#feminist current

[cryptogamist]

The third wave's tokenization of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is anything but intersectional

“How could she say such a thing?!” Behind every response to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent remarks about transwomen was the message that people were not only outraged with the Nigerian novelist and feminist, but disappointed in her as well. In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Schaub wrote that she “angered” the transgender community. Paper Magazine…

“The uproar over Adichie’s comments represents two distinct issues: 1) The belief that only transwomen should be the arbiters of what womanhood is, and 2) The practice of elevating certain women as icons, only to virulently pull them down once they express an opinion those who tokenized her disapprove of.

As for the first argument, some people argue that transwomen cannot have male privilege because they don’t identify as men. At Everyday Feminism, trans writer Kai Cheng Thom argues, “We cannot receive male privilege — because male privilege is by definition something that only men and masculine-identified people can experience.” But this assumes that for a structural force (such as systemic privilege) to affect you, you must identify with it. By that logic, women and girls must identify with our oppression in order for it to affect us. 

But privilege doesn’t ask anyone if they want it, so it doesn’t t matter whether you agree with it or “believe” in it. Privilege perpetuates itself by remaining in the background, invisible to those who have it. This means that being able to not notice your own privilege is in itself a sign of privilege. To say, “I didn’t feel privileged,” despite being part of a privileged class of people, speaks to its omnipresent power.

And how do we challenge systemic oppression if we deny it exists? As writer and scholar Claire Heuchan points out:

“If trans womanhood is synonymous with womanhood, the hallmarks of women’s oppression cease to recognizable as women’s experiences. If we cannot acknowledge the privileges those recognized and treated as male hold over their female counterparts, we cannot acknowledge the existence of patriarchy.”

As Sarah Ditum argues, women cannot remain neutral on this issue because the battlefield is our bodies: “There’s no way to avoid picking a side when you yourself are the disputed territory.” Suggesting women should not discuss or acknowledge differences between females and transwomen  in order to avoid being labeled “controversial” (or worse) is just another way patriarchy demands submissiveness and silence from women in exchange for a false sense of security.”

[homosexuhauls]

What I want to say about this particular issue is that we were very accepting in our communities. If Ted wanted to dress as a woman and if Ted wanted Jack to be her husband, we didn’t condemn them. We knew that Ted wanted to dress like a woman, but we never said that Ted was a woman. The construction of gendered categories, like [saying] we had five… I’m sorry, we did not. We had two. There were some people who wanted to dress as men and some that wanted to dress as women and we never discriminated against them — they were accepted. They were members of the community — they were different, and we were fine with that. But we didn’t get Ted forcing himself into women’s circles, you know… He was invited. You never force yourself anywhere in Indigenous society.

Fay Blaney on gender identity and Indigenous cultures at the Vancouver Public Library (transcript here)

[thegynocrat-blog]

https://twitter.com/mu_guiying/status/888975759997579267

[anthropolos]

If anyone here follows Feminist Current on Facebook or wherever, they just posted an article calling "terf" a slur, similar to calling a woman a bitch, cunt, or slut. If you see that you are following them, please unfollow.

[a-broader-sensibility-blog]

learn your feminist history

I encourage all of the 15-year-olds on this hellsite who think that anti-racist/anti-ablist/anti-classist feminism was invented in the year 2012 to listen to this excellent podcast. Meghan Murphy, of Feminist Current, interviews Finn Mackay, a British feminist activist and historian on the history of Take Back the Night/Reclaim the Night. They also discuss consciousness-raising, which leads Mackay to explain how actually, 2nd wave feminists of the 1970s were already actively struggling to combat the racism and classism etc. that occurred within their own groups, and how they sought to become more aware of these issues and make their activism more inclusive (to WOMEN.) So no, intersectionality was not invented by Laverne Cox in the fucking 2010s. That doesn’t mean racism etc. was solved by 2nd wave feminists--it means the concepts of intersectionality were already being discussed before we had the word, and certainly long before men decided that intersectionality meant feminism had to intersect with men’s sexual desires.

