Misogyny and other gender issues. - The Bear and Badger

Funkstain

Appeals to expertise are completely irrelevant to my main point. Which is that bollocksing on about SCIENCE in all caps is missing the point.

Understand that people have forever felt this way and need to be accommodated if you believe in freedom of expression and ways of life. Deal with that first then deal with the consequences. Who gives a fuck about Dawkins

Knight

Funkstain wrote:

Appeals to expertise are completely irrelevant to my main point. Which is that bollocksing on about SCIENCE in all caps is missing the point.

Understand that people have forever felt this way and need to be accommodated if you believe in freedom of expression and ways of life. Deal with that first then deal with the consequences. Who gives a fuck about Dawkins

It’s not all about you Funk. Mentioning Dawkins was relevant to my conversation with Drew.

And yes one explicit mention of him and one ‘favourite scientist’ mention. Which may not have had him in mind at all, but I’ll leave that to you.

Knight

Funkstain wrote:

FWIW my highly personal answers to the above are:

- who cares it's sports entertainment. maybe come up with a new classification if you have to? measure testosterone levels or something and classify athletes like that. be more nuanced: this surely affects some sports more than others (team vs individuals etc)

- this doesn't seem like the massive problem it's made out to be. how many predatory men, genuinely will go through with whatever steps they need to to transition (after all a legal declaration is more than a signed document: it has huge impacts on all areas of bureaucratic and personal life!)? what about the incredibly large amount of predatory men who, you know, don't transition in order to cause harm to women? is this really the biggest problem, or even a big problem, or even actually a problem for women? what are you imagining - thousands of men transitioning and then what, being allowed into refuges somehow?

- let anyone fancy anyone they like. no-one is under obligation to fancy someone who used to have a penis. don't be mean about it, but also do you

Yeah who cares it’s sports entertainment. It’s not scholarships and contracts and livelihoods and life long dreams. It’s sports entertainment. Plus it’s female sports entertainment so it’s not even very entertaining.

And yes, male abusers transitioning and gaining access to women in single sex spaces is literally happening. It may not be the thousands but here’s the question - how many sexual assaults and rapes of the most vulnerable women are you willing to accept? Because that’s what self ID does, it forces you to accept some. And self ID is your definition of a woman.

Let anyone say they are who / what they say they are. Now deal with the consequences

The consequences of the above are some men gaining access to single sex spaces they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. So how many rapes and sexual assaults are you willing to accept?

DrewMerson

Knight

DrewMerson wrote:

How many sexual assaults and rapes of trans women forced to use male spaces are you going to accept?

Very vulnerable trans people, however they’ve transitioned (male - female or female - male), should undoubtedly be protected. Nothing I’ve said suggests otherwise. But don’t deflect. I’m not the one claiming we should allow self ID to define our understanding of woman. This is the actual, it’s really happening, consequences of your position. What are you going to do about it.

I’m glad Funk has moved this to real life consequences because as the polls consistently show, as soon as people think about real life consequences they usually end up pretty gender critical feminist on all this.

Brooks

Uhhh do they? Which ones?

Funkstain

Yep this is the good stuff. I’m very happy for you to disagree with me about sports. So what would you do? Hopefully you’ve moved on from “they aren’t woman look there’s a biologist who agrees” so they are women. What does this mean for sports, what can you think of?

And yes male abusers transitioning and gaining access is … happening? I love the casual mention of “not thousands” as if you can even cite dozens of examples but sure. Also non transitioned males get access to vulnerable women in their millions every day so let’s maybe allocate some more thinking and priority to a more real and more serious issue, no? Or ok let’s not cos you’ll no doubt accuse me of whataboutism or “why introduce more problems for women” so again I ask you: what would you do? You’re no longer denying transsexuals their right to identify as men or women as they please ( I think? ) so what do you do about this consequence?

Should I say “stop all welfare” because some people abuse it? Can I say “stop all transitioning it may lead to a 0.006% uptick in violence against women”?

Or perhaps more realistically we can talk about what hoops someone has to jump through to transition. Perhaps we need to talk about things like “how does an abuser, who obviously has “transitioned” to get access to their victim in a (say) refuge, actually get that access?? Do they let anyone in?”

