As we all know, for some time many women’s charities and organisations have been resolutely erasing all mentions of the word “woman”. We are bleeders, vagina owners, cervix havers, chest feeders, birth parents, etc. The JK Rowling fiasco started because she had the temerity to point out that “woman” isn’t a dirty word. I’ve noticed online that if women object to this woke language there’s general tutting, they get called “TERFS”, they are asked to be kind.
So it was recently international men’s day and I saw so many people eagerly posting how much they love men, how you should go and tell all the men in your life how great they are, how terrible it is that men have various problems. And something I noticed is that no one spontaneously used woke or erasing language. They used the word men to refer to males. But what’s more, I watched a Facebook row erupt because someone jokingly called men “prostate havers”. This was seen as nasty, “TERFY”, unkind, uncalled for and obtuse.
So let me get this straight - the woke thing to do is to call women cervix havers, and complaining about this is transphobic. But at the same time if you use inclusive language for men it’s ... seen as “making a transphobic point” and taking the piss? How can they have such blatant double standards? And why do they think this woke language is ridiculous when applied to prostate havers issues?
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Men are people, menstruators are not.
Yeah, there’s a part of me that’s astonished like ... it can’t surely be this blatantly hypocritical and down to sexism, can it? But sure enough it is.
It took me a horribly long time to realize that my male family members, friends, and other acquaintances, generally speaking, never believed I was fully human. Until then, I'd operated under the assumption that my personhood was something they saw and accepted. Hah.
Yeah I'm still amazed by this even though I realized it over a decade ago. Just this morning I woke up contemplating a male "friend" of mine not seeing me as fully human. My brother also doesn't see me as fully human. Unsure about my father.
Men are people, women are an identity detached from humanity.
Movember is still going on right now and I have seen zero pushback against "cancers that affect men" or "x men have testicular cancer" etc.
Manhood is sacred. Womanhood is whatever men decide it is.
Yeah and it’s not like I WANT this language of “penis havers” to catch on. I’m just gob smacked at how outraged and offended men get when you try to use the same language to refer to them.
Are you that surprised though? I think about how much I let people step on my toes vs. what my (male) partner would accept and it makes the reaction of men make perfect sense to me. And he is a polite, good Nigel.
(Don't worry, I'm working on myself, but there's only so much you can do as a woman before you're labeled an unruly b*tch, career-wise.)
I love my partner but separatism looks better every day.
This is true, and I also think that men are very quick to scold women for being 'unkind' and falling out of line quicker than they berate men. When I push back on trans stuff a lot of the time it's men who are the most aggressive in putting me in my place.
That's because the male-loving, woman hating human race is rotten to the core.
They can't call men penis owners and prostate havers because TIMs have those things and that would definitely make all TIMs men, not women. There is not a 'woman' with a prostate on the planet so all prostate havers are men, including TIMs because the prostate is rarely removed.
They have to call women uterus havers and cervix owners because not all women have those bits so they can still call themselves women regardless of whether or not they have those organs. If a TIM calls you a cervix haver you can call him a prostate owner. He can get as mad as he wants but it is still the truth and he hasn't been misgendered.
This is precisely it. They don't say "uterus-haver" to include TIFs, but to make sure that TIMs don't feel left out when we say "women" in relation to biology. Now you can't associate TIMs' prostates with "men" either.
A TiM recently told me that he didn't have to be screened for male cancers anymore because of his transition. I googled a little and found out that, like you said, the prostate is not usually removed. When I pointed this out, he got all up in a huff and said his hormones made prostate cancer increasingly unlikely and breast cancer more likely so it made sense to go to a gyno instead. Yeah right.
It makes no sense at all for a male person, regardless of how mutilated their body, to go to a gynaecologist. There is nothing for them there other than some sick excitement at forcing the doctor to look at their wound.
What for, in the world ever, would a man need a gynaecologist?
Darwinism at work.
