Dear Feminist Colleagues: How would YOU address it?
Replying to last week's blog post, my feminist colleague Emma wrote: "Perhaps you could ask a question pertinent to your point and then use the answers to develop what you want to say. For example, are you trying to talk about the idea that feminists have critiqued masculinity but then, when some men have rejected masculinity, critiqued that too?"
Yes, thank you.
Can I elaborate a little first? I'll try to keep it brief.
a) When feminists critiqued femininity, they did not say "we are not women". Quite the contrary. What they did say was "We are people, we are humans, we deserve to be evaluated by human standards, not special standards that only apply to women." For which they were accused of rejecting their womanhood and trying to become men, if you'll recall.
There's a reasons for that (I think): the masculine experience was artificially designated as the default. As in "The race of man", and "early man", and "mankind" and all that. So when women embrace a non-gendered neutral human identity, it bounces back socially as switching genders, because the neutral is the man-identity. I'm not pointing anything out to you that you hadn't previously pointed out to me, right?
Please keep that in mind when considering WHY ON EARTH some male who wants to reject masculinity doesn't just embrace the non-gendered neutrality of unisex human, not man. Saying "consider me unisex, not manly" doesn't invoke or conjure all the "special" traits marked as feminine. Because they're exceptions. The male is already the model for society's preconceived notion of the unisex generic human.
b) As a male, I don't get to say my stuff "as a feminist". It's not my platform. I don't get to use it.
c) The gender platform, including but not limited to transgender folks, can be my platform. It exists, it has concepts and terms, and I can speak to people as a person with a gender-atypical identity of some sort. It gives me a starting point.
d) Please, please, consider honestly for a moment what you would do, if you had been born male and rejected the identity foisted onto you by patriarchal society. Not for chivalrous concern-for-women reasons but for your own selfish reasons, that the MAN identity and all its priorities and traits and behaviors and ways of being in the world, totally wasn't for you because it's toxic and the opposite of being a self-realized life form and all that.
Do you think I'm going about it wrong?
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My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It's expected to be released in early 2022. Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
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This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
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Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/83152.html#comments
Yes, thank you.
Can I elaborate a little first? I'll try to keep it brief.
a) When feminists critiqued femininity, they did not say "we are not women". Quite the contrary. What they did say was "We are people, we are humans, we deserve to be evaluated by human standards, not special standards that only apply to women." For which they were accused of rejecting their womanhood and trying to become men, if you'll recall.
There's a reasons for that (I think): the masculine experience was artificially designated as the default. As in "The race of man", and "early man", and "mankind" and all that. So when women embrace a non-gendered neutral human identity, it bounces back socially as switching genders, because the neutral is the man-identity. I'm not pointing anything out to you that you hadn't previously pointed out to me, right?
Please keep that in mind when considering WHY ON EARTH some male who wants to reject masculinity doesn't just embrace the non-gendered neutrality of unisex human, not man. Saying "consider me unisex, not manly" doesn't invoke or conjure all the "special" traits marked as feminine. Because they're exceptions. The male is already the model for society's preconceived notion of the unisex generic human.
b) As a male, I don't get to say my stuff "as a feminist". It's not my platform. I don't get to use it.
c) The gender platform, including but not limited to transgender folks, can be my platform. It exists, it has concepts and terms, and I can speak to people as a person with a gender-atypical identity of some sort. It gives me a starting point.
d) Please, please, consider honestly for a moment what you would do, if you had been born male and rejected the identity foisted onto you by patriarchal society. Not for chivalrous concern-for-women reasons but for your own selfish reasons, that the MAN identity and all its priorities and traits and behaviors and ways of being in the world, totally wasn't for you because it's toxic and the opposite of being a self-realized life form and all that.
Do you think I'm going about it wrong?
-----
My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It's expected to be released in early 2022. Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/83152.html#comments