Self-abnegation gets you negated
I saw a very bizarre remark – by a woman – on Twitter today.
Sick and tired of cis & white feminists thinking they own feminism.
Leaving aside the “white” part, the remaining claim is pretty staggering. “How dare women think feminism is about women?!”
What other oppressed class is subject to this kind of bullshit? What other oppressed class gets shouted at for thinking its own liberation movement is not “owned” by someone else?
It’s only women who are willing – in fact eager – to erase themselves this way.
Maybe that’s enough to tell me I’m not a woman after all. I’m not a fucking political masochist.
” ”
^
speechless
Are trans women not women?
Sorry, I just read through all the baloney from August about people trying to figure out your positions (or rather, trying to assign to you their perceptions), and now I’m a bit confused. When you take the statement “cis feminists..thinking they own feminism” and respond “How dare women think feminism is about women?!,” it sure does seem to me like you’re implying two things:
– non-cis women aren’t really women (because you use ‘cis feminist’ and ‘women’ essentially as synonyms)
– non-cis women shouldn’t have a voice in defining what feminism’s all about (the tweet talked about owning feminism, not just participating)
I’m pretty sure you don’t actually believe the first point, since I’ve seen you explicitly rejecting it, but it’s hard not to read your post and your interpretation of the tweet that way.
The reason I ask is that I’m trying to figure out if the whole kerfuffle (and similar cases of the left eating itself) is really due to not 100% ideological alignment, miscommunications, or just people automatically trying to assume the worst of people (and you can probably guess which blog’s commentariat I’m thinking of here)…
Hi dersk,
I’d like to jump in here, and ask you to consider three points.
1) If “transwomen are women,’ then what does being a woman mean? If neither female biology nor feminine socialization from birth pertain, what is it? A feeling? What/how exactly is it that women “feel” that men don’t/can’t feel? Can you think of anything that isn’t a stereotype based on male fantasies? Or are you a proponent of ladybrain? In which case, how do you not see that transwomen actually *disprove* ladybrain? http://secretlyradical.blogspot.com/2015/06/transgender-identity-politics-and.html
2) Why are you so determined to put transwomen in the “woman” box? Can you not accept that transwomen are transwomen – people whose bodies and lived realities are different from women? Is it not *actual* transphobia to treat transwomen as if their bodies and lived realities are so disgusting we must all lie about them? http://transavant.tumblr.com/post/132016557177/trans-women-are-women-is-a-lie-that-is-as
3) Why are you so determined to push transwomen out of the “man” box? They are adult human males. Could it be because *the existence of very feminine males is extremely threatening to masculinity?* And we all know how men react when they are threatened? Could it be this is all about appeasing men, out of abject fear of them? http://thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/p/12-if-maleness-is-unnameable-so-is-male.html
I feel the pedantic urge to point out that the quote doesn’t actually mention women – although from the tone I’m sure she’d agree that men, especially cis, white men can’t be feminists.
James, by she do you mean Ophelia or the original tweeter? I’m assuming the original tweeter meant ‘cis women’ by ‘cis.’ And I didn’t get the feeling from either the original tweet or Ophelia’s that either one would say that I as a straight white cis man couldn’t be a feminist, but I would expect both would agree that I should have no role in setting an overall feminist agenda (i.e., ‘owning’ feminism).
I read the post above, then the comments, then started reflecting on the erosion of reproductive rights, the pinkification of girlhood, the leaking pipeline of girls and women going into STEM, and near (and literal) slavery of women in Islamist regions and started to think…
“It’s never going to get better, it’s never going to get better, it’s never going to get better”
It’s not clear to me that “I own feminism” means the same thing as “feminism is about us.” The tweet seems closer to that of ‘feminism is only about us
And feminism shouldn’t be about women.
What nonsense. She was very obviously saying “How dare cis women think that feminism is SOLELY about cis women?” (How dare they exclude trans women?), not “How dare women think feminism is about women?” Trans women are women.
I searched for that Twitter post to check that I am right. The tweets that came immediately before it made it crystal clear that her anger was aimed specifically at trans exclusive feminists like Greer and Bindel, as she pointed out that their intolerance of transgender people mirrors right-wing rhetoric that targets other feminists and gay people.
The feminist who Tweeted this does NOT erase herself and other women – on the same day, among many other things she also Tweeted about:
– self-professed liberal men who do not retweet women
– the misogynistic Saudi regime
– body hair on women being socially taboo
– the importance of gender parity in politics
– the achievements of Maryam Monsef
MHB / #4
Why are you so determined to ascribe opinions to me? I haven’t stated any at all.
I’m trying to understand what Ophelia’s opinion is in the context of the whole kerfuffle in August, partially to figure out how much of it was reactions like yours that have a whole bunch of wrong assumptions in them (assumptions about my opinion, that is, not assumptions about who has what role in feminism).