Why do some feminists oppose misogyny but support gender ideology?

[Doodwhatareyou]

I recently ended up in the man hating side of tiktok, which is a place I tend to be in agreement with. I’ve seen several women bravely battle stupid men in the comments who manage to reinforce everything being said.

I’ve seen a pattern though that these women, who seem to be very up on rules of misogyny, and aware of how problematic too many men are, usually have pronouns in their bio, and occasionally will complain about being bullied by terfs.

I’m baffled.

How can they be so up on patriarchal nonsense yet miss the fundamental misogyny in gender ideology. How can they deny the evidence that trans identified men are just as much of a problem for women if not more as they want women’s rights and spaces.

They can make endless videos about how hateful men are because of the way women are treated, and how women have to budge up and make room, yet trans identified men are women, and anyone who says otherwise is a massive bigot. I don’t understand.

Yeah one of my adult sons puts it like that. He says many of his peers - and the younger cohort - buy their politics as a job lot and haven't actually done much reading around the issues.

It shows, too, doesn't it?

The other thing is how much complacency there is. An awful lot of people now assume that the rights they have now have always been their rights, and that it's inconceivable they could just be lost pretty much overnight at the click of some politician's or powermonger's fingers.

But they can. And if you don't understand the history of how you came to get those rights and why they arose, what it was like before, it's easy to handwave away anyone who understands it better than you do because they remember it well. And have seen it happen before.

Complacency is so dangerous. And so many, including the so-called "inclusive" feminists are both ill educated about the reality and history (deliberately, in my view) and worryingly complacent and clueless.

This is an important point.

Women's sports illustrates it so well. I got very frustrated with young colleagues of mine on this issue until it dawned on me that they didn't really understand that older generations had had to fight for the girls teams and leagues that they now all take for granted.

Yes I was going to say his arguments are so last 2022. Thankfully we have moved on and so many more women have peaked. We are not a niche view and it is far from a teeny tiny affected population. For the millions and millions of women and girls whether they wish to have single sex care, spaces, sports events, the law has been clarified. For the vulnerable in hospitals, in prisons, in care homes in dv refuges, this fight is for them.

Yes. This whole colonisation and attempted takeover of what it means to be a girl, a woman, a female, is so unbelievable and wrong. When I wrote 'women's bodies', I was aware that that fact/concept is under attack and people are being made to doublethink.

I also hoped my comment might be helpful to other women reading here. I know for sure that any advice following pregnancy or around menopause can be of no personal relevance for any man/male, whatever they may think about themselves and whether they are posting or disrupting on here or not.

So true. Katherine Switzer became the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon in 1967. She literally had to fight to stay in the race and was attacked by officials. She was booed along the way. All because she wanted to run. Seems inconceivable now.

So agree. I was cancelled in another place yesterday for disagreeing that Greece was not part of Western Europe - the idea seemed to be that Greece is middle eastern with Turkish* etc connections - and that white people had stolen Greek mythology. I was somewhat flummoxed by this view but doubted it merited cancellation. Mind the canceller was an American. I was confused by their argument and wanted to understand their reasoning, Plato et al being part of the Western cannon. I am equally confused by feminists who are handmaidens but I would never block - discussion is always better?
*Greece fought a war for independance from the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century and the problem of a divided Cyprus is with us still, half belonging to Greece and half to Turkey (though Erdogan seems to be sucking up to Greece in saying the firman allowing the removal of the Acropolis marbles - which were about to become hard core - cannot be found).

I too was going to mention the Boston marathon about this point.

Women were first allowed to compete in the ski jump in the Olympics in 2014.

These uninformed girls so airily waving away their rights might also find it surprising to remember at until 1991 it was legal to rape your wife. Consent to sex was presumed on marriage.

It might also be helpful to understand how many countries still allow marital rape. It is most widespread in African and Middle Eastern countries, particularly under Sharia law.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_laws_by_country

Why on earth does anyone waste pixels on Baileyonice any more? Have we no paint that needs to be invigilated to make sure it dries right?

On women's rights being a newfangled notion but the young not-really-feminists don't realise this: I have found that asking them why they think Roe v Wade happened, and when (it was 1973 so before most of them were born but probably not before their mothers were) , and then pointing out that Trump and his merry men are working to reverse that state by state so that abortion becomes illegal in the USA as a whole, sometimes does get through.

