Risking repeating myself, Janice is by far the clearest thinker on feminism. Every time I hear from her, my own muddled thoughts are clarified, and I feel that I have a firmer grip on reality.
As much as I hate to admit it, I quite enjoy seeing feminism struggle with the trans issue. After supporting bigoted, misandrist political agendas and suppressing all reasonable academic discourse that might shed light on their sexist ideologies or contravene their objectives, feminists are now learning that behaving in bad faith can have consequences. For decades, feminism felt comfortable that it would forever reign supreme over public discourses of victimhood: feminism alone would have dominion over concerns for social injustice, would have the exclusive right to colonize any other ideology or organization seeking recognition of discrimination or harassment, and would allocate its power to those who showed allegiance to feminism like a master throws scraps to a begging dog. The trans issue more than anything else has exposed the weaknesses of the feminist power structure. Feminists like to imagine mythical "safe spaces" as domains that they are protecting from evil male or transgender aggressors; it's a useful trope for promoting in the public imagination the fantasies of the hapless female victim that feminism finds so indispensable. I have to wonder if the actual "safe space" they have in mind is not a women's restroom or other space whose sanctity can only be measured by the absence of men, but rather the ideological space that they have enjoyed for so long in politics and in the academy where their oppressive doctrines could not be questioned.
Dec 27, 2022·edited Dec 27, 2022Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Thank you for all your hard work Janice, you are enriching honest debates all over the globe with your rigorous efforts of finding the facts as they fall.
I have the feeling that the public views on these matters are changing in society, even though in reaction the feminists try to clamp down even harder to stifle dissent.
At least as an Anti-feminist we can enjoy some of the self-inflicted chaos they created, even though our purpose needs to be different, a fair and just society can not exist with these victim narratives deeply entrenched which is why I oppose gender ideology as rigorous as I oppose feminism.
The goal, it seems to me, seems to be the elimination of maleness, by creating unlimited genders that are everything *but* male.
In any case, you have reached me here in Germany and regardless of where this all ends up you can be proud of what you have achieved by voicing so clear and concise dissent.
Pointing out the hypocrisies and contradictions in feminism has never worked. You can't debate with a dogmatic fanatic. The trans people have nailed their 95th thesis to the door of the feminist's Wittenberg cathedral and the religious war is on. They build a para-military political army and now it is being turned against them. We can only hope the two tyrants tear each other's throats out.
The TERF-Trans conflict is a schism within the same original movement (as this article essentially asserts). Such a schism is inevitable within an ethos based on group identity which demotes the significance of individual merit. Such systems prevail over rivals by being more intolerant than the opposition. The result is that the system itself is unstable to schism because a more intolerant subgroup will rapidly expand within it. This is not mere words but the mathematical result of analysing such a situation using evolutionary game theory (see The Destructivists, ch.14).
Incidentally, that photo of my friend, the diminutive Elizabeth, standing defiant against the braying mob of privileged cry-bullies in Cambridge is my favourite image of the last 10 years.
I am actually on Kellie Jean's side on this issue, but I doubt that side will ever win because it resolutely refuses to acknowledge the cause of the force they are arguing against. Meanwhile, confused and vulnerable teens suffer.
Have long said that the TERF v. TRA dispute is pure popcorn. Anyone with children should do whatever is necessary to protect them (and minimum should be home-schooling, state-schools only faith institutions inculcating the worship of government more assiduously than any RC school ever cultivated faith in Christ); outside of that, sit back and enjoy the show—pray they prove Kissinger wrong and succeed in *both* losing.
In my honest opinion. terms like "nobody is born in the wrong body" and "people need to recognize their biological sex" have very peculiar rings when coming from people whose ideology is responsible for things like The SCUM Manifesto. It gives off the same impression as "know your place" Obviously, I don't believe all of these women are like that...I know that some are just normal people with understandable concerns and altruistic motives, but their voices and rhetoric are very easily drowned out among the sea of bitter disdain. (sorry if this doesn't relate to the article, this was just what came to mind)
Hi, I've a lot to say on the 'Trans' movement so I could fill many replies.
In relation to this piece I'll make the observation that throughout history men have dominated the public and political spheres. Men have no problem understanding that the 'wrong' man might be in power and needs to be removed. Kings deposed, presidents assassinated, dictators overthrown, etc...
Women have wanted and gotten equality in the public sphere. Yet the message was always a utopian delusion that it would only ever be the 'right' women. There would be fewer wars, a fairer society, blah, blah. The idea that there could ever be the 'wrong' women in power is a mental blindspot: that women would have to go to war with their same sex a mental abberation. That aspect of equality was not in the brochure.
