The decision to cancel
The Auckland University Students’ Association’s Womenfest started today.
They have this note on their Facebook page for the event:
★ ★ ★ NOTE ★ ★ ★
Following the recent comments on the Womensfest schedule, and consultation with members of the trans community at the University of Auckland, we have made the decision to cancel the ‘Vagina Cupcakes’ and will not be continuing with ‘Pussytails’ at our ‘Reclaim Shadows’ Closing Party. We have also decided to disable posts on this event, after the invasion of the previous event by people seeking to make it unsafe for the trans and queer community. Anyone who wishes to engage with AUSA constructively on Womensfest are welcome to contact us at wro@ausa.org.nz.
So there you go. Feminist women aren’t allowed to talk frankly about their bodies at the Womensfest event.
So rather than discuss the issue(s) in an intelligent way they prefer to keep things “safe” for the trans and queer community. I must say, they sound quite namby-pamby here. I’d say that the leap from “we should have a conversation about this” to dangerous invading hoards of cupcake decorators” is quite a long and steep one. This makes me want about 1000 cupcakes and a gallon of frosting. To make the world a more “dangerous” place.
The facebook link says “The decision to cancell Butterfiles & Wheels” and for a horrible moment I thought you were going to stop blogging.
I am reminded of the time a group of members of the Socialist Worker’s Party decided I was “Neo-Nazi scum” because I was not in favour of maintaining the traditional pay differential between two groups of workers. It may surprise you to learn that the group with the higher pay were mostly men and the group with the lower pay were mostly women, but bringing up such facts was “divisive” avoids the “real issues” and conveniently supports the “narrative” that there is a degree of institutional misogyny in the trade union movement. So obviously I was Neo-Nazi scum and had to be dismissed from my post of Branch Secretary and had to be thrown off any committees where any of this was discussed. They were not successful in doing this but I was under the impression that they thought I would go anyway if they made enough fuss.
All I had proposed was that we ask for a flat rate pay rise instead of a percentage pay rise. The union was officially in favour of equal pay, but fault was found with anything you did to try to actually bring this about.
I want trans people to feel safe. If vulva cupcakes make trans women feel excluded, then the vulva cupcakes have to go. They’re tremendously fun, but maybe not the hill we should die on.
My question is: do we still need to talk about our biological bodies? When I was a little feminist, developing the understanding that it was OK to have a female body was very important to my mental health. Is it different now? Do girls and young women know they are just as valuable as boys? Derogatory terms for women’s bodies are consigned to the ‘archaic’ section of the thesaurus?
I’m an old feminist, now. If we need to change our thinking, so be it. Do we stop teaching girls it’s OK to be female?
Bernard…wow. That’s disconcerting.
learie – but what do you mean “If vulva cupcakes make trans women feel excluded”? They don’t make all trans women excluded, so how does it get adjudicated? And is feeling excluded the automatic trump card? What if trans women feel excluded when abortion rights are discussed? Should abortion rights be dropped too?
No, of course girls and young women don’t now know they are just as valuable as boys. How could they? They’re still bombarded by messages and symbols that tell them the opposite.
Every time I see this sort of thing I have the same Whuuuuuut? reaction. I don’t seem able to take it on board that a miniscule minority gets to redefine half of humanity because that makes some members of the tiny minority feel better.
They don’t have any actual right to do this. They can define themselves. Not somebody else. And yet, somehow, it’s vital to fall all over ourselves erasing the people-with-ovaries to protect the feelings of some of the people-without-ovaries.
Seems like a pattern I’ve seen before.
And if it was really trans people we were worrying about, seems like “men” would have to be defined out of existence as well as “women.” But I never seem to hear about that part.
Learie, obviously not for me to say. However, given the number of young women with body image issues, I would have thought it’s still a very valid discussion to have.
This whole affair is so reminiscent of Christians screaming about the “War on Christmas”. Their outrage is largely aimed at atheists who point out that nativity scenes on government property reinforce a privileged status for citizens who adhere to the Christian religion, in spaces where citizens of all religions (or none at all) should expect equal treatment and respect.