80% of men at the age of 80 will have cancerous cells in their prostate. It’s not something men should feel blasé about.
Holy crap I hadn't realized it was that high
Except men get breast cancer too and you don't need a gyno, you can just go to an internist or family practitioner.
Interesting, so it’s not actually about inclusive language at all. The whole protecting TIF’s feelings is a red herring. It’s all about the feelings of TIMS. And yeah I can totally believe that TIMS would have a fit if they were referred to as prostate havers.
I did see a post including transmen in International Men's Day, snuck in there with a bunch of other adjectives + men. Mainly though it was just about men, a bunch of people (a surprising amount) on my feed posted stuff about men supposedly not being allowed to feel emotions and how women should support them with a shoulder to cry on (as though that isn't what we do already?). It's a blatant double standard compared to what I see on International Women's Day though
Men feel plenty of emotions and make sure every woman around them feels them too.
It took me a long time to realise this “men don’t have emotions” thing is false. Maybe it’s true that men don’t talk to each other about emotions, but how is that women’s fault?
Women don't talk about their emotions, either. Nobody does. It's a bullshit sexist stereotype. (Everybody talks about things they enjoy, dislike, are irritated by, etc - men and women equally - but nobody, women inclusive, sits around talking about their emotions).
I swear to God, it took me such a long time to STOP being my partner's therapist. I'm not about to start again because men get told they can't have feelings. There is a difference in sharing things with your partner and talking to a therapist, a difference many men don't seem to understand.
I can’t say this to anyone in real life, but I actually hate international mens day. This year in particular I saw so many whiny, incel like posts on Facebook. The big complaint ? Women get constant compliments about how pretty they are and no one tells men how beautiful their eyes are! We just get complimented for our achievements .there was another dude who was just spouting MRA anti woman nonsense , but because it’s international men’s day he was soothed and given head pats. I honestly think it’s just as offensive as if you had an international white day , or able bodied day, or straight person day.
Me too honestly. It's not like men are underrecognized. Our history books are full of them, our statues are mostly of them, all our (US) presidents have been men, our canon of classic literature is mostly male authors even though there are plenty of wonderful female ones, there are so many men credited as the "father of ___" regardless of if they actually started a field of study or not, most CEOs are men, most Nobel prize winners are men while women who contributed to the discoveries don't get any recognition, men seem to get more things named after them, etc. I have no issue with days/weeks/months to draw attention to issues that only or mostly affect men (prostate cancer awareness in November, for instance), but they don't need an International Men's Day like we need an International Women's Day. 364 days of the year are basically international men's day already, having it is like having a white history month. We don't need a special day for them just cause every once in a while they get sick of being the default humans and want to be specifically mentioned as men
The thing that bugs me the most is it's mostly other women (at least in my experience) who are perpetuating this shit. They'll fawn over men on men's day and not mention TIFs at all, but they never forget TIMs when it comes to absolutely anything woman related. It just gets so annoying...
It bugs me too, but honestly, it's how they were brought up. Most likely never exposed to a female-identified woman role model or an ounce of real feminist thought. This goes for TIFs too. Some have such extreme internalized misogyny that they externalize when they think they're male that I would not want to generally be around them just as much as I would not want to be around any anti-feminist woman for too long.
Because sexism.
All these assholes can fuck right off.
It's two sides of the same coin, it's no coincidence tha TRA are making womanhood and feminists into dirty, watered down concepts that should exist "for everyone", while MRA efforts online are paying off and progressives are now convinced it's really men that are suffering from various forms of oppression (they really think all men are now abused more than anyone, can't show their emotions, are kept love and sexless, are less educated and employed, etc., and all because of women).
It's a two-pronged attack on women under the guise of wokeness, but it's still the same old misogyny.
Because we live in an extremely misogynistic society where men are respected and women are dehumanized.
Sadly, the double standard exists because women are easier to bully into submission than men. Men would NEVER stand for it if they were forced to center female trans-men in all their activism & language.