And yet here we are: Terfs and 'non-Terfs' such as Kelly-Jay Keen, JK Rowling et al. at war with other women and they are in utter denial of it. It's still all the fault of men. What makes this more bizarre is that pro-trans feminists have no problem attacking Rowling yet her retaliation is always that she's standing up 'for' women.
Transgender (as oppose the good old transvestite or transsexual), is not something I have any time for. It's a feminist screw-up. But I'm starting to get annoyed an people blaming trans people for it. And I'm beginning to dislike men critising other men for claiming to be 'trans-women'. Men are far too willing to throw other men under the bus and blame the male sex. I'm thinking of Youtuber Matt Walsh in particular. It's that kind of chivalry which gave feminists their un-contested platform and caused this mess in the first place. And trans-ideology couldn't have taken root without 40 year campaign of degrading and demeaning men.
I agree that these men are not 'trans-women'. But I was also brought up to believe that a good person plays by the rules. And these men are playing by the rules. The feminist paradigm was to create a mono-sexed species were the default would be woman. I don't like the rules and I won't play by them but I'm not going to berate someone who does. Blame the rule makers. I'll admit I'm conflicted about this as it sounds like a justification for: 'I was only acting under orders'. But people do, for various reasons, act under orders. Until I resolve this conflict my first instinct won't be to blame men, even if they declare they are trans.
PS
I do believe if women ruled the world there would be fewer wars. There would be exactly 1. Simply because it would never end.
I couldn't agree more with Janice's post and so glad I found a tribe as I have felt very lost in the desert for eons.
That radical feminists didn't think there would be blow back is like an arsonist not understanding winds can change and drive the fire to his own house to burn it down. As a Bugs Bunny would say, "what a maroon."
In a great interview with Freddie Sayers, author Lionel Shriver mentions that she doesn't spend her days thinking about the fact she is a woman. And I whole heartedly agree. I do think about when I can't lift something or, dare I say, the need to call a friend to go over if my emotions are those of a crazy woman or if they are justified. (As a total side note, I actually believe the female trait of 'holding a grudge' might stem from an essential trait for survival. If, as some argue, women developed language to communicate the location of edible plants, wouldn't the same drive hold for grudges? If a plant is capable of killing your clan, one better hold a grudge. ) It was bad enough that feminists were teaching young women Pre-Covid that there were all sorts of glass ceilings everywhere. My son didn't believe that when I was in law school (91') the thought that a woman couldn't land a top job at a top law firm was laughable. You just needed the brains and the ranking - both of which alas I didn't not have. Not because I am a woman, because I didn't have the brainpower and organization of these classmates. When the Harvard President said in 2005, there may be innate differences between men and women and their math ability, I wasn't offended. I already knew from studies that men are more on the spectrum on the high level math skills. A friend's daughter is highly gifted and the only girl in her class. It is like athletes at the Olympics. Every athlete at the event is a superb athlete, but there only a few who make it to truly elite status. Genetics and discipline determine this outcome. PSAs will not - unless meritocracy is taken out of the games. Speaking of athletics, I used to do martial arts and enjoyed sparring - especially with men since I was pretty physical. After one round, I gleefully told my sparring mate how I could hold my own with the men. His response cut me to a core, 'we hold back.' Ouch, ouch, ouch. But he was right. I only had to look at the sparring between males of similar age. I wasn't as fast, I wasn't as strong and that my friends was reality.
Only after I became a mom did my uniqueness as a female being really kick in. And it is sad that the trans movement is its undoing. Women taking hormones to grow beards, but still have babies coming out of their vaginas, are still women. That medical professionals give into this mental illness does nothing to forward women's causes. (Chest feeding is particularly bizarre as men have breast and nipples so I don't get the logic.) Author Mary Harrington nails it in her essay on Unherd,
But if, on the other hand, we want everyone to be equal, that means opening the maternal experience beyond mothers: that is, denaturalising those facets of maternal experience that are arbitrary, evolved, embodied and — yes — at least partly instinctive. ....But we can’t simply throw up our hands and say this confusion is yet more evidence of a malign plot by men to psyop women into being docile housewives. We can’t have it all ways: we can’t both demand special provision for pregnancy and childbirth, and suggest that the absence of such provision is evidence of patriarchy. Not if we’re also going to suggest, as Conaboy does, that celebrating mothers’ embodied experience as unique and worthy of special protection is also evidence of women’s oppression, because the aim is to set women apart and constrain our social role.
