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A man redefining feminism for us, in such a way that it includes him and doesn’t include feminist women.
As if the social/historical realities had nothing to do with the physical (and, yes, anatomical) ones.
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A man redefining feminism for us, in such a way that it includes him and doesn’t include feminist women.
As if the social/historical realities had nothing to do with the physical (and, yes, anatomical) ones.
Femalism: the belief that women’s rights should be apportioned by anatomical assessment.
In order to determine how to interpret this correctly, we have to know that a TRA came up with it in the context of an argument with gender critical feminists. Even then, we have to squint at it sideways in order to make it fit what we know it’s trying to say.
Otherwise, the more obvious interpretation is the plain one: women’s status and freedom depends on how they look, how old they are, and/or whether or not they’re fertile. This is Men’s Rights territory, where large breasts, youthful beauty, and willingness to bear lots of children mean you get to go out in public and vote. Barren old hags have to stay in the workhouse and slave for room and board. Or, perhaps, an MRA idea of a “feminist utopia,” where it’s reversed. Spring this definition on the unsuspecting public and my guess is “Femalism” will be described along these lines.
This Grace Lavery character can’t even be honest enough to point out that the feminists who don’t agree that transwomen are women don’t agree that transwomen are women. Instead, let’s assume they do, and invoke images of mean girls refusing to let someone with stringy hair sit at their lunch table.
When women were being denied voting rights or property rights or whatever, which definition of ‘woman’ was in operation?
@Holms:
Exactly. Back in the bad old days, how did everyone know who wasn’t allowed to vote, who couldn’t inherit, who shouldn’t be educated? Were coins flipped when babies came out of the womb and just mysteriously happen to come up tails every single time the baby had a vagina? Let’s say a vagina person in the US circa 1800 wished to, oh, I don’t know, become certified to practice law. Could said vagina person receive said certification if (s)he asserted that (s)he really was a man, just one who happened to inhabit a biologically female body? Or, flashing forward to living memory, could a vagina person who wished to open a credit card in 1960 do so without hir husband’s permission if (s)he said “no, you see, I’m actually a man myself?”