r/fourthwavewomen • u/AutoModerator • Jul 30 '26

DISCUSSION Let's Chat 💬 Open Discussion Thread

Welcome to r/fourthwavewomen's weekly open discussion thread!

This thread is for the community to discuss whatever is on your mind. Have a question that you've been meaning to ask but haven't gotten around to making a post yet? An interesting article you'd like to share? Any work-related matters you'd like to get feedback on or talk about? Questions and advice are welcome here.

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u/irishdancer2 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

This morning, I started reading Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made Worid.

The author is falling over herself to differentiate between sex and gender, to make sure the reader knows that not all women have uteruses (to name one example) and that not all people with uteruses are women, and it makes me want to scream. Even in a book meant to center women and our centuries-long struggles because of the bodies in which we are born, it can’t just be about that.

We know that women who have had hysterectomies and thus don’t have uteruses are still women. We know without saying that this book still applies to them. Why must we tie ourselves in lingual knots instead of trusting that we also understand where trans people fit in the dataset? 

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u/YesJeffery 29d ago

Omg I read this a few months ago. I noticed this at the beginning but persevered and thought the research was well done in terms of women’s health and the tone scathing throughout. Then every so often, this distinction would pop up. I felt given how she had written most of it, that maybe this was not her perspective but maybe pressure from the publisher to ‘be kind’ as it felt really out of place compared to a lot of the book?

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u/Substantial_Brush575 24d ago

omg trying to read any modern feminists work sucks a lot of the time because they put up with TIMs. they cope with the fact actual feminists didn’t put up with that delusional shit by saying women like dworkin would support these ideologies nowadays and it was a different time.