I dunno. But anything other than transphobia and sciencw

Funkstain

Haha polls now Jesus Christ

The fuckers in this country voted for brexit because they are retarded racists and somehow I need to listen to their opinions on something as alien to them as letting people live their lives??

Brooks

This is the actual, it’s really happening, consequences of your position.

This is going to need a loooot of evidence that floats above and beyond the typical abuse of humans e.g. sticking them in fucking jail for a lot things, and then you're going to need to perform some interesting utilitarian aikido to demonstrate it's a worse outcome than the alternatives.

Brooks

See to me, if the sticky areas are literally just Teh Bathrooms and Teh Sportz and Ye Gaols I would suggest that's a pretty handy jumpoff for heavily reforming all three, cor.

Knight

Funkstain wrote:

Haha polls now Jesus Christ

The fuckers in this country voted for brexit because they are retarded racists and somehow I need to listen to their opinions on something as alien to them as letting people live their lives??

Well if you’re putting brexit down to retarded racism that certainly explains a lot about your willingness to understand the other side.

You’ve probably no interest in this but I’m planning on buying and reading Matt goodwin’s new book which is related to this sort of thing. If you fancy buying reading it and then telling me what you think I’ll happily read something you give me to read.

Knight

Brooks wrote:

This is the actual, it’s really happening, consequences of your position.

This is going to need a loooot of evidence that floats above and beyond the typical abuse of humans e.g. sticking them in fucking jail for a lot things, and then you're going to need to perform some interesting utilitarian aikido to demonstrate it's a worse outcome than the alternatives.

It’s really not aikido to conclude that I won’t be housing a penis endowed sexual abuser with female prisoners. But that has actually happened. And then you have to ask some serious questions about the route that allowed people to think that was a legitimate decision.

And yes I’m sure reform would be good but people with female bodies who didn’t go through male puberty probably quite like the idea of competing against other female bodies and I’m not sure there’s much wrong with that.

Brooks

I do have a very serious question: Why are so many people being jailed at all? I don't accept the premise that We Must Solve This on the terms of a fucking dismal thing to do to people in the first place.

And to repeat, gimme the statistical dirt so I know that even on those terms, I will learn this is the most pressing of all the various ills of the prison industry. At this juncture I simply can't believe you.

Knight

Brooks wrote:

I do have a very serious question: Why are so many people being jailed at all? I don't accept the premise that We Must Solve This on the terms of a fucking dismal thing to do to people in the first place.

Oh I can think of one or two reasons to lock rapists up. And given you’re not going to change that in the next couple of months perhaps we should deal with the actual issue at hand.

You’d probably be very interesting on how economic reasons are much more significant for a disruption of ‘traditional gender’ by the way so if you’ve any thoughts on that it really did pique my interest.

Brooks

. And given you’re not going to change that in the next couple of months perhaps we should deal with the actual issue at hand.

And so I just abandon my position because it's inconvenient for your framing? The fuck I will. The issue at hand is what I say it is.

You're not changing shit in the next couple months either so...

Funkstain

I guess it’s inconvenient that people want to transition gender and be recognised for what they are oh well what are you gonna do

Knight

Brooks wrote:

. And given you’re not going to change that in the next couple of months perhaps we should deal with the actual issue at hand.

And so I just abandon my position because it's inconvenient for your framing? The fuck I will. The issue at hand is what I say it is.

You're not changing shit in the next couple months either so...

… you know what. Most female prisoners are almost certainly much much victims than culprits so you might well be right. I’ll keep on locking up male rapists though if you don’t mind.

DrewMerson

JonB

Knight wrote:

And to the person who asked me if my feminists concerns go beyond trans issues, feel free to read the book because that’s the last book by a feminist and about feminism I read.

My question was what other areas of feminist struggle do you take such an interest (the same level of interest) in.

Since the subject had moved to prisons now, for instance, what other aspects of women's safety in prisons bothers you as greatly as the trans issue? I'm surprised that you aren't more on board with Brooks' point, say, about prioritising prison reform in general.