My own take on this matter is that "trans" and "TERF" are different horns of the same double standard
When feminists coveted the plum jobs they claimed that men and women were identical, even down to the bones ( this was the title of very first chapter in Germaine Greer's hate fest "the Female Eunuch" which claimed this, insisting that women where slighter and smaller due to deliberate starvation by men).
So, being identical there was nothing to stop them from having the top jobs. but only the top jobs, of course. Women still do not clean drains or lay them
BUT
When feminists want men's help they will play the helpless female and invoke the intrinsic differences between the sexes, and it seems to me, they do this with knowing and cynical awareness , unless they really are that stupid or deluded, that they are doing so.
So they say the sexes are interchangeable.
So far so good (for the sake of argument, I mean, for it is an outright falsity)
But when a trans comes along and invokes the intrinsic gender identity of being a woman in a man's body, though violating feminist theory yet they also appeal to the other horn of the double standard for feminists wanting a tire changed or a noise investigated on a dark night will appeal to just this very thing.
Of course trans also appeal to the interchangeability of the sexes.
They just do so in a way the feminists do not like for they the feminists are now muscled out of what they claim for themselves
And like spoiled children they complain and bully.
As usual this is not about principle but mere selfish complaining when they lose an advantage.
You would expect feminists to fully support the trans movement for it merely is the next logical step even though trans ideology is also a repudiation of feminist theory ( it is both because feminism is logically incoherent but that never troubled them for their hatred was all that mattered to them)
But no. spoiled and entitled little girls have no intention of looking at anything rationally.
I always laugh when GC feminists call trans-rights activists, "MRA's."
I do wish that radical feminists would pause for half a second of self reflection.
It's frustrating since, I don't believe gendercritical feminists should be censored. I loudly opposed the deletion of the subreddit, r/gendercritical.
But Fiamengo is absolutely right. They contributed heavily to the ethos of censorship. As much as I side with GC feminists against the denial of biological reality, I feel the hesitation of the frog before agreeing to help the scorpion across the river...
Risking repeating myself, Janice is by far the clearest thinker on feminism. Every time I hear from her, my own muddled thoughts are clarified, and I feel that I have a firmer grip on reality.
As much as I hate to admit it, I quite enjoy seeing feminism struggle with the trans issue. After supporting bigoted, misandrist political agendas and suppressing all reasonable academic discourse that might shed light on their sexist ideologies or contravene their objectives, feminists are now learning that behaving in bad faith can have consequences. For decades, feminism felt comfortable that it would forever reign supreme over public discourses of victimhood: feminism alone would have dominion over concerns for social injustice, would have the exclusive right to colonize any other ideology or organization seeking recognition of discrimination or harassment, and would allocate its power to those who showed allegiance to feminism like a master throws scraps to a begging dog. The trans issue more than anything else has exposed the weaknesses of the feminist power structure. Feminists like to imagine mythical "safe spaces" as domains that they are protecting from evil male or transgender aggressors; it's a useful trope for promoting in the public imagination the fantasies of the hapless female victim that feminism finds so indispensable. I have to wonder if the actual "safe space" they have in mind is not a women's restroom or other space whose sanctity can only be measured by the absence of men, but rather the ideological space that they have enjoyed for so long in politics and in the academy where their oppressive doctrines could not be questioned.
Thank you for all your hard work Janice, you are enriching honest debates all over the globe with your rigorous efforts of finding the facts as they fall.
I have the feeling that the public views on these matters are changing in society, even though in reaction the feminists try to clamp down even harder to stifle dissent.
At least as an Anti-feminist we can enjoy some of the self-inflicted chaos they created, even though our purpose needs to be different, a fair and just society can not exist with these victim narratives deeply entrenched which is why I oppose gender ideology as rigorous as I oppose feminism.
The goal, it seems to me, seems to be the elimination of maleness, by creating unlimited genders that are everything *but* male.
In any case, you have reached me here in Germany and regardless of where this all ends up you can be proud of what you have achieved by voicing so clear and concise dissent.
Again, thank you.
Pointing out the hypocrisies and contradictions in feminism has never worked. You can't debate with a dogmatic fanatic. The trans people have nailed their 95th thesis to the door of the feminist's Wittenberg cathedral and the religious war is on. They build a para-military political army and now it is being turned against them. We can only hope the two tyrants tear each other's throats out.
