monkey, how can I help tear down the patriarchy?


note: I've already committed to monogamy, so I'm not contributing to genderrymandering

MB, I did you a favor and did a quick search of some of my posts. Wanted to show you what came up when Native Americans were discussed. I have occasionally truncated posts and only included the relevant points.

I will reflect on this.

I think me and Well named were talking about the idea in your post. There's a gap between performative gender and biological sex. Most of what you've posted seems to be lying in the gap between those.

We all know what the answers are but they're like the mysteries of our age. You are a bigot if you say women are the people who have babies, no matter that you are not being prescriptive.

How to tear down the patriarchy? Don't make it worse if you can help it. If you have a son, try to help him not make it worse. I don't know. Maybe we should let women take the lead, hey?

Thanks Birdman. It's fun to see you claim I'm a holocaust denier. Nice touch. I missed it the first time round. Eyes probably glazed over.

No problem.

I did read an interesting article a while back about the philosophical quandary of how to handle transgenderism for a child. What age is it appropriate to acknowledge? When is hormone therapy ok? Often, adolescence can cement a gender identity that did not previously exist, but should not a child have the right to grow up the way they want? Not to mention by waiting until someone is 18 it can often lead to a much worse experience transitioning both physically and emotionally. It is a tough question, but I am not sure how it is relevant to the discussion. The fact that tough questions exist is not a reason to arrive at the beliefs you have, MB.

I've read a few feminist works that discuss the idea of woman as "other" (not man), and I agree that it's an interesting and fruitful lens through which to approach certain problems that feminists are interested in, especially having to do with identity and what it means to say that culture is "patriarchal" beyond describing differences in socio-political power. It's basically a way of encapsulating the point that so much of the content of socially enforced gender boundaries (both for men and women) has been dictated by men, who in so doing encoded their own masculine self-consciousness, often excluding the self-consciousness of women in large part.

It's also the case that feminists, in grappling with problems of identity and "womanhood", and also under the influence of various post-modernist ideas and spurred on by complaints from black, latina, and other non-white women, have written extensively about the intellectual problem of defining "woman" in such a way that there can be a feminism which can claim to speak for women as a group. Obviously "shared biology" isn't much of a basis for group solidarity on a lot of issues. "Shared experience" only goes so far, as black feminists are apt to point out. I've read at least one book and a few articles, mostly from the 90s, that discuss this. So the first thing I'd say is that it's worth noticing that this problem goes beyond questions about trans identities.

I don't know that there's a simple and obvious intellectual answer to the dilemma, but I think practically speaking it can be useful to distinguish feminism as a social movement or an attempt to accomplish change politically from some kind of anthropology or sociology of gender. I think it has made sense for feminists to frame some of their attempts at consciousness-raising around existing and shared cultural values. It's a question of finding a message that resonates with your target audience, and individualism, self-determination, and universal human rights are values that westerners mostly already understand and appreciate. The intellectual project of building a coherent framework of concepts around sex and gender is not necessarily as politically important.

However, anthropologically, I would also read the attempt by feminists to free women "from the constraints of an imposed performative gender" more as an attempt to change the constraints, rather than eliminate them entirely, or to render identification as "woman" moot. It's not clear to me that the idea of a society in which there are no gender categories, or no socially enforced constraints based in gender, is even coherent or possible, for either men or women. But I think they can be made more egalitarian, less patriarchal, etc. But the fact that human behavior is regulated through all sorts of social norms is a pretty fundamental aspect of human life, I think. And given the clear (if complex) relationship between biology, gender categories and sexual orientation categories, I doubt that "gender" as a vehicle for social norms can be eliminated. I don't think most cis-women perceive a real conflict between being in favor of challenging traditional norms and maintaining a sense of gender identity, and of course some part of that basic identification is tied to biology. The argument is not against being identified as women.

I also think that trans activists are involved in a similar project of political and cultural change as feminists. Politically, they can make similar appeals to universal human rights, individual self-determination, and non-discrimination. Which is mostly not problematic. The difference, in regard to identity, is that trans activists in western cultures with two gender categories face a more fundamental challenge in regard to gender identity. It's not just a question of challenging norms, but of creating a gender identity that is socially recognized and treated as valuable where none now exists. Feminists didn't have to first convince their audience that they were women. They only had to convince them that traditional ideas about what "being a woman" meant were unjust. Trans people don't have that luxury, and this is where the issues you've identified arise.

I don't think that I can provide an adequate resolution to those issues. Nor is it up to me of course, and I am well aware that I should check my own cis-het-white-dude-privilege. That said, my musings about hijras or "two-spirit" gender categories reflect an idea that I have: that ultimately the search, most fundamentally, is for a socially legitimate and valuable identity. That may often be expressed as a desire to be seen "as a woman", or "as a man", but I think it seems reasonable to understand that specific expression as reflecting the underlying cultural realities. The implicit premise is that the only way to have a legitimate identity is to be either the one (woman) or the other (man). But what if that were not so? If my generalization is reasonable, than it seems to me in the long term that the more socially stable way to arrive at a culture which accepts trans people fully is not to try to completely eliminate the connection between biology and gender so as to render moot all possible distinctions between cis and trans women, or cis and trans men. Instead, expanding our notions of gender to allow for the distinctions on a fully equal basis makes more sense to me.

But, as I said, this doesn't happen by fiat, so it's not surprising to me that these tensions exist and will continue to exist. As long as trans people perceive that society demands that they be either men or women, it's hard to blame them for wanting to be identified with the group they identify with. In many situations that's completely unproblematic. In the situations where it does cause tensions, I think the best advice may be simply to ask people to try to listen to each other and find workable compromises.

