I wouldn’t think so, at least not in the theoretical way that radical feminists accept it. I’m not sure what to compare it to, but the idea that comes to mind is something like the Marxist concept of alienation. I think many working people might be able to relate to the concept, but most aren’t going to be thinking about it in Marxist terms, because most aren’t reading Marxist literature. Similarly, I don’t think most women are reading or nodding along to radfem views.
What I’m interested in primarily is trying to relate to where people are coming from, even if I think that conceptually it doesn’t quite work. I think I can relate to why some radical feminists think of “womanhood” as this achieved political standpoint and site of solidarity, why that is important to them, and why it is tied to issues of reproductive freedom and sexual violence. Particularly in historical context. Even when I don’t think the arguments are airtight or definitive. But I wouldn’t argue that their views represent a majority of women.
I appreciate your perspective, and am definitely not in a position to argue with it. That said, it strikes me that while you’re saying the ideas are kind of stupid, other parts of your post seem to reiterate at least part of the background involved with the position you’re disagreeing with: e.g. wondering whether people know what fate they are choosing, or noting that it’s very important that girls learn how to deal with men.
At the very least, I think notions like that inform the idea that radical feminists have about occupying a social location different from some trans women who did not have to experience that kind of socialization (which is not to say that the challenges they face are less important).
I read her essay and think it is a muddled mess of misunderstanding, long outdated phobias and unrelated concerns.
She makes some good points about some in the Trans community being reactionary and overly dogmatic. One need only look to the recent cancelling of Contrapoints for a prime example.
However the claim that trans women would somehow invade safe spaces like sexual assault support groups is just silly. It’s a fear cut from the same cloth as the bathroom claim. There is zero evidence it’s true.
The worry that there is an increase of people seeking transition support is truly bizarre. It’s like asking why in the 90s and 2000s there were so many gay people all of sudden. They didn’t sprout from the earth. They came out of the closet. They were always there. Same with trans people now.
Lastly, for the love of fucking god people need to stop spending all their time worrying about what other people are doing with their sex organs. Jesus.
Say it with me.
What someone else does with their sex organs has literally no effect on my life! I shouldn’t and don’t care beyond supporting them. It causes me no harm.
What someone else does with their sex organs has literally no effect on my life! I shouldn’t and don’t care beyond supporting them. It causes me no harm.
What someone else does with their sex organs has literally no effect on my life! I shouldn’t and don’t care beyond supporting them. It causes me no harm.
There was a fairly long history of contention between trans and radfem activists at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, around the existence of female only safe spaces. My introduction to this topic is mostly related to that, because my wife’s doctoral thesis was on feminist social movements. Just fwiw.
I agree with your comments about sex organs but they don’t seem relevant to the OP?
Our entire culture as a whole is overdue for a long and difficult reckoning about beloved cultural things that are problematic. Everything from Merchant of Venice to HP Lovecraft to Tolkein to The Simpsons has offensive stuff that wouldn’t fly today. Do we toss it all out? idk. Harry Potter is one of the more benign examples of this, pity the poor Lord of the Rings nerd.
They are relevant to the debate though. I see no more charitable way to see all this than as yet another in the seemingly endless handwringing and obsession over how people view their sexuality and what they do with it. Variations of these same arguments were made to counter homosexuality.
What if a gay guy is in the locker room looking at my cock?
Are we sure lesbians are really lesbians and not just women who went to all female schools?
Honestly guys I’m not a homophobe I’m just worried about the negative effect of all these gays and lesbians coming out and living open and free lives.
Are we sure poly women exist. Aren’t they just being coerced by men?
Surely we don’t want BDSM to become mainstream as it’s a perversion thrust upon innocent women by evil men.
What is so bad about me saying faggot.
I’m not a bigot. Men and women procreate. Two men can’t procreate. Obviously it’s not natural. It’s simple biology.
Apropos of nothing, when I was doing some background reading, contemplating this thread, I read this New Yorker piece from 2014. I think the ending sort of strikes the right note:
One of the trans women who showed up at the Radfems Respond conference, a thirty-five-year-old software engineer from California, with a tiny nose stud and long brown hair, agrees. She understands why trans women are hurt by their exclusion from Michfest and other female-only events and facilities, saying, “It’s not really wanting to invade space. It’s a deep-seated wanting to belong.” But, she adds, “if you’re identifying with women, shouldn’t you be empathizing with women?”
