I can’t be the only one who finds the appropriation of slurs against gay men and effeminate men by female-bodied people a little offensive, can I?
yeah i saw that. fascinating.
for the record, i am fully in agreement with the original poster in saying that abortion needs to be talked about (and organized around, and dealt with generally) as something that doesn’t just affect cis women, but also trans men/gq folks/non-binary people who have uteruses. yet I also think there must be a place to recognize and respond to the misogyny and sexist oppression that drives so much of the anti-choice movement, because that movement has in many ways set the terms of the discussion, keeping those of us who are pro-choice, pro-reproductive rights, pro-bodily autonomy on the defensive.
obviously that’s fucked up, on a variety of levels. pro-choice advocates need to be able to take back the discussion and, in doing so, i hope that they/we are better at serving everyone with a uterus, not just cis women. however, in the meantime, when cis women are repeatedly under attack as women (not just as uterus-havers, but as women specifically), i find it entirely justifiable for us to want to centre ourselves in at least some pro-choice discourse some of the time.
i am aware that sexism is not the only oppression, but in the case of the rhetoric surrounding abortion, it is a primary source of oppression. (i am not aware of any anti-abortion campaigns targeting anyone other than cis women; if anyone is, do drop a line in my ask box.) & it seems to me that forgetting that fact (or purposely erasing it) is a pretty intense perpetuation of sexism in itself.
‘when cis women are repeatedly under attack as women (not just as uterus-havers, but as women specifically), i find it entirely justifiable for us to want to centre ourselves in at least some pro-choice discourse some of the time.’
It’s nice to find someone who shares my thoughts and can do so with such considerable eloquence.
(Source: kittenthusiasm)
I’m all for educating my cis friends on trans issues (and, on a separate feminist slant, teaching them that saying things like ‘man up’ isn’t cool), but I just don’t understand how so many trans people can jump down cis people’s throats for using the wrong terminology.
In the controversy surrounding the proposed new reproductive healthcare legislation, the left wing arguments have seemed exclusively to revolve around the fact that it’s not fair for men to comment exclusively on an issue which concerns women’s healthcare. It was only a matter of time before it happened, really, but now I’ve finally seen FAAB trans folk chime in against everyone talking about ‘women’s healthcare’, because they consider it to be trans erasure.
I’m pro-choice. I’m not anti-life; I’m in favour of giving a woman the option to terminate a pregnancy if she sincerely believes it’s the best option for herself and for her unborn child. I don’t think it’s a solution every woman should jump to with unwanted pregnancies and I most certainly don’t approve of a world where abortion should be a substitute for protected sex—it’s just that sometimes there really is no other option for a woman’s sanity and wellbeing.
Front page news story on the benefit of women in the police force? Four for you, Morning Journal. You go, Morning Journal. I appreciate the effort, although the fact that women are seen as ‘comforting’ and able to ‘not look like law enforcement’ because of their gender is troublesome to me. That’s not really the paper’s fault, I suppose; they’re just reporting what society sees as the benefit to female officers, which perpetuates heteronormative gender roles.
The article does kind of touch on the sexism that some female officers face on the job, though, so it wasn’t completely ignored. I feel like they could have done more with that, but seeing a feature on female law enforcement officers is a good start.
I think I’m always going to have a problem with pieces that speak about the ‘advantages’ of enlisting women or members of minority groups in any field. I’m all for said women and minority groups getting equal opportunities and access (you know, in the name of equality), but when things like this come out claiming that the aspects which might traditionally make them appear unsuitable for the job (in this case, women being seen as weak or delicate) are actually ~advantages~ in the field, it feels incredibly condescending—and it kind of negates whatever façade of equality the author might have been hoping for.
I guess what I’m getting at is this still feels very much like a case of ‘look at what the girls can do!’, which is precisely the attitude we need to do away with. I do appreciate women law enforcers getting coverage because damnit if it probably isn’t an incredibly difficult field in which to be taken seriously… And I imagine, this world being the sexist, non-women-friendly place that it still is, it’s probably a particularly dangerous vocation to take on if you’re not a fan of guys heckling/harassing/assaulting you. So yeah, brownie points… But at the same time this shows the world still has a long way to go.
Swings and roundabouts, eh?
By A Nearly 2 To 1 Margin, Cable Networks Call On Men Over Women To Comment On Birth Control — ThinkProgress.
Because men are far more qualified to give their thoughts on what is essentially an issue affecting only women’s bodies. Of course.
(Source: futurejournalismproject, via kayleytalkspolitics)
One of the biggest issues in any argument surrounding minority groups is the use of language. It can be said that a word is only as powerful as we make it; the problem is that for so many groups words are intrinsic in the architecture of generations of oppression. It’s not so simple to take a hateful word and turn it into something positive, into something empowering—when you look at the word ‘queer’ and how long it took to re-appropriate it, it’s not surprising to learn that there are still people within the LGBT+ community who flinch upon hearing it.
