Comments | ysabetwordsmith: Poem: "What Makes a Woman"

ysabetwordsmith

Poem: "What Makes a Woman"

Jan 04, 2012 22:03

This poem came from the January 3, 2012 Poetry Fishbowl. It was prompted by fayanora and sponsored by zianuray. Yes, some natural-born women really are this nasty to other women who weren't blessed with XX bodies. "Gynoid" is fayanora's term for an android with female attributes.

What Makes a Woman

"What makes a woman ( Read more... )

reading, gender studies, writing, fishbowl, poetry, cyberfunded creativity, activism, science fiction, poem

Comments 27

fayanora January 5 2012, 04:05:41 UTC

Yay! Thanks, zianuary! :-D

I like this one. :-)

Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 06:14:25 UTC

I'm glad you like it. I think the issue needs more attention than it gets, and your two prompts just dovetailed perfectly.

dameruth January 5 2012, 04:13:02 UTC

All I can say is, *those* feminists make *this* feminist very embarrassed. :/

Yes... ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 04:28:28 UTC

This one too, hence my decision to stab their snotty idealogy with pencils.

jenny_evergreen January 5 2012, 13:36:56 UTC

Agreed. Also, TOTAL icon win!

catsittingstill January 5 2012, 14:49:49 UTC

They make this feminist very sad.

But I'm pretty sure most feminists aren't like that.

As far as I'm concerned anyone who could have the status of a man but who says "no, I want to be a woman" has stated in the most un-counterfeit-able way that she believes women are the equals of men. As far as I'm concerned, such a person is a woman, and a sister.

And hypothesizing self-aware machines, the same goes for them. :-)

wyld_dandelyon January 5 2012, 05:38:28 UTC

I had to read this to My Angel, who has had conversations with such feminists!

Thank you! ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 05:45:53 UTC

Now that it's published, folks are welcome to share it with whomever they think would enjoy it. There are, sadly, a lot of transwomen who have had that conversation with *cough*Michigan Women's Music Festival*cough* narrow-minded feminists.

jenny_evergreen January 5 2012, 13:37:56 UTC

Yeah. *sigh* I met a girl who was almost perfect for me...and then MWMF came up. *shakes head*

Yes... ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 16:50:06 UTC

I wanted to attend MWMF until I found out about the rampant discrimination. Killed that desire right off.

I used to attend WisCon, the world's only feminist science fiction convention. It was great when I first went, but it gradually got more exclusionary. People in the Carl Sandburg Society society freaked out that I'd written stories with no white people in them that weren't stories about race/racism. People harassed the trans party for having music on the party floor. People bitched at the conservatives. People disrespected pretty much everyone who had a penis or ever used to have one. (The testicles that did not come with this body but are still very much a part of me spent the whole weekend screaming "Get us out of here before someone sees us and scrambles us for breakfast!") Even my inner feminist was disgruntled by the end of the last trip.

I just don't like being in an environment that encourages dogpiling people who are different.

fayanora January 5 2012, 06:51:51 UTC

There was a comment I found on Twitter the other day saying "Transgendered people are not human." From a bisexual black woman, no less. You can bet I gave her hell over that.

Good for you! ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 07:09:54 UTC

0_o Someone certainly needed to.

Re: Good for you! fayanora January 5 2012, 07:19:26 UTC

Yeah, and she didn't seem to get how it made her sound a lot like the KKK and other hateful arsewipes. I eventually gave up.

Re: Good for you! ysabetwordsmith January 5 2012, 07:25:01 UTC

Claiming that any human being is not human is wicked.
Claiming that it's okay to oppress or abuse other people is wicked.
For that matter, even claiming that it's okay to hurt people who aren't human is also wicked.

And if your heritage includes a whole lot of people having done such things to your people, doing it to someone else is not only EVIL ... it hands a victory to the ones who shafted your ancestors.

Way to go.

Thread 8

lb_lee January 5 2012, 14:06:37 UTC

Been there, though slight different situation: I don't hang out in feminist spaces much (unless they're run by people I KNOW won't be dicks) but I'm leery of trans spaces because the multi means we don't fit into a convenient single gender identity box and sometimes we get run out. (Yes, ironic irony is ironic.)

And since by mainstream psych lit, we really AREN'T human (we're simply ego states with delusions of personhood), we have always felt immense sympathy for robots, golems, and the like.

--Rogan

Thoughts ysabetwordsmith January 6 2012, 07:48:29 UTC

>>I'm leery of trans spaces because the multi means we don't fit into a convenient single gender identity box and sometimes we get run out. (Yes, ironic irony is ironic.)<<

I can totally relate to that.

>>And since by mainstream psych lit, we really AREN'T human (we're simply ego states with delusions of personhood), we have always felt immense sympathy for robots, golems, and the like.<<

If I restricted my friends to human, I'd lose a majority of my social sphere. I choose my relationships based on their positive/negative balance and practical applications, not whether they are wearing meat and on this planet, or what their meat is shaped like, or whether they conform to social expectations. Because I think that's crazier than picking your friends and family for how well they care about you.

Re: Thoughts lb_lee January 6 2012, 13:57:39 UTC

All I can think to this is that classic line from that story I can't remember:

"They're made... of MEAT!" D:

Re: Thoughts ysabetwordsmith January 6 2012, 16:47:35 UTC

"They're Made Out of Meat" by Terry Bisson -- it's one of my favorites.

Thread 9