You're not making it clear what you're actually objecting to tbh. The existence of the concept of masculinity? The social expectation and pressure to conform to that if you're male? Something else?
Transphobes gunning hard for 'paedophilia' angle all of a sudden
- Thread starter Cloo
- Start date
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Except that not all masculine people are comfortable either, but their discomfort has nothing to do with their masculinity per se, but in how they're treated by others for expressing it. Cis men who present as masculine get policed by others as well. As I said earlier, the problem is with the policing, not the gender expression.
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
Of course masc and fem, or men and women, are concepts.
Concepts that have been used to oppress any one who isn't a manly man.
I call for all women, all trans, all cissy boys, all dykey girls, anyone who rejects masculine/feminine fairytales to see our common oppression and stand together.
The right wing, fascist, Christian extremists, and conspiraloons, are trying to use this invented notion of trans groomer bogeymen as a wedge to divide public opinion.
People who side with them should have a look about them and mind the company they keep and become aware of how they are being manipulated.
The idea of paedophilia has become a massive club to beat us all with - while doing nothing to protect children, nothing to catch real paedophiles who are overwhelmingly cishet men, and no doubt often right wing, Christian and fascist. Its to their advantage to throw blame elsewhere and then watch us squabble amongst ourselves.
Cloo
Banana for scale
Oh yeah, but just it seemed to really intensify just in the last week or so and I wondered if something in particular had happened to bring it on, but no, I think it's just general arseholeness.
smokedout - thanks for all the background, I think I vaguely remember the 4chan thing now.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Which is part of why I try to go out of my way not to invalidate the gender expressions of others, whether they are on the binary or not. My record on this is not spotless, it's taken me some time to get up to speed on non-binary people, just like how it took me time to understand trans people as best I can. I've previously made some thoughtless and insensitive statements on such things which I now regret. Without meaning to play down or minimise the pain that women and trans people go through, I've come to realise that patriarchy hurts cis men too.
The accusations of paedophilia against entire groups of marginalised people is nothing short of the sexual equivalent of blood libel.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
The second, I think.
The labelling of character/behavioural traits as either masculine or feminine is not something I can get on board with
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
I don't see why a particular trait can't both masculine and feminine (although it may be expressed differently in each), nor do I think a trait being of one and not the other means that the ones tending to lack said trait are lesser for it. I think masculinity and femininity are necessarily fuzzy concepts that don't have to be exclusionary. Is it really that hard not to think of these things in black and white?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
you're missing the point. Almost no traits need to be either. Gendering them does no good whatsoever and is totally unnecessary.
Well clearly for many people it is.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I really think (cis) people are talking right past each other here but not realising they’re pretty close to agreeing.
If being a woman or man is not defined by biology, or by possession of some feminine/masculine traits (broadly understood, with lots of room for fuzzy definitions), then what is it defined by?
Not meant as a gotcha - genuine question. How do people understand these concepts?
Not meant as a gotcha - genuine question. How do people understand these concepts?
Context innit. I mean, biologically I might be female and that's relevant when I'm booking a smear test or something, but no one cares about my uterus when they point me out as "that man over there" or when they're walking home late at night along an otherwise empty street and worrying that I might be a potential rapist.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Well, I disagree. Femininity and masculinity are as much a part of how people define themselves as being non-binary is. That's a need that's good enough in my book.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
I think the last few posts are arguing at cross purposes.
Things shouldn't be exclusivly gendered as any person can adopt them.
People can gender anything as meaning that to them personally.
Mostly these say the same thing.
Twitter watering down their transphobia moderation policies and the promotion of the bluechecks has definitely caused a recent escalation with a lot of people emboldened to push the bounderies to see what they can get away with saying. That may be influencing behaviour on other platforms as well.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Santino IMO you've mixed up male/female and man/women - and mixing in masculine and feminine is a much bigger red herring as they're completely culturally assigned traits not specific to male or female or man or woman.
Broadly for me male/female is biological (with a very small intersex area) and man/women is culturally specific.
(E2A: Also happy to be corrected/have that refined as a view.)
I think you're correct that many people understand a distinction between both 'woman-ness' and feminity, and 'man-ness' and masculinity, but it does leave the question unanswered of what defines a woman as a woman and so on.
Are you saying that there is a set of culturally-understood traits that might define a woman as a woman or a man as a man, but you're not calling them feminine-masculine?
Cloo
Banana for scale
That may be it. More have moved from vaguely insinuating perhaps some people have bad intentions to outright accusing entire communities/movements of being paedophiles or enablers of them.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
I can agree with most of that. I guess I'm just bothered by what feels like invalidation from two sides; on the one hand there are the reactionary chuds who think I'm "not a real man" for having left-wing economic opinions and social libertarian views, and on the other (smaller) hand, right-on types apparently saying my that own gender identity is somehow fake or bad or whatever.
I'm not saying that my relatively minor discomfort is anything like what trans people, NBs and people with any other non-conventional identities experience, to be absolutely clear. Just saying that I have feelings about this. With that noted, I'm going to shut up now.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
It's probably trite and of little importance, outside of urban, but at least there's progress here. People are willing to learn and there's much less doubling down, outright hostility and that old phrase "man up" seems to have thankfully died out.
If only urban was the world we live in.