Funkstain

It's aaalllllmost like he wants to frame the conversation / discussion in a way which favours a particular argument (trans women aren't simply women by declaration, because here are some problems with that) rather than a wider discussion which looks at progressivism and positive change and removes many of those problems, because suddenly the argument isn't there to be won (I'm a feminist me)

like with the FFP stuff in the sports thread but in reverse: "no no what I MEANT was, it's not about Liverpool being abused by an upstart team taking advantage of laws and rules meant to protect vulnerable teams, it's about football should be completely re-invented and then stupid corrupt shit like FFP wouldn't be taken advantage of by abusive Chelsea"

apply the same thinking to trans rights Knight and you'll see the light

handsofblue

Urgh, all the what ifs and but there was this one time.... Bloody hell, humans at large are a bunch of fucking shits and we want this small group of people to be purer than fucking pure before we let them have equal rights? Like they're too difficult to be included with our bunch of rapists and murders. God forbid anyone just trying to get on with life in the wrong shape be allowed in.

And changing systems is a big thing, yes, and it's complicated, but it's not like we haven't done it before. But I suppose we don't value these lives above the inconvenience it can cause. Got a problem? Be a fucking good human and solve it. Don't go lalala and stick your head in the sand like trans people will just go away.

re more people transitioning - reporting bias. We're still in times where coming out as trans can seriously hurt or kill you. But with more acceptance, more people will be willing to come out and seek appropriate treatment, even if treatment is not eventually given as there are differentials for body dysmorphia that people may not know about.

Re Tavistock, bad medical practice does happen. I haven't read on Tavistock and at this point there's a lot of toxicity on the reporting but systems fail. We've been failing in maternity care for a long time. No one is suggesting we stop giving birth, are they? No, we correct the system.

Knight

JonB wrote:

Knight wrote:

And to the person who asked me if my feminists concerns go beyond trans issues, feel free to read the book because that’s the last book by a feminist and about feminism I read.

My question was what other areas of feminist struggle do you take such an interest (the same level of interest) in.

Since the subject had moved to prisons now, for instance, what other aspects of women's safety in prisons bothers you as greatly as the trans issue? I'm surprised that you aren't more on board with Brooks' point, say, about prioritising prison reform in general.

I was answering your question by pointing you to an area of feminist thought I’d taken an interest in by reading a book. And the very reason to care about the trans issue for prisons is because female prisoners are the most vulnerable women in society who most struggle to have a voice for themselves. And yes, fewer female prisoners in prison would almost certainly be a good thing. But the actual issue would still remain - will the authorities house penis endowed individuals in female prisons. ‘Less prisoners’ doesn’t answer that question.

Knight

Funkstain wrote:

It's aaalllllmost like he wants to frame the conversation / discussion in a way which favours a particular argument (trans women aren't simply women by declaration, because here are some problems with that) rather than a wider discussion which looks at progressivism and positive change and removes many of those problems, because suddenly the argument isn't there to be won (I'm a feminist me)

like with the FFP stuff in the sports thread but in reverse: "no no what I MEANT was, it's not about Liverpool being abused by an upstart team taking advantage of laws and rules meant to protect vulnerable teams, it's about football should be completely re-invented and then stupid corrupt shit like FFP wouldn't be taken advantage of by abusive Chelsea"

apply the same thinking to trans rights Knight and you'll see the light

Funstain have a word with yourself mate. Transferring over a conversation is pretty poor form but the rest of this is nonsense. You were the one that wanted to move the conversation away from the definition of what a woman is to actual real life, ‘what do we do here’ territory. I think the circular definition of woman you are using is a nonsense but we stopped talking about it because you asked us too. Once we get into real life examples I’m going to go on thinking and speaking about women and men as a biological binary which has real world implications. Sometimes these implications will require separation on the basis of sex. But the problems with treating trans men and women according to their declared gender rather than their actual sex in certain contexts isn’t why I think what I think about biology.