It's big enough for them to have to accept that it is real.

I was just off listening to my bird song app - I had chiff chaffs and greenfinches in my garden!! Much more rewarding!

That's a fine plan.

Some support trans people because they are always on the side of the downtrodden/oppressed and don't necessarily think deeply about how they relate to each other.

Some probably base their opinions on their own experiences. I have one trans colleague who is a lovely person. I can absolutely see that their gender struggles are real and personal.

I consider myself a feminist and GC, in that I believe that sex is binary and fact-based. I don't believe in gender as some form of innate feature which is independent of their sex.
A lot of what people describe as gender, is to me just stereotypes and social norms. However, I can accept that other people have different beliefs. I don't think that they are wrong, just that they are different to mine as long as they don't expect me to live by their values. In the same sense I can respect other people's religious beliefs without sharing them myself.
This is for me personally the crux of my GC beliefs - I don't care if you believe you are a woman, or want to adopt the social norms associated with that. I care if I am compelled to treat it as a fact, rather than a belief, and pretend that it's my belief too.
As a feminist, I believe that women throughout cultures and history have been and continue to be oppressed. Much of this oppression is based on our biology, so cannot be relevant to transwomen. I do agree that transwomen suffer discrimination and oppression, but although there is some overlap, it is different oppression.

I think its probably always been like that. Most people buy their views as a job lot. Certainly at Uni, I held views I could not have really justified if pressed, but somehow felt they were the views I should have. (in my 50s now). But gradually I was exposed to things as I grew up that made me question my assumptions and prejudices. And I certainly have friends who have always paid the Guardian to tell them what to think and still do. So I don't think today's young are unusual in that, though the whole ' being cancelled' thing has probably made it worse in terms of lacking the space and security to be able to question the views you and others hold. And of course social media means people are only fed views that they agree with, and may not even realise this is happening to them, which accelerates, yet normalises, extreme positions. I doubt the extreme gender ideology we have now could have taken hold without social media. Its still a patently ridiculous idea to anyone outside the gender bubble. Most people, I find, who say they support it ( other than trans activists) don't even understand what it claims or means in practice. Once they find out, they don't agree with it.

One thing I'll pull you up on a little bit - oppression requires extraction of labour. How are men 'oppressed' (and no, I don't count 'having to explain why they're dressed as they are and that's why they should be in the ladies' as labour being extracted from someone).

Women were oppressed through their biology - being the one to bear children, being smaller and more vulnerable and so more easily forced into performing actual labour whether they wanted to or not.

I have heard several (western) Muslim women talk approvingly of how refusing your spouse sexually is not permitted in Islam.

In which case, I have used the word "oppression" incorrectly.
I meant disadvantaged due to prejudice, bullying and discrimination. (And no, being legitimately excluded due to your sex doesn't count).

What else are Trump and his merry men working to eliminate? Ask yourself that question. Look at who are the allies of the gender critical movement. Look at the conference Sex Matters attended recently. Look at the lawyer who supported Keira Bell role back gillick competency and wonder what his motives were.

The GC movement are useful idiots. When they're done with trans people they'll come for the rest of you.

In what way do you think a belief that people can change sex helps women?

Are you sure you want to go there? Because women have the receipts about the behaviour, convictions and dodgy interests of an awful lot of influential transactivists. While many of them are in prison, there are still a lot out in the wild we can talk about.

You seem to struggle with the idea of women having our own opinions.

I want to keep men out of my words and spaces not because of Donald Trump or other cases that Keira Bells lawyer has worked on, it’s because I don’t want men in my words and spaces.

Your desperate attempt to discredit our views by association is just that, desperate but thanks for trying. It just illustrates how little you have left. Reality and truth are being strongly reasserted by women.

Yes absolutely. They have very little left. Especially after the strength of FWS.

The 'progressive' left HAS ALREADY COME FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Hypotheticals about what may happen in the future (in the UK, Trump is not our President) have to be weighed against the damage that batshit policies from the left have already wreaked and are continuing to wreak on individual women, on women as a sex class and on vulnerable children. Many women know that no political faction has our best interests at heart; 'the other guy will be even worse than us' is something we hear from all sides.