If only urban was the world we live in.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Indeed, as another example, try stepping out of the ‘poor little bwave disabled’ pigeon hole and campaigning for disability rights. Or even challenging people. Including, sadly, on here.
Cloo
Banana for scale
I remember many years ago encountering in the aethestics bit of my philosophy and literature degree the concepts of 'The eternal feminine' and 'The eternal masculine' and that was when I first thought, without having heard at that point any idea of multiple genders, that the idea of merely two genders didn't work.
I think it is a very good point made earlier by danny la rouge (and it's not just in this thread) cis people are often talking at cross purposes about the idea of gender, and I think it's because most people of enquiring mind are sceptical about the concept of gender and what it can mean, and, as said, we're often broadly in agreement it's just we're not sure what aspect of it we're in agreement about as it can seem so nebulous! And people easily get short with one another because it's hard to find common language, given people's differing experiences.
Often it feels to me like the main thing to understand is that we are in a state of flux around gender identity; a lot of people are working a lot of shit out right now about themselves, about society and about gender. Those in this camp I don't think are setting anything in stone, nor do I think they want to, but it seems to be freaking out enough people sufficiently that they are resorting to the hideous bullshit we see going on right now.
I think it is a very good point made earlier by danny la rouge (and it's not just in this thread) cis people are often talking at cross purposes about the idea of gender, and I think it's because most people of enquiring mind are sceptical about the concept of gender and what it can mean, and, as said, we're often broadly in agreement it's just we're not sure what aspect of it we're in agreement about as it can seem so nebulous! And people easily get short with one another because it's hard to find common language, given people's differing experiences.
Often it feels to me like the main thing to understand is that we are in a state of flux around gender identity; a lot of people are working a lot of shit out right now about themselves, about society and about gender. Those in this camp I don't think are setting anything in stone, nor do I think they want to, but it seems to be freaking out enough people sufficiently that they are resorting to the hideous bullshit we see going on right now.
wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
there is a UN person officialy visiting the UK (between april 24th and may 5th) which the SSA were planing to meet which might explain the increase in propagande push ove the past week
e2a: and I have seen that WHO report being mentionned as "teaching apedophiia" by the loonosphere for quite a while now starting sometime during the pandemic
Cid
Proper break this time
I think the problem is that simplifying this on conventionally understood terms necessarily does a disservice to what may actually be going on. This isn't really a biology/culture binary - it's the messiness where those meet. In essence we're looking at the matrix of interactions that is an incredibly complex physical system meeting arguably the most complex thing we've ever stumbled across (mind). We can come up with broad frameworks that are useful for specific purposes, but making decisive comments about what it means to be male or female beyond that? Nah. We are endocrine systems, we are the full range of neurodiversity and not. E.g I am a ND man, and I'm pretty sure my experience of both sex and gender is somewhat different from my non-ND friends, just not significantly enough that it's ever been a huge issue. And you wouldn't know it to look at me (tbf being a masc presenting cis man is pretty low effort). We should have a bit of humility about these things, particularly as cis people. And I think that's where a lot of the science is too these days tbh. It's people, we're complicated, keep trying to learn.
A lot of this seems to be people insisting on straight lines and strict demarcations between categories, whether that's man/woman, biological/social or lesbian/gay/diagnosed transsexual. But those straight lines don't exist either socially or biologically and attempts to enforce them only causes people pain. Surely a better starting point as a framework to categorise people is what allows people to thrive and feel at ease with themselves in the confines of society as it is today?
Jennaonthebeach
What would Picard do?
I've experienced that too. Was quite vocal about my various neuro-divergences in my old job. Was part of a staff group who attempted to work with management to make improvements both for staff and customers so I've probably heard it all by now.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
is anyone actually saying that, though?
i've not encountered any significant strength of opinion on the left / 'woke' scale arguing that there's anything intrinsically wrong with being straight / white / male / cis - and if there are people arguing that, i think they are at best somewhat misguided, and if you're comfortable with the person you are, that's fine by me.
What would be wrong is thinking that being some or all of the above makes you better than people who aren't (and i don't think that's what you're arguing.)
the concept of 'toxic masculinity' (a particular form of male behaviour / attitudes) does not mean that the person using the term thinks that masculinity is automatically toxic, any more than the concept of (for example) 'a toxic working environment' means that all working environments are toxic.
The idea that 'woke lefties are saying it's wrong to be cis / het / white / male' seems to be pushed more by the people who think they are better than those who aren't, and object to the idea that other people should have the right to challenge sexism / racism etc, or see the idea of minorities getting closer to equality as a threat to their position.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
It's more the idea that if gender identity is socially constructed, it's therefore not real, when it feels pretty real to me, and I imagine to many others also. I get that in most cases the intention is benign, and reactionaries do engage in malicious misrepresentation as a matter of course, but I also think that liberals and/or the left all too often do a poor job of framing this kind of issue. Not to call him out, but I think Orang-Utan's obtuse responses to my attempt at explicating a more positive and inclusive vision of masculinity is emblematic of the kind of thing I'm trying to get at.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
it's hard to tell how much of it is 'natural' and how much is generations of conditioning in whatever culture any individual has been brought up in?
is it natural that (for example) men / women do / don't do particular jobs, wear particular sorts and colours of clothes and so on? (which does vary between different parts of the world.)
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