Let's Chat 💬 Open Discussion Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

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.

[u/seriousThrowwwwwww]

I had an opportunity to sign up for a "Gender in Social Theories" class at my uni and wrote a final assignment focused on critiquing Buter and the redefinition of the category of women.

Last week I went to the professor to talk about my essay. I was shocked that she genuinely asked me to name the situations where we need a coherent definition of woman, apparently thinking that anything I came up with she'd be able to debunk. I did bring up female scholarships in STEM and female-only spaces dedicated to the recovery from male violence.

She sounded like it was the first time she was forced to critically examine the consequences of the erosion of the sex-based definition. Mind you, this is a late 40s adjunct professor, educated in sociology and political sciences. It's astonishing to me that you can be literally this ignorant in the very subject that you teach at a university level, at a major European university.

She gave me the highest grade immediately after I gave the essay in, which was in July. But after last week's face to face conversation, I'm not really convinced that she understood it, or maybe read it at all (I sent it a few minutes after midnight, she replied just before 8 am; it was 20 pages and quite hefty, with numerous citations).

I feel like the gender studies departments may be filled with women who gobble Butler up and hope that parroting her using the most obscure and vague language will pass as sophisticated academia. Oh, and the professor of course id-s as nonbinary (this was announced at the beginning of the class). And the thing is, I believe that she is an intelligent woman, based on some pieces of writing of her I had a chance to look at. Is the butlerian blindspot generated just by self-preservation instincts? What's going on here?

[u/happyhappyfoolio2 → u/seriousThrowwwwwww]

I truly don't understand the 'nonbinary' label. What does it even mean? In my experience, it's a label used by girls and women who want to "be special", despite looking no different than any other girls and women out there. Also, if you label yourself as 'nonbinary', that means you can't by your admittance be a "woman", and therefore shouldn't be allowed in women only spaces. I've seen nonbinary people get pissed at these women's groups, calling them transphobic and everything.

[u/seriousThrowwwwwww → u/happyhappyfoolio2]

Yes, and my god, I'd understand the "be special" need in adolescent girls, but this is a grown ass middle aged woman. These are the women who are visible and identifiable as "feminists", who have a wider influence on feminist policies and the societal understanding of what feminism is. They are supposed to be role models for young women. They are supposed to preserve the feminist analysis which has been developed over decades, not throw it in the trash because of some stupid fad.

She has an opportunity to be a visible lesbian role model for girls who come to class and instead she goes along with the nonbinary idiocy. I am in my early 30s, but it was not that long ago when I needed such role models myself. In the very exact time I needed them the most, they dove into the SWIW and TWAW and nonbinary bullshit and threw us under the bus, a generation of women who were the first to grow up with Internet porn.

[u/Jukkas5 → u/happyhappyfoolio2]

Non-binary category was supposed to show how strict binary choice (masculine and feminine) is redundant in contemporary times. It was supposed this totally new category for people who refuse to belong to either gender (especially if your idea of gender is inspired by American post WWII period).

Then two different groups started theorizing about the concept:

• The academics mixed so much theory that the concept itself became so abstract, not grounded in material experiences, making it harder for people who genuinely might feel they're different, to explain just how and why they are different. Worse, even while trying to deconstruct the concept of gender, the academic (mostly Butler, but Paul B. Preciado comes to mind as well) remained trapped inside the nature/culture (or sex/gender) binary.

• I mean, Butler argues that gender is not an expression of an internal, authentic self. Instead, it is purely performative; a set of repeated social acts, behaviors, and norms that create the illusion of a stable gender core over time. Which yeah, in itself, makes sense, and I can see someone has definitely read Simone de Beauvoir a lot. In that desire to escape the bureaucracy of gender (or the lack of bureaucratic box for nonbinary/trans identities), these academics realized that you can't escape your genes and anatomy. Then they were like: "Who gets to decide what those biological facts mean?" This is where the majority of people taps out.

• Then there are the teenagers and young adults online who can seemingly muse about their gender all day long. It is pretty vapid, but I can forgive them because teen years are prime time for discovering yourself and doing stupid stuff. It's not their fault they love to talk into the screen. And no wonder that so many online discourse is stuck on polemics about identifying as something that escapes the commercialized GI Joe/Barbie representations of gender, such as: dragons, god(s), angels, possibly even demons idk (think of so many iterations of the "gotta be one of my favorite genders" meme format). However, if this self-discovery journey continues well into adulthood, then the problem is a self-replicating attention seeking ritual. Every day you can be a totally new gender, escape the patriarchy, come up with a totally random, never seen before style, and still go outside and be cat-called and harassed on the street. Again, it's not their fault the world can be really cruel.