Sandy Stone shares this view—up to a point. Of the radical feminists’ position, she says, “It’s my personal belief, from speaking to some of these people at length, that it comes from having been subject to serious trauma at the hands of some man, or multiple men.” She adds, “You have to respect that. That’s their experience of the world.” But the pain of radical feminists, she insists, can’t trump trans rights. “If it were a perfect world, we would find ways to reach out and find ways of mutual healing,” she says. But, as it is, “I am going to have to say, It’s your place to stay out of spaces where transgender male-to-female people go. It’s not our job to avoid you.”
I don’t think they’re great examples, because their work is much easier to separate from their awfulness than say, Lovecraft. Lovecraft is an absolutely seminal figure in horror and science fiction. There’s basically no weird fiction or cosmic horror without Lovecraft (obviously like Chambers, Dunsany, Bierce etc were forerunners to some extent but ya know). And it’s not as though the fact that he was massively racist is separable from his work, it’s riddled with it.
I’m not sure what the proposed ‘reckoning’ should consist of, really. OK, stop naming awards after the guy. What else, though? Stop reading his work? Stop adapting it? I mean he’s dead, he’s not really in a position to face any consequences; he’s already cancelled. Do we start judging people for liking Lovecraft’s work?
The answer is a clear and resounding no? This is a really dangerous idea gaining traction on the left. If we are going to judge all art in the modern context only no art is going to survive. This isn’t progress. It’s retrograde censorship.
The answer is understanding context.
The reason a show like Schitt’s Creek feels so fresh is by comparing it to its predecessors. Without the predecessor there is no context.
I agree with this and also think that shortcomings in popular art are good teaching tools to get people to actually understand concepts like sexism and racism.
The other issue is that there is no bottom in the race to the bottom to suppress art for its imperfections. Even if we comb all the books, film, and music archives to delete all the “bad” stuff, if someone makes it their mission to find fault with the remaining art then they will find something.
While I think Rowling is wrong on most of her points, she makes one good point. Cancel culture is toxic.
This is a good chance to post one of the best treaties on the the subject I have ever seen. It’s long but well worth the watch. Contrapoints is one of the most important thinkers on the net today. She is also trans.
So, bear in mind that I didn’t create this thread to argue that you (or anyone) should adopt the specific views of radical feminists. I wasn’t expecting anyone to join a lesbian separatist movement.
I created the thread because I was interested in whether it’s possible to understand where they are coming from, and take something useful from it, rather than immediately dismissing someone like Rowling as a transphobe.
FWIW I don’t think “jealous” is exactly right. They see the sexual division of labor in a way that’s analogous to the way Marxists treat class conflict – as something fundamental to human social organization.
You’ve expressed before your lack of satisfaction with social movement ideas that you perceive as making people into victims. In your blog, I once tried to draw some distinction between this idea as applied to individuals and as applied to social movements.
I think you have a point, but I also think this particular lens, through which you tend to view these questions, doesn’t really capture everything important. For one thing, it’s undoubtedly true that many women see their expressions of feminism as taking an active role, particularly in demanding and making use of political power. That understanding is pretty crucial to understanding why “women” as a political class is so important to radfems. It is not just about preserving some kind of special victim status. Basically my feeling is that it’s certainly possible for political identities to be problematic, in the way you are stating, and in others; there are some valid criticisms of “identity politics.”
But shared identity and solidarity are also just fundamental aspects of human social organization and politics, as also expressed through civil rights movements aimed at ending injustice or creating equality for women, or people of color, or LGBTQ people, and so on. That is partly why I think it’s important to look for ways that different groups involved in those struggles can understand each other better.
I don’t know man, what sort of useful information do you think you can get out of this? Is it just interesting to you to know how these people think? Do you think you can potentially change their mind if you understand there point of view? Spoiler alert, but it’s motivated reasoning all the way down.
I’m curious about taking it even one step further. Does it matter if works of art are immoral? I’m not sure that it does. These aren’t political treatises or sermons. A novel isn’t making claims about how the world ought to be; it’s describing a state of the world. Sometimes that state will be racist or sexist. So what? Sure, we don’t want to encourage people to look up to racist characters, but it isn’t clear to me that we do or need to take moral lessons from art.
Literature frequently isn’t just descriptive, though. It very often makes arguments about how things should be, not just how they are. Take Star Trek: it’s very much a statement of ideals, and it wears that on its sleeve. I think the Harry Potter universe is likewise, that the wizards’ world and structure isn’t just a reflection of society but an aspirational goal.