Meghan Murphy also makes an interesting point about how ignorant most young activists today are about the history of feminism, and how it hurts to see history rewritten so blatantly by people who have never taken the time to learn any of their history. Mackay points out (quite gently) how fucking racist it is to say that 2nd wave feminism was “white feminism” because it erases the many black radical feminist women who were active participants in the movement. I’ve been learning about feminism for at least 10 years now and I still learn new facts every day that completely change my understanding of feminist history. We don’t learn about the history of feminism in school and we’re kept so ignorant, especially when ageism+misogyny influences young people to believe that older women have nothing of value to say. There is nothing more valuable than listening to the grizzled veterans of female liberation who have been doing this for 50 years, who have seen male-led activist movements that purported to represent all people but really only represented male interests come and go, who have seen the ways in which activist groups come together and the ways they break apart.

Anyways...on a personal note, lately I’ve been trying to read more of the feminist classics and learn about the history of women’s movements, especially the parts that are poorly understood and generally ignored, especially by today’s neoliberal consumer grrrl power fauxminism. That means learning about feminists who would now be considered Problematic, whose ideas are not perfectly in line with popular ideology in 2017, who maybe tried some strategies (like Prohibition) that didn’t work out. It’s so exciting whenever you find out about some amazing woman or group of women that were doing incredibly radical work given their time period, especially when these women are completely unknown and uncelebrated in the mainstream. If any of you have recommendations for historical feminist movements or individuals to research, please let me know.

[radfemetc]

Special millennials are so special (please tell me I’m special)

A mini documentary produced by The Guardian features five young "non-binary" people, who discuss what it means to be much more special than everyone else.

It’s unlikely any of us have ever experienced the horror of feeling uncomfortable before, but I’m certain the few who have will feel grateful at knowing there is a name for this: not “hungry,” “itchy,” “interested in corduroy jumpers,” or “objectified due to the fact of being female,” but “non-binary.”

Though left undefined by those interviewed in the video, The Guardian defines “non-binary” as: “Any gender identity which does not fit the male and female binary.” Considering “gender identity” has nothing to do with biological sex, only an internal feeling of being very special — much more special than everyone else — and that all the people featured in this mini doc are either male or female, the term “non-binary” could more easily and clearly be defined as: “A person with a haircut, a very pretentious-sounding voice, or purple lipstick.”

…

In a moment of what could have been clarity, a very annoying man in purple lipstick says, “Gender is a social construct we’ve created to violently oppress people.” 

His name turns out to be Travis Alabanza, and he doesn’t like that “cis people” are always saying we should do away with labels. 

Which “cis people” are saying this, I do not know — most of us seem perfectly content with the words “male” and “female,” which simply describe a material reality that has been around for, oh I don’t know, hundreds of millions of years.) 

But Alabanza did not choose to be labelled male, and that label made him feel “horrible.” And, as we all know, if you have a feeling, the best way to deal with that feeling is to imagine a different reality exists and then demand everyone around you validate that imagined reality. Especially if you are a member of the oppressor class. Imagine how uncomfortable it would feel to be a member of that class! You did not ask to be an oppressor, after all. You asked to be a special.

If Alabanza followed his own words to their natural conclusion, he would have understood that, because gender exists to reinforce a violent hierarchy, it is not innate or a personal choice. He also would have understood that rejecting gender is not the same as rejecting sex. Sex exists regardless of the stereotypes imposed on us and roles we are socialized into.Though these precious children claim no one can tell “what they are,” it is actually very easy to tell who is male and who is female, among them.

Also, my prediction is that literally no one is as interested in them as they are. The delusion that strangers on the street will see a woman with short hair and glasses or a man with pigtails and gasp, “What creature is this!?” is pure teenage narcissism

.It’s strange, because while supposedly opposed to being labelled against their will, all these young specials insist on assigning words like “cisgender” (cis) on unwilling women, who reject the notion that they “identify” with the gender imposed on them. They also insist on inventing new, nonsensical labels in order to imagine their way out of the basic human fact of biological sex.

…

[imadeletingmysocials]

Hey I don’t see it around here on tumblr as much as I do on twitter, so I just wanted to warn that feministcurrent is very TERF and obsessed with purity. 

[louisevonsalome131629]

in the wake of everyday feminism’s financial troubles i remembered how important it is to support quality feminist media, which is why i gave a few euros to feminist current. they contributed so much to my ~radfem awakening~ and while i cannot donate a lot of money right now, i will be eternally thankful for that. let’s keep independent, unapologetic, radical feminism alive.