The TERF-Trans conflict is a schism within the same original movement (as this article essentially asserts). Such a schism is inevitable within an ethos based on group identity which demotes the significance of individual merit. Such systems prevail over rivals by being more intolerant than the opposition. The result is that the system itself is unstable to schism because a more intolerant subgroup will rapidly expand within it. This is not mere words but the mathematical result of analysing such a situation using evolutionary game theory (see The Destructivists, ch.14).
Incidentally, that photo of my friend, the diminutive Elizabeth, standing defiant against the braying mob of privileged cry-bullies in Cambridge is my favourite image of the last 10 years.
I am actually on Kellie Jean's side on this issue, but I doubt that side will ever win because it resolutely refuses to acknowledge the cause of the force they are arguing against. Meanwhile, confused and vulnerable teens suffer.
I have listened to Kellie-Jay Keen a few times on the Triggernometry podcast. I believe she says she is not a feminist any more.
Have long said that the TERF v. TRA dispute is pure popcorn. Anyone with children should do whatever is necessary to protect them (and minimum should be home-schooling, state-schools only faith institutions inculcating the worship of government more assiduously than any RC school ever cultivated faith in Christ); outside of that, sit back and enjoy the show—pray they prove Kissinger wrong and succeed in *both* losing.
In my honest opinion. terms like "nobody is born in the wrong body" and "people need to recognize their biological sex" have very peculiar rings when coming from people whose ideology is responsible for things like The SCUM Manifesto. It gives off the same impression as "know your place" Obviously, I don't believe all of these women are like that...I know that some are just normal people with understandable concerns and altruistic motives, but their voices and rhetoric are very easily drowned out among the sea of bitter disdain. (sorry if this doesn't relate to the article, this was just what came to mind)
Hi, I've a lot to say on the 'Trans' movement so I could fill many replies.
In relation to this piece I'll make the observation that throughout history men have dominated the public and political spheres. Men have no problem understanding that the 'wrong' man might be in power and needs to be removed. Kings deposed, presidents assassinated, dictators overthrown, etc...
Women have wanted and gotten equality in the public sphere. Yet the message was always a utopian delusion that it would only ever be the 'right' women. There would be fewer wars, a fairer society, blah, blah. The idea that there could ever be the 'wrong' women in power is a mental blindspot: that women would have to go to war with their same sex a mental abberation. That aspect of equality was not in the brochure.
And yet here we are: Terfs and 'non-Terfs' such as Kelly-Jay Keen, JK Rowling et al. at war with other women and they are in utter denial of it. It's still all the fault of men. What makes this more bizarre is that pro-trans feminists have no problem attacking Rowling yet her retaliation is always that she's standing up 'for' women.
Transgender (as oppose the good old transvestite or transsexual), is not something I have any time for. It's a feminist screw-up. But I'm starting to get annoyed an people blaming trans people for it. And I'm beginning to dislike men critising other men for claiming to be 'trans-women'. Men are far too willing to throw other men under the bus and blame the male sex. I'm thinking of Youtuber Matt Walsh in particular. It's that kind of chivalry which gave feminists their un-contested platform and caused this mess in the first place. And trans-ideology couldn't have taken root without 40 year campaign of degrading and demeaning men.
I agree that these men are not 'trans-women'. But I was also brought up to believe that a good person plays by the rules. And these men are playing by the rules. The feminist paradigm was to create a mono-sexed species were the default would be woman. I don't like the rules and I won't play by them but I'm not going to berate someone who does. Blame the rule makers. I'll admit I'm conflicted about this as it sounds like a justification for: 'I was only acting under orders'. But people do, for various reasons, act under orders. Until I resolve this conflict my first instinct won't be to blame men, even if they declare they are trans.
PS
I do believe if women ruled the world there would be fewer wars. There would be exactly 1. Simply because it would never end.
So true Janice.
If the adage of "what goes around, comes around" is true, they are in for a helluva time.
Popcorn.
I have to admit it's somewhat enjoyable to see feminists on the receiving end of what men have been receiving since the 70s.
I couldn't agree more with Janice's post and so glad I found a tribe as I have felt very lost in the desert for eons.
That radical feminists didn't think there would be blow back is like an arsonist not understanding winds can change and drive the fire to his own house to burn it down. As a Bugs Bunny would say, "what a maroon."
