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'Meanwhile, in demanding to be referred to as a woman at all times Upton is effectively demanding to be treated as a man.' Damn, she is so good at this.
One of my big peaking moments was the TIMs rhetoric at and after the 2017 Women's March. I don't think there is a better example of male privilege than TIMs telling women at a massive event about women to center them and not talk about abortion, or use language about the female body, because it is "exclusive".
What the actual heck!?
The aftermath of the women's march peaked a lot of women. TIMs crying over being "unwelcome" and "excluded" because of pussy hats and signs saying "keep your laws out of my uterus" push many of us over the edge. TIMs proved they just want to control women, like any other man.
Why couldn’t she have smashed the gender binary in a more ladylike manner — using gender-neutral pronouns, perhaps, or binding her breasts, but not actually saying no to a man?
Annnnnnnnd the entire argument against TERFs in a nutshell.
Once again, Victoria Smith absolutely nails it. Looking forward to her next book.
The highlight of this article was seeing she has a new book coming out!
Here's a great book about 'woman as mirror':
https://archive.org/details/reflectingmenatt00clin
Funny and horrifying (especially the last chapter - the penalties men exact for women who don't do it).
Extract;
Nurse Sandie Peggie, currently suing NHS Fife, is one such woman facing “misogynist resentment, punishment, and indignation” for her withdrawal of human giver/mirror services. Peggie was suspended after having complained about having to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a biological male who claims to be a woman. In order to make her case, Peggie has asked to use language which shows she believes Upton to be a man. Upton’s legal team have objected to this, describing Peggie’s refusal to perform her human mirror function as “disrespectful”. The judge in the case, Sandy Kemp, has decided that while Peggie shall be permitted to use accurate sex-based language, he will intervene if male pronouns are “used gratuitously and offensively on a repeated basis with no good reason to do so”.
He is the Subject, the Absolute, while she remains the Other, whose reality should only ever be determined in relation to his
Reading all this, it struck me that Peggie’s case is a perfect illustration of how gender actually functions as opposed to how Butlerians like to pretend it does. To the latter, Dr Upton is smashing the binary, defying gender norms, living her truth etc. But here’s what’s actually happening: one man, Judge Kemp, is deciding that a woman’s right to describe her own experiences will be contingent on whether he feels the woman is doing it nicely enough or has sufficient need to do so. At any moment, Peggie’s right to state her own reality can be withdrawn, dismissed as unimportant in a way that Dr Upton’s “truth” never will be.
Meanwhile, in demanding to be referred to as a woman at all times Upton is effectively demanding to be treated as a man. He naturally assumes Peggie’s perceptions can be overwritten by his. He is the Subject, the Absolute, while she remains the Other, whose reality should only ever be determined in relation to his. Peggie is not “allowed to be” in the same way a man is. She is “the inessential in front of the essential” as far as both Kemp and Upton are concerned. She must ask for the most basic of things: her own words, her own spaces, and these are theirs to give, grudgingly (if at all), while weighing up the potential “distress” and “disrespect” caused by her daring to voice her needs.
This is what patriarchy looks like. Even if Peggie wins her case, the fact that she has been put through it at all is a demonstration of where the power lies. Even if Kemp and Upton disagree on the amount of reality Peggie is permitted to define for herself, both agree that they, as the true Subjects, deserve to adjudicate on it.
This makes me want to watch the world burn.
Just the vast majority of human males spontaneously combusting would do for me.