Rebranding and its discontents
Rebranding: the conversation.
But they weren’t excluding people. There’s no need to name every subset of women in order to avoid excluding some particular subset. It can be a good thing to underline that all subsets are welcome, especially subsets that really do face oppression and neglect. (Which implies that I don’t think women who identify as men really do face oppression and neglect. That’s fair. I think the whole idea of being trans is a pretty elite phenomenon, and I also think not being constantly “centered” by everyone else doesn’t qualify as oppression and neglect.) It can be a good thing, but underlining that all are welcome does not require erasing the set.
Suppose you have a group that supports workers. You can underline that that means all workers, of all races, sexes, nationalities, immigration statuses, and so on – but what you don’t do is drop the word “workers.” You especially don’t do that to soothe the feelings of rich college kids who “identify as” workers.
Your analogy helps to highlight the irrationality. If college students who identify as “ workers” are going to The Society in Support of Workers, the last thing they’re going to want is for the administration to say “well, now we have to get rid of the reference to ‘workers’ because college students come in.”
Indeed.
And why is that? Well, you see, workers matter. Women, not so much.
No, it still wouldn’t make sense. “Trans women are women” should mean that a woman’s organization getting rid of the word “women” in order to include trans women would be a slap in the face. Trans Women ought to be fighting to keep the term “women.”
It looks more to me that the objections and concerns are coming from women-who-don’t-identify-as-women: trans men. Also from the “non-binary,” who should, in theory, be attacking men’s groups they want or need to join. If they’re not doing so, that’s probably misogyny, self-preservation, or prudence. Or all 3.
So this is healthcare for oysters?
Sastra, from what I understand from all the other organizations that have done this, it is to be inclusive of trans men. To “acknowledge” that some “men” need gynecological services. But it seems to be driven by the trans women most of the time, who seem to have a deep seated hatred of seeing the word woman applied to anyone but themselves.
That logo is disturbing. I know it’s supposed to be a woman, but it looks a lot like a vulva. I suspect that is intentional, because gynecology and all that, but still…a woman is way more than a vulva.
Looking like a vulva (and it does, enough to be intentional) isn’t the worst part of that logo.
There’s the part where it almost looks like it says “Oysters,” and then the motto. Taking up space? I used to call my dumbest students “aspiring astronauts,” because they were taking up space.
Is that a good indication of what their purpose is? Taking up space?
Shouldn’t the analogy rather be about not soothing the feelings of workers who identify as rich college kids, so won’t go somewhere that’s for ‘workers’?
I don’t think so, unless I’m missing your point. Workers are the oppressed group (to use an inexact shorthand) as opposed to rich people (shorthand again); women are the oppressed group as opposed to men.
I think you’re all missing the most disturbing part of that logo. Do these people even know what a cyst is?
Ah, the perils of reading articles in reverse order. I see that you didn’t miss the ‘cyst’ in the previous post, Ophelia. Sorry for my presumption. I should know better by now.
My thinking is that you have a group that’s for women (workers), but women who identify as men (rich kids) feel excluded from it because it says women (workers) in the name.
I think you’ve got it right, Graham. The name change isn’t so trans-identifying males will come in. It’s already their wet dream to be considered women, but what the hell would a gynecologist do for them? It’s so trans-identifying females will come in, despite their obvious manliness, to have their secret man-lady parts checked out. You know, for cysts. Or pearls, as the case may be.
Also, it works on the labor side too. This being America, if you wanted to attract workers to a group, you’d call it “Future Millionaires of America” or something.
As for rich kids pretending to be workers to get their ideological rocks off, check any group with “workers” in the name, such as “Revolutionary Workers’ League.” I remember a group of my school chums fomenting Trotskyism in the People’s Volvo.
Oh yes, Graham, I get it now.
It’s all a bit murky though. Ostensibly it’s about being inclooosiv of women who identify as men, but oh gee how odd, sorry folks, the way it plays out is that the word “women” goes away. Heads they win tails we lose.
But yes you’re right, I got the analogy backward.