're coming from.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T02:18:09+00:00

There's very active parts of radical feminism looking at the social factors that discourage women from choosing motherhood or from being able to do it safely (health outcomes, not getting fired from jobs). A lot of radical feminist discussion is about women's role in perpetuation of the species. Can we make it less risky? Less miserable? Can we set up systems that encourage those wanting to be mothers to do it well and those same systems don't pressure women who don't want to be mothers away from other life work? What makes for a healthy family? What family systems support a healthy society? What do alternatives look like? How do we mitigate relationship risks? At least, those are the conversations I've followed.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T02:08:29+00:00

Awww, I thought you might go real old school with UseNet. I mean, who doesn't want to have a flame war on alt.plagues.COVID.masks?

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T01:52:36+00:00

We do know: peas have perfect flowers - a botanical term meaning having male and female parts in each flower.

Futon_Everlasting · 2020-07-01T01:22:00+00:00

If you're looking to have advanced conversations about a topic, it's totally fair to require that people do the homework before jumping in. Otherwise the conversation space becomes dominated by the newbies wanting to have all their concerns addressed before engaging with the available published arguments. In earlier days of r/GC (5 years ago) it was common for men to come in to a conversation obviously looking for an argument about some very basic feminist concepts, and only improved as moderation tightened up. When r/XXChromosomes went to r/all the reverse happened: good, targeted discussion became dulled by endless interrogation. It was exhausting and kept us from really digging in to topics. I'd expect (or at least hope for) similar stringent moderation for any other sort of specialty sub.

Futon_Everlasting