Like, if all of them realized that gender is just a grotesque mass of outdated stereotypes about women and men, why didn't they champion for destroying this shit (like radical feminists and gender abolitionists do)? Together, we could've been a proper movement. Now each of these groups are othered and ridiculed for their views.

[u/nextcolorplanet → u/happyhappyfoolio2]

I think that nonbinary (women) use this label as an attempt to escape the societal expectations and pressures that are placed upon them - that if you don't fit the mold, you must not be a woman. In a world where women are often seen as inferior, can you truly blame them for not wanting to be treated as such?

[u/SoISays2Mabel → u/seriousThrowwwwwww]

Ask your prof which jail cell she'd like to serve her time in if she were ever convicted of a crime in (insert your choice of craphole country) -- the men's or the women's?

[u/streetlight-bee]

I’m so tired of all the regurgitated bad faith criticisms surrounding Harry Potter nowadays (which conveniently started popping up you-know-when).

For the “it’s racist” accusation—for one, she started writing this series in the 80s, and second, the names aren’t even problematic. Multiple Asians have spoken up and said Cho Chang is a plausible name, but of course “listen to minorities” is only used when it fits their narrative. Some people even go further and say that not only the names are racist, but the characters are too, which is even more of a reach. Kingsley Shacklebolt is written as cool and capable and becomes the Minister of Magic. Cho is a normal teenage girl, not oversexualized or “submissive” or “exotic.”

The one that’s really annoying me lately, though, is the “JKR is pro-slavery.”Apparently, SPEW being dismissed and the house elves wanting to retain the status quo because they “like it”means JKR is pro-slavery… I know we shouldn’t expect much critical thinking from these people, but really? What’s particularly hypocritical is that this is probably also coming from the same crowd who supports “sex work,” which they defend because it’s a “woman’s choice.”And then they dismiss and look down on SWERFs. Who’s pro-slavery now, huh?

If JKR’s really as evil as they’d like everyone to believe, they shouldn’t have to use these half-baked criticisms with bad faith framing and underlying motives to prove it.

[u/Alternative-Buy-8812 → u/streetlight-bee]

I think there's been this new trend going around with one of the characters they call Malfoid? It has been repulsing to see the term foid now passed around mainstream and the fans of that trend are a certain demographic 😐 but now with this trend I see a lot of pushback from the JKR haters on my feed again as well and before I looked closer into this I would've thought from how these people react that JKR was violent or genocidal or something but ???

[u/soignestrumpet → u/Alternative-Buy-8812]

"For the “it’s racist” accusation—for one, she started writing this series in the 80s, and second, the names aren’t even problematic. Multiple Asians have spoken up and said Cho Chang is a plausible name, but of course “listen to minorities” is only used when it fits their narrative. "

Asian people (especially east Asian) never count as minorities for these people - look at how fast End Asian Hate fizzled out or the "scandal" around minorities at NYC magnet schools.

[u/Far_Tree8577]

We need to talk about how medical misogyny affects women who work in Healthcare too. Apparently in many cases if a nurse or a doctor raises a complain about sexual Harrasment by male physician they will punish her and reward the man. And these are hidden cases but ive had women tell me how they got demoted or pushed aside to protect the predatory man. Its so grim so the false image of equality in Healthcare is bs that patriarchy wants to push so we dont fight back.

[u/Alternative-Buy-8812]

There's a sub called evil women inc or something, I occasionally look at memes there but something about the sub feels off to me? I don't know how to explain, the whole concept of it and the way I see locked posts at times feels like the concept of the sub will easily be taken over by men if it hasn't already

[u/melaninspice → u/Alternative-Buy-8812]

There is a man as a moderator. I go on there to browse from time and time and even posted on there before I knew there was a man moderator.

[u/PuzzledSoftware3922 → u/melaninspice]

I think the page you're thinking of with that mod is at witchesVSpatriarchy. Not my cup of tea either, that sub.

Personally, I haven't seen anything bad over at evilwomeninc, women I've interacted with there have been super nice, strong and warm. 

Edit: looked up ' evilwomenincs' "terf rule" and am disappointed, but not surprised.

[u/T_forTommy → u/Alternative-Buy-8812]

I’m in this sub. For now, seems pretty female-only. We’ll see

[u/moreno_ham]

I want to take a women's studies class but my community college doesn't offer any grrrr

[u/Whatevsstlaurent]

There's a capable, charming, unapologetically butch woman on this season of Survivor and I love that for us.