Let's not imply my name with respect to eitherside of your discussion. I have remained silent on this issue intentionally.

all instances of real sexism or racism i have seen or witnessed in Canada has very minor impact on the lives of individuals - excepting the extremes which are statistical outliers.

so even if you're using the right data and logic, beyond the basic freedoms, feminism seems like an inane intellectual pursuit here.

it's perhaps better to drop words like sexism and racism, and pursue a more accepting culture in general. it's less rhetoric so hopefully less bias. and most people can agree with the premise. i don't think this using extreme words for mundane claims really works. plus the rhetoric is creating blindspots on both sides. it's not healthy.

plus maybe everyone needs to have their 'problem' with society that they need to fix.

gotta say i enjoyed birds last several posts.

This is a really unfair post - in my view. With the possible exception of Birdman's soft defense of Nth Korea, I do not think it is a fair representation of his positions.
Now that does not mean that he has been fair in describing you as transphobic either but I think this post is not you at your finest MB.

Finally, that description of South African development is either incredibly naïve historical analysis or disingenuous rhetoric designed to score points. It isolates the settlers as being completely decontextualized - then it parses hundreds of years of imperial colonization and its connection to apartheid as a system with a grand leap and a twist of geneaology.

As insightful as Lenin may have been, I think we can do better than just relying on his very particular definition of imperialism.
I mean you are not going to maintain that Roman or Carthage were not imperial projects?

I just think you are being incredibly dogmatic when you start just trotting Leninist definitions when you know full well that most everyone else does not draw the particular distinctions Lenin or you do on such concepts.

Well only on the surface. It misses the point of how and why particular commonalities arise and are culturally given emphasis. Underlying the process is a mystification that occludes the real purpose of generating the commonalities in the first place. Which is to hide the antagonisms that the structural hierarchies within that common space generates.

Even a cursory glance of the internet will give you some alternative historical narratives of the relationship between trade, empire and the Dutch settler communities.

An example:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/...n-south-africa

When in control of the Cape, the VOC sent slavers to Mozambique and Madagascar. The main purpose of these expeditions was to trade slaves. In those days, travelling by ship was very uncomfortable and unhygienic for ordinary people, but especially for slaves who had to be kept confined.
Between 1720 and 1790, slave numbers increased from 2 500 to 14 500. At the time of the final ending of slavery in 1838, the slave population stood at around 38 000. However, unlike the European population, which doubled in number with each generation through natural increase, the harsh living conditions of the Cape's slave population meant that their numbers could only be sustained through continued importation. Between 1652 and the ending of the slave trade in 1807, about 60 000 slaves were imported into the Colony.
Thus the Cape became not just a society in which some people were slaves, but a fully-fledged slave society. In slave societies, the institution of slavery touched all aspects of life, as slavery was central to the social, economic and legal institutions. As the boundaries of the Cape Colony expanded beyond the immediate vicinity of Table Bay, slaves were put to work on the wine and wheat farms of the south-western Cape. Quite simply, the colonial economy could not function without the use of slave labour, and therefore slave-ownership was widespread. Although most of the European settlers of the south-western Cape owned fewer than ten slaves, almost all of them owned at least some slaves.

Trump: I am unhinged! I do the craziest ****!

Kim Jong-Un: Hold my kimchee.

The ICBM is the ultimate gender performative mobile death penis.

-Judith Butler

Magical rice krispy treat & cookie creme kush for breakfast, God help America, wake and ride the snake. The LORD is my Stepford, shall not want. No quiero nada. Nada de nada.



Do it look like I'm left off Bad & Boojee?

So everyone should just shut up because you're a white man and don't feel like sexism or racism exists? Got you bro.

We don't get a lot of moose attacks in the ghetto either bro, and for the same reason.

Homogenous groups for everybody.

Win win win

An Assessment of Gender Fluidity in Canadian Bars Plotted as a Function of Latitude & Jäger Shots.

Birdman's view of the world is ridiculously polar. I'm sure yours is more nuanced.

I'm just demonstrating that South Africa doesn't fit an easy narrative. Apparently, you think it does.

I don't think the settlers are "completely decontextualised" but the notion of them as people placed in a black Africa by an imperial power is not very close to what actually happened.

This meme of "imperialists" settling unwilling host lands is not a million miles from the "creeping sharia" horror story of the right. People are people. They do things for whatever reason. They are not just pawns pushed around by whomever we don't like at any particular time.

There is not really any difference between Huguenots after the Edict of Nantes was revoked and Syrians fleeing persecution in their country. Except that the Huguenots were white in the binary scheme beloved of ideologues.

It seems that you have some weird schema where any and all migration by whites is "imperialist" while any and all migration by people of colour is justified. And Birdman thinks he can shade me by saying I think "imperialist" is synonymous with "bad". LOL. It's also the case that we simply are describing any structure that we don't like as "imperialist", regardless how and why it came into being. South Africa is a fine case in point. Were imperialists involved in SA? Yes. Is it reasonable to see the white state there as an imperialist imposition? To some extent. But "to some extent" is not the black and white picture drawn by you guys.

Anyway, it's just fun to watch Birdman bleating about "imperialism' when in fact the blacks in South Africa are the descendants of an actual empire, no more natives of the area they now live in than the whites are. And fun to realise that underlying your argument is a sort of essentialism that ascribes an idea of "homeland" to peoples that is entirely at odds with human history and a very poor fit for your view that Bismarck invented the nation. And is the same notion that underlies Zionism.