How do we protect vulnerable women in prison?
1. Almost certainly send less to prison in the first place.
2. Don’t lock up biological men with females.
3. Find ways of in prisoning vulnerable trans women in safe ways.
4. pay attention to Drew’s very sensible points above.

tin_robot

Knight wrote:

And to the person who asked me if my feminists concerns go beyond trans issues, feel free to read the book because that’s the last book by a feminist and about feminism I read.

My question was what other areas of feminist struggle do you take such an interest (the same level of interest) in. Since the subject had moved to prisons now, for instance, what other aspects of women's safety in prisons bothers you as greatly as the trans issue? I'm surprised that you aren't more on board with Brooks' point, say, about prioritising prison reform in general.

I was answering your question by pointing you to an area of feminist thought I’d taken an interest in by reading a book. And the very reason to care about the trans issue for prisons is because female prisoners are the most vulnerable women in society who most struggle to have a voice for themselves. And yes, fewer female prisoners in prison would almost certainly be a good thing. But the actual issue would still remain - will the authorities house penis endowed individuals in female prisons. ‘Less prisoners’ doesn’t answer that question.

OK. I absolutely understand the desire to protect vulnerable people who might find themselves locked away with dangerous individuals who want to harm them. But as has been pointed out, that's an argument against prisons. It has nothing to do with whether or not someone has a penis.

Still, I get it. Many women are understandably worried about what it means to be locked in a space with someone with a penis - usually because their own personal experience has given them bloody good reason to. But... It's probably worth stopping for a moment to consider that sexual violence against other inmates is higher in (biological) female prisons, than in male prisons.

Sure, having an inmate with a penis increases the chance of someone being attacked by someone with a penis, purely because one will now exist, but there's no real evidence to suggest that said individual is more likely to sexually assault the non penis-wielders who represent the majority. If anything they may find themselves more at risk. (I'm aware that there are all sorts of things that confound such data, but still..)

The point though, as others have said, many times, is that the issue here is that we completely fail to protect prisoners - irrespective of genitalia - and that "what about the penis?" is a largely irrelevant distraction from "why aren't we keeping prisoners safe?". (One which is based on assumptions about predatory behaviours that aren't necessarily true.) If you have a prison in which people are able to readily sexually assault other inmates you've got a broken prison system irrespective of which part of their body they used to do it.

RedDave2

Can I request that the thread title is changed to "what about the penis?"

tin_robot

RedDave2 wrote:

Can I request that the thread title is changed to "what about the penis?"

"Misogyny: What about the penis" would certainly illustrate Gonz's previous point about the thread all too well...

JonB

tin_robot wrote:

The point though, as others have said, many times, is that the issue here is that we completely fail to protect prisoners - irrespective of genitalia - and that "what about the penis?" is a largely irrelevant distraction from "why aren't we keeping prisoners safe?". (One which is based on assumptions about predatory behaviours that aren't necessarily true.) If you have a prison in which people are able to readily sexually assault other inmates you've got a broken prison system irrespective of which part of their body they used to do it.

Yeah, exactly the point. You have to ask why isn't this a discussion about safety in women's prisons? You could include issues with trans prisoners in that (and as far as I've seen, trans people aren't arguing that someone with a penis convicted of rape should be placed in a female prison population anyway), but it would be a minor concern next to, say, the mental health problems and suicide rates which are a much larger issue.

Yet all we hear about in this area is the threat of trans prisoners. Why is that? It's because of anti-trans media and critics making this the big discussion point of the day above any other aspect of feminism or women's rights. Anyone who actually cared about safety in women's prisons would be far more focused on general conditions inside, not fringe cases and hypotheticals.

Brooks

Still, I get it. Many women are understandably worried about what it means to be locked in a space with someone with a penis - usually because their own personal experience has given them bloody good reason to. But... It's probably worth stopping for a moment to consider that sexual violence against other inmates is higher in (biological) female prisons, than in male prisons.

Women, for pity's sake, don't rape.

b0r1s

If you have Apple TV this is worth a watch. Even the opening jokey monologue cuts to the heart of the issue and I like his honesty.

“Whatever discomfort we may feel in the changing norms of reality, myself included, it is no match for the discomfort and fear for those seeking acceptance…”

Vela

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