Let’s redefine “woman”
And then there’s Alex Sharpe writing at Diva:
Are some feminists asking the wrong question about who counts as a “lesbian”?
Why are there scare quotes on the word “lesbian”? Are we treating that as some sort of “problematic” or tendentious or confusing or reactionary word now? Are we holding it out with tongs because lesbians say no to penis?
Kathleen Stock, a Professor of Philosophy at Sussex University, and enfant terrible of gender critical feminism, has recently asked: “can a biological male be a lesbian?” Of course, framing the question in this way tends to suggest a particular conclusion, one Stock wants us to draw, which is that trans women cannot be lesbians.
And framing the question as “Are some feminists asking the wrong question about who counts as a ‘lesbian’?” also tends to suggest a particular conclusion.
Yet, this conclusion only follows if we accept the proposition that “woman” must be defined by reference to reproductive biology alone (Stock does not insist on “reproductive capacity” for obvious reasons), so that “lesbian” desire becomes the desire of two women who share reproductive body parts…
But we know better, right? We know it’s all in the feelings, it’s all in how we “identify,” it’s all in the Lived Experience (of feeling like a woman in our heads). We know that if a man pretends he’s a woman hard enough for a long enough time (a week? two weeks?) then he is a woman, and gets to call himself a lesbian from that time forth. We also know that mere in-the-body women don’t get to resist this, and mere in-the-body lesbian women don’t get to say no to dick, and mere in-the-body lesbian women don’t get to say who counts as lesbian. They have to be Inclusive of superior in-the-head women, on pain of shunning and non-stop threats of violence. Ah brave new world, that hath such creatures in it.
[A] more inclusive definition is open to us and we should embrace it. Not because of scientific or metaphysical “truths”, but because the question of who counts as a “woman” is, as feminist philosophers Lorna Finlayson, Katharine Jenkins and Rosie Worsdale rightly note, “a political or ethical question”.
One that should be decided by men superior in-the-head women.
Before turning to a more inclusive definition of “woman”, let us be clear about what is at stake in the “woman” question and for whom.
Can someone point me to the literature on more inclusive definitions of “man”? I can’t seem to find anything. Surely it can’t be only “woman” that needs a more inclusive definition…can it? Wouldn’t that seem kind of sexist? One rule for the boys and an opposite rule for the not-boys?
You know, one thing that bothers me. As a woman, I am not considered bigoted if I reject having sex with a particular man for some reason (unless I were to scream something like “get away from me, you [fill in preferred group here] man!”). I am free to choose with whom I do or don’t have sex; if I do not make that choice freely, it is rape. That’s something feminists fought to achieve, and something we value. We are free to say no.
Now, all of a sudden, a lesbian choosing not to have sex with a person she is unattracted to (because of a penis) is a bigoted, transphobic, nasty woman – pardon me, menstruator or uterus-haver (what if she is neither? Can she still be a lesbian? Wow, this is giving me a headache). So we are suggesting a form of rape for lesbians in the requirement that they submit to penetration by a penis in order to not be a bigot? Because that penis is a “girl-dick” and if she fails to recognize it as such she is transphobic? Even though she doesn’t like the person to whom it attaches, perhaps? Is not attracted?
A person should be free to say no to sex with another person they do not wish to have sex with. If a person screams racial epithets, that person may rightly be termed bigoted, but it is still their desire to not have sex with a person of a race they find displeasing. Anything else would be rape.
We have fallen deep into the mire of Humpty Dumpty here (a word means exactly what I say it means, no more and no less) when we assume that calling a penis a female organ can suddenly make it appealing to a female who is uninterested in penises (or a male who is straight, and also uninterested in other penises besides his own).
You know, that’s a great point. Where are all the articles decrying straight men who do not want to have sex with trans women because penis? Why aren’t they being excoriated since I imagine there are many more men in this category than there are lesbians period? Or what about gay men who say no to vagina?
Where indeed. I keep asking this, over and over and over. Isn’t it funny how the bullying is so almost entirely focused on women.
Not so much an article, but in the comments on PZ’s post in which he gets all uppity because Graham Linehan didn’t fawn over him after Myers’ slot at a conference, one of the perpetually angry super-woke states that Linehan is definitely a transphobic bigot because a character in a show he wrote decided, after going through much soul-searching, that he couldn’t embark on a romantic relationship with a transwoman.
The thing is, they never explain why any person should look past the genitalia of transpeople, or why people should accept a ‘woman’ with a penis or a ‘man’ with a vagina as sexual partners beyond stating ‘they are what they say they are’, but they are very quick to demand that people don’t say no to them.
But only if you do not call yourself a tomboy and point out the obvious flaws in gender dysphoria. In that case, you don’t get to claim knowledge of what you experienced, and can be talked down to by self-appointed arbiters of gender.
#2
On that note, I have seen one of the trendy-woke men from Buzzfeed bemoan that he still does not find trans women attractive, criticising himself for still having vestiges of internalised transmisogyny despite his continued efforts. He actually looked despondent, disappointed in himself for being an ordinary heterosexual man.
I might try to find the video later today.
I think the whole LGBTIQ arrangement has been unhelpful.
The only commonality is being discriminated against, but the discrimination faced by a G Male is of a different kind to that of an L Female. They may be allies in some areas, but they each have their own, very different battles.
The same can be said for each of the other letters, as well as, women.
We need to fight to end discrimination against all people, but it is a war with many fronts, and advance here, a retreat there, a bit more education, a bit less religion, and a realisation that intersections are a hazard, not something to be embraced.
That’s it from me, I need to deciding who or what I will be today.
I gave up on deciding what to be today about 8:30 this morning. I decided to just be me for a little while. It feels kinda good, you know?