Compromises in that realm lead me to wonder if there may be a way to keep the vulva cupcakes: what if there were simply a penis/testicle counterpart served, celebrating the inclusive and welcoming reception trans women can expect at feminist events nominally open to all women?
@ quixote:
cis-Men are a lost cause. Didn’t you hear?
Less tongue-in-cheek, I’m curious about the “invasion”. I can’t see any comments on their events at all — is this a Facebook permissions thing, or did they simply get rid of comments on posts in general? After all, there are people seriously trying to make things unsafe for the trans and queer community… but that post makes it very difficult to say which group of people was specifically involved here.
Obviously they should have made penis cupcakes instead, with a poster that said, “Women have penises too!”
When events are cancelled at the mere mention of exclusion this and appropriation that, the only winner is the most outraged voice.
I really, really wonder about this. I participated on one of those Facebook threads. Nobody was making things “unsafe” for anyone. The anti-cupcake “argument” was simply repeated assertions.
@Lady Mondegreen:
Do you have a link? This all came up right before I traveled for a conference, and following the link back takes me to utterly comment-free Facebook posts. I’d be grateful for some context, if you have it.
(Urm, sorry, I cut myself off too soon there. To continue)–
–Repeated assertions that the cupcakes made “trans women” (using scare quotes because the person arguing was presuming to speak for all trans women) feel excluded. I asked why, exactly, anyone should feel excluded (why not make your own cupcakes?) and never got a straight answer. I asked why trans women couldn’t join WBW in celebrating the female body. No answer.
Just the repeated assertion: trans women would feel excluded. Which assertion, I suspect, gets transmogrified into “making things unsafe for the trans and queer community.”
PatrickG, they deleted all the comments. Within the hour, if I remember aright.
Lady M @ 12, I wondered that too. The wording is unclear, and I think they may mean the previous women’s fest, not the Facebook thread.
Ah, OK. Thanks, Ophelia; I misread that part.
My mistake. Still, there’s an awful lot of “your disagreement with my dogma makes me feel unsafe/equals you denying my right to exist” with that crowd.
Thanks for response, Lady Mondegreen.
It’s a good thing no evidence was preserved, or right-thinking people might be able to prevent such unsafe spaces in future. Glad we dodged that bullet!
[Sarcasm-tag for the sarcasm-impaired]
Wull Stacy I’m not even sure it is a mistake; the wording is ambiguous. It’s just a Facebook note, so I’ll try not to fume at them for being unclear…but I’ll still fume at them for their crappy decisions.
Oh and Patrick G there is some evidence preserved – screenshots.
Ophelia, Sorry for the slow response. if you could send an email to the one attached to this post, I will send you that cartoon I made in honor of the insanity within which you have been trapped of late.
Thanks Pliny, will do!
People With Vulvae Society. Problem solved.
Abortion? Well that’s for the Fertile People With Uterus Club.
Sexual Health? Vagina Club. Except HPV. That’s the Cervix Society.
If only there was a club for people who tend to have all these concerns at the same time…
@OB:
Don’t want to be demanding, but link to said screenshots? I can’t find them (the google-fu is weak, apparently). The statement is so frustratingly incomplete: who the hell invaded? Was it you? Was it Cathy Brennan? Was it Rebecca Watson (didn’t you displace her?)? Was it Christina Hoff Sommers? Was it Spock? Was it Phyllis Schlafy? Was it the Republican Caucus? Was it Lawrence Lessig? Was it MRAs? Was it Obama? Was it the readers and/or adherents of any of the above?
Hopefully some humor was conveyed from the above. If not, well, I’ll accept the default mode of “asshole”. But that said, I’m slightly tickled by “Anyone who wishes to engage with AUSA constructively on Womensfest” can only do so via email. Curation of comments, as opposed to outright deletion, has apparently not occurred to the organizers.