In a great interview with Freddie Sayers, author Lionel Shriver mentions that she doesn't spend her days thinking about the fact she is a woman. And I whole heartedly agree. I do think about when I can't lift something or, dare I say, the need to call a friend to go over if my emotions are those of a crazy woman or if they are justified. (As a total side note, I actually believe the female trait of 'holding a grudge' might stem from an essential trait for survival. If, as some argue, women developed language to communicate the location of edible plants, wouldn't the same drive hold for grudges? If a plant is capable of killing your clan, one better hold a grudge. ) It was bad enough that feminists were teaching young women Pre-Covid that there were all sorts of glass ceilings everywhere. My son didn't believe that when I was in law school (91') the thought that a woman couldn't land a top job at a top law firm was laughable. You just needed the brains and the ranking - both of which alas I didn't not have. Not because I am a woman, because I didn't have the brainpower and organization of these classmates. When the Harvard President said in 2005, there may be innate differences between men and women and their math ability, I wasn't offended. I already knew from studies that men are more on the spectrum on the high level math skills. A friend's daughter is highly gifted and the only girl in her class. It is like athletes at the Olympics. Every athlete at the event is a superb athlete, but there only a few who make it to truly elite status. Genetics and discipline determine this outcome. PSAs will not - unless meritocracy is taken out of the games. Speaking of athletics, I used to do martial arts and enjoyed sparring - especially with men since I was pretty physical. After one round, I gleefully told my sparring mate how I could hold my own with the men. His response cut me to a core, 'we hold back.' Ouch, ouch, ouch. But he was right. I only had to look at the sparring between males of similar age. I wasn't as fast, I wasn't as strong and that my friends was reality.
Only after I became a mom did my uniqueness as a female being really kick in. And it is sad that the trans movement is its undoing. Women taking hormones to grow beards, but still have babies coming out of their vaginas, are still women. That medical professionals give into this mental illness does nothing to forward women's causes. (Chest feeding is particularly bizarre as men have breast and nipples so I don't get the logic.) Author Mary Harrington nails it in her essay on Unherd,
But if, on the other hand, we want everyone to be equal, that means opening the maternal experience beyond mothers: that is, denaturalising those facets of maternal experience that are arbitrary, evolved, embodied and — yes — at least partly instinctive. ....But we can’t simply throw up our hands and say this confusion is yet more evidence of a malign plot by men to psyop women into being docile housewives. We can’t have it all ways: we can’t both demand special provision for pregnancy and childbirth, and suggest that the absence of such provision is evidence of patriarchy. Not if we’re also going to suggest, as Conaboy does, that celebrating mothers’ embodied experience as unique and worthy of special protection is also evidence of women’s oppression, because the aim is to set women apart and constrain our social role.
https://unherd.com/2022/09/the-left-has-mummy-issues/
Well said.
My own take on this matter is that "trans" and "TERF" are different horns of the same double standard
When feminists coveted the plum jobs they claimed that men and women were identical, even down to the bones ( this was the title of very first chapter in Germaine Greer's hate fest "the Female Eunuch" which claimed this, insisting that women where slighter and smaller due to deliberate starvation by men).
So, being identical there was nothing to stop them from having the top jobs. but only the top jobs, of course. Women still do not clean drains or lay them
BUT
When feminists want men's help they will play the helpless female and invoke the intrinsic differences between the sexes, and it seems to me, they do this with knowing and cynical awareness , unless they really are that stupid or deluded, that they are doing so.
So they say the sexes are interchangeable.
So far so good (for the sake of argument, I mean, for it is an outright falsity)
But when a trans comes along and invokes the intrinsic gender identity of being a woman in a man's body, though violating feminist theory yet they also appeal to the other horn of the double standard for feminists wanting a tire changed or a noise investigated on a dark night will appeal to just this very thing.
Of course trans also appeal to the interchangeability of the sexes.
They just do so in a way the feminists do not like for they the feminists are now muscled out of what they claim for themselves
And like spoiled children they complain and bully.
As usual this is not about principle but mere selfish complaining when they lose an advantage.
You would expect feminists to fully support the trans movement for it merely is the next logical step even though trans ideology is also a repudiation of feminist theory ( it is both because feminism is logically incoherent but that never troubled them for their hatred was all that mattered to them)
But no. spoiled and entitled little girls have no intention of looking at anything rationally.
I always laugh when GC feminists call trans-rights activists, "MRA's."
I do wish that radical feminists would pause for half a second of self reflection.
It's frustrating since, I don't believe gendercritical feminists should be censored. I loudly opposed the deletion of the subreddit, r/gendercritical.
But Fiamengo is absolutely right. They contributed heavily to the ethos of censorship. As much as I side with GC feminists against the denial of biological reality, I feel the hesitation of the frog before agreeing to help the scorpion across the river...
Feminism got reduced to Radical Feminism. There is such a thing as Moderate Liberal Feminism .
Both Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young are not given the light of day ,by Radical Feminists .