gender critical radical feminists
There’s a subsection of radical feminism that describes itself as ‘gender critical’. This means they are critical of the traditional female and male roles that we are presented with in most, if not all, human societies. They believe women and men are socialised into all manner of harmful behaviours that ensure that the status quo, in terms of men holding power and continuing to have licence to violence, are perpetuated.
This all seems reasonable to me. It’s clear that women are under-represented throughout public life and that society somehow ‘allows’ men to behave in unacceptably violent ways.
However, in terms of how gender roles impact on these serious problems, I’m not clear how we attempt to change the old roles without imposing arbitrary new ones. As a first step, we obviously have to break down the sense of expectation that children of either biological sex will follow traditional roles and have gender traits seen to be ‘normal’ for their biological sex.
The next step? See what happens. See how people develop. Because we don’t actually know if many people would choose to be essentially gender neutral or even what any less oppressive gender roles (if that’s what people choose) would look like. We have nothing to aim for beyond change.
But it seems that some gender critical radical feminist do know what the future will look like, what exactly is wrong with current gender roles. And they believe that any person born biologically female who wants to express themselves as male, is a blotch on their vision, an inconvenience to their theory. They believe that any person born biologically male who wants to express themselves as female is incorrect in thinking they want any female trappings such as heels or make-up, because these are the hallmarks of the devil, I mean the patriarchy.
So gender critical radical feminists want everyone to express themselves as gender neutral – erase the roles and dress as you please.
Except when you go to the toilet. Because when you go to the toilet (until we can convince every public convenience to go gender neutral) you can’t look gender neutral – your appearance must conform to your biological sex. Because if we can’t tell what sex you are based on your appearance, we won’t know where it’s safe for you to pee.
In the meantime, biological women who look like men are invited into female public toilets. And biological men who look like women can take their chances in the male public toilets.
I’m so glad that alongside their natural allies, fundamentalist Christians, this subsection of radical feminism has stepped into this debate to help make toilets safer for everyone, and in doing so undermine their own fight for gender roles to be overhauled by ensuring that our biological sex must match the ‘oppressive gender role’ physical appearance in order to safely go to the toilet in public.
If more pressure groups could use logic like they do, the world would be a much safer and more pleasant place for everyone. And when I say ‘everyone’, I mean ‘no-one’ (just in case you wondered).
There is always a point where rational, sensible arguments about human beings break down. I agree with the radical feminists about gender roles. I am an anomaly, and their rational scheme leaves no room for me. If I live my life as best I may, I feel it angers the religious conservative, so I still hope they might work on “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. I have never had problems in loos, and you will understand that I am careful not to draw attention to myself there.
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I agree that gender roles are generally harmful too. However, that doesn’t mean we attack individuals for feeling more comfortable expressing themselves a particularly way. These particular radical feminists seem to build their gender neutral ‘utopia’ on wishful thinking and no evidence. We have no way of predicting how people of any biological sex will behave or feel comfortable once we break down the current roles.
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For all my talk of being against complementarianism; admittedly I’ve never considered this aspect of the conversation. Scot McKnight once noted that: “This is the complementarian non-negotiable: it’s about roles and it’s about hierarchy and it’s about males being leaders and women being submissive.”
Scientists have figured out that young children understand gender stereotypes by three and from there they get socially reinforced over time. I think one set of parents purposely avoided the topic of gender when raising their child – and let the kid wear both boys and girls clothes and play with both boys and girls toys. It was only when it was old enough to go to kindergarten that they didn’t have much of a choice on the matter and had to explain to him what it was to be a boy as opposed to a girl.
What I can’t stand is that, in Christianity, all doors are opened to boys and some doors are nailed shut to girls just on the basis of gender alone. Even though some boys recognize that girls have the skills and talents to do what boys do, they won’t let them citing that they don’t have the authority to change God’s Word as the reason why.
What I’m against is the social pressure that disadvantages girls to shrink back and let the boys step up and get things done. I get that biologically, people will always be one or the other, or else intersex; but I don’t think that biology alone informs and decides what it is to a man or a woman. I don’t think that the virtue of being male is proof that some guy is a leader or that the best leaders are all men; I don’t think that only women should step back and let the men step up, but that there are times where men should defer to women. I don’t think that it would hurt men to actually be involved in raising their children or that their man card would be taken away if they had a healthier emotional support system.
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I can’t disagree that some Christian interpretations of gender roles are exceedingly harmful, to everyone. This seems to be a bigger problem in some parts of the USA these days – is that where you are? Your comment about men being involved in raising their children made me laugh – I can’t imagine having done it any other way! I guess I wouldn’t have, if I’d been in a relationship where splitting roles wasn’t an option.
Anyway, role on the changes for everyone! But not my making new arbitrary roles, simply by lessening expectations and encouraging schools to do the same.
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Yeah – I’m somewhere where tradition reigns supreme. It’s assumed that the men will handle the business and the wife is in charge of the home. The pastors of area churches are known to ignore women and focus his attention on holding conversations with fellow men at social functions. I hear all the time that men are expected to raise their sons and women are expected to raise their daughters; but there’s not much interaction between fathers and daughters or mothers and sons; the latter can be particularly looked down on because being a daddy’s girl is permissible, being a mommy’s boy tends not to be.
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Ouch, that truly sounds awful.
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I don’t do gender feminist issues as Roughseas will attest and has crucified me for it too, bless her Gibralten socks. 😉
Lovely pic. Yes, I can see it …
If you darkened the image just a little ( Office will do) the spider will stand out more.
You still on your hols?
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Last few days, sigh. It’s good weird here, and sunny to boot. You should take on Roughseas, see if you get banned too! 🙂
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Nah, she got just got pissed at me over my last religious post.
Besides, she considers I am playing at being a writer so I don’t think I could handle the rejection!
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Haha, I’ll have to pop over for a lurk. Maybe a poke if I’m feeling cheeky. She has a soft spot for you so I suspect you could get away with anything. Although I did think the same of Pink at some point …
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All I can say is bucket loads of insecurity in that exchange. Don’t take anything personally. I feel sorry for anyone who has wave shitty degrees around and state that they are intelligent to feel valued. Patronising but true.
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I never do … my therapist says I am making such progress I can now leave my tissues at home.
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It’s a tough life for sensitive souls like you.
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I generally take most things with a pinch of salt these days … life is way too short.
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…for a pantomime atheist stone god.
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Precisely!
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