The only ones I know of aren’t public. I could find them and share them I guess.
Immediate response: Good gawd, and be accused of doxxing again?
[runs away screaming]
[while running, takes time to withdraw all requests]
[while running faster: seriously, it’s an interesting topic, but for fuck’s sake, don’t do anything just for the sake of my curiosity]
In a slightly more serious vein: how anybody controls their social media content is their prerogative. I’m disappointed that I can’t see the content that prompted their decision, and I personally think their decision is self-defeating, but their right to their own space trumps my curiosity.
Doesn’t mean I don’t get to grump about it, though. Hrrmmpph!
I couldn’t find them anyway. I’ve forgotten which of my highly valued subversive friends posted them.
Bullet: over there ——————————————>
<————————————- Me
Dodged!
Didn’t mean to imply anything bad about you, to be clear. But we all have ample evidence that your comment feeds are bugged by the MA Melby Police. :)
Seconding PatrickG’s relief at bullet dodged.
The question of exclusion is the 64 million one. I’m guessing it was more than one person who suggested not having the cupcakes, and talked about how it made them feel. Should the organisers have told them to f**k off? Who wants to be shitty to a person already horribly marginalised? Also, we all know what happens when a feminist woman appears to Not Listen. Are the cupcakes worth a shit storm?
I don’t want to add to anyone’s feelings of oppression. I don’t want to say to anyone “Your experience is not as important as mine”. I don’t want to tell trans women they are not women.
And here’s my BUT. I feel like people are trying to take away my femaleness from me. Seriously, I can’t have vulva cupcakes because your genitals are different from mine? Celebrating femaleness in a world that really does hate women is really important to me. Femaleness, not femininininity. Is that cis privilege pushing back against change, an antiquated view or a legitimate concern? (For the record: I think it’s legitimate.)
I remember when I heard the term cis privilege for the first time, and my reaction was “you’ve got to be kidding me. Women do NOT have privilege.” Now I ask questions like, is not experiencing dysphoria a privilege? I perform femininininity in order to avoid punishment, how can I expect Caitlyn Jenner not to? Am I going to be called a TERF because I read glosswitch?
As a woman, I am REGULARLY called upon to put the needs of others before my own. The vulva cupcake ban feels like that to me, but I think the organisers were kind and pragmatic. I don’t want to fight about who gets into the clubhouse, I want to fight about how we survive and change this horrible world.
(Also for the record, I would not implement VR Urquhart’s horrible idea of eliminating women and girls from society.)
Adding: I once saw a thread about abortion rights at feministing, where a trans woman indignantly said that the issue the thread should have been addressing was funding for SRS. I had no idea how to respond – I was just gobsmacked.
>“Compromises in that realm lead me to wonder if there may be a way to keep the vulva cupcakes: what if there were simply a penis/testicle counterpart served, celebrating the inclusive and welcoming reception trans women can expect at feminist events nominally open to all women?”
The cupcakes promote body acceptance.
Weren’t we supposed to learn that body acceptance is transphobic? Isn’t that why transpeople take hormones and get all kinds of cosmetic surgery? When Sheila Jeffreys says that body acceptance is a good thing, she is called a literal murderer.
Then we have the other kind of advocacy, the trans people who are quite fond of their penis. The clearest example of this is Julia Serano with the “cocky” speech. They clearly don’t need any further body acceptance.
In conclusion, penis cupcakes would be pointless.
As can happen in any movement, it seems that a few loud people are taking over the discussion (and talking over other people) and setting their own agenda. I happen to think that there is a time and a place for everything – and vulva cupcakes at a womenfest are perfectly (in)appropriate (I think they are tacky, but still…). I’ve a pretty good idea that the vast majority of women would agree; but they aren’t being given the chance. As soon as anyone dares to tell the self-appointed spokespeople that they aren’t speaking for everyone, these narcissists bring out the big guns against them. Totally unfair, and the reason that a lot of people now keep their heads down and stay out of the fray.