- Joined
- May 24, 2023
Tumblr speculates as to the origins of handmaidenism:
damn that's a lot of words, anyway here's the text:
So that's the feminist take on handmaidenry, I'd be interested to see how much this forum agrees with it. I think there's to be said for point 3 in OP's post, I've said before that troons rely a lot on weaponised empathy to get people to go along with their illogical ideas about reality. But I think among handmaidens there is this thing where they think "finally, there are men who get it." They percieve troons as being oppressed in a similar way to what they percieve for themselves so they think that troons will make for natural allies in the fight for feminism. But instead troons have just taken a wrecking ball to the accomplishments of 20th century feminism because troons may identify as women, but they don't really seem to identify with women or have a whole lot of empathy for their struggles.
damn that's a lot of words, anyway here's the text:
lately i've been doing a lot of thinking about why women are the main supporters of transgenderism, and i think i've boiled it down to three main elements
1. women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are. this has been discussed at length in the radical feminist tradition and the gender critical movement, but it bears reiterating. women are taught from early childhood to disbelieve their feelings of fear, anger and humiliation for the benefit of men.
2. i'd argue that the description of physical dysphoria is one that almost all women empathise with, because of how alienated women are from their bodies by society, in a way most men are not. even women who would say they are comfortable with their bodies have complicated feelings about having a female body in our society, even if they don't have the framework to express it. therefore, when women are confronted with men who make claims about sex dysphoria, they relate and empathise and some can draw conclusions that this distress aligns them with femaleness (i would argue that all women experience sex dysphoria in a misogynist society like ours but i digress). i think there many women also find solace in the idea that someone else could possibly have their physical distress alleviated and want to believe it is possible to find a solution to it.
In other words, “The body has been made so problematic for women that it has often seemed easier to shrug it off and travel as a disembodied spirit.” - Adrienne Rich
3. women want to believe that male oppression and men aren't really that bad. to comprehend the scale of women's oppression, and to fully understand that the men you know and love are as complicit in it as any other, feels like balancing on the brink of madness. women are desperate for evidence that things aren't as bad as they suspect.
Andrea Dworkin says it best: “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”
that is part of the allure of the trans movement for these women in denial. breaking down the categories of male and female, and denying the social dynamics therein, means they don't have to grapple with the ugliness of misogyny.
anyone else have thoughts on this? i'd be keen to hear if others on radblr think
women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are
Yes, but also our lack of social dominance makes us not stand a chance even if we're resistant or don't want to be accommodating.
Men are retaining their language and spaces because they are socially dominant and get violent often.
The palpable threat of violence or icy social exclusions men give to anyone not a biological man has protected them from trans mania. Trans rights advocates are just happy to not be murdered or beat up by men . But from women, no amount of capitulation or acceptance is enough.
Men are so socially dominant, trans rights is incapable of forcing any meaningful change to their spaces, rights, speech or power. Hence so many straight bros being happy to entertain it and receive pats on the back when they do the bare minimum (They're treated like Jesus Christ just for saying "trans rights") . Saying "transmen are men" does effectively nothing to them- doesn't increase a threat of violence towards men (it doesn't matter to them if a natal female ends up in a male prison-her funeral, not theirs), doesn't make them lose sports competitions or scholarships, doesn't make it likely that someone non-male will be selected for an important position. Like the patriarchal status quo remains firmly in place. So they can either be light of heart about it and jump on the TWAW wagon or ignore it entirely. Their choice.
Women have been targeted by trans rights advocacy specifically BECAUSE of our reduced status in soceity. It's not possible for TRAs to get anything from men, so all validation, resources, space, and attention has to come from women. Wether we're being nice about it or not.
Also women just literally care about things more. When I first joined tumblr in 2012 I became instantly enamoured with the 'social justice' part of the site because it was the first place I saw where people were visibly, openly caring about things. The 2000s were not a very kind time to be alive - this was the era of exploitative reality TV, of raunch culture, of the 'obesity epidemic' obsession with headless fat people in the news, and my parents disliked all of it - I grew up with them showing visible disgust at all casual cruelties in the media and felt very alone in caring about them. Reaching adulthood after being a caring teen and finally finding a place where caring about people is the fundamental element of the community blew my fucking mind.
SJW spaces where place where your politics and morality mattered. I learned a lot during that time - I was introduced to the concepts of oppression and privilege, cultural appropriation, etc. etc. And I was told about all these different axes of oppression: gender, sexuality, class, ability, and so on. And part of this 'education' involved an introduction to the concept of gender, of cis and trans, of nonbinary genders, and a 'debunking of myths about trans people' that I'd never heard of. I was hungry to learn, I wanted to be a good person, and here was the only place where other people were going to tell me how to do that. When you learn about the nature of oppression and you're told that you're an oppressor on multiple different axes, and one of those is your status as a 'cis' person, you're under extra care to not question it, just as questioning my privilege as a white person in those spaces would have me under fire. Yes, social pressure comes into it - but it was social pressure that I directly invited into myself because I thought it was a beautiful thing that the community weren't separating politics and morality, and I still do.
Unfortunately, even though the SJWs recognised women as an oppressed class, there was an incredible lack of information in these communities - I was rarely encouraged to read anything outside of tumblr. I went in with minimal, surface-level understanding of how and why misogyny works, and came out of it with even less of an understanding. The thing is, for all the emphasis on caring, this was a community of young, naiive women such as myself, telling each other how to care about other people; ultimately, for women 'learning to be a good person' is always going to necessitate outward action; you're discouraged from ever thinking inwards, from trusting yourself at all. It was all about how you can change your mind, change your language, change your actions, change what media you watch and how you watch it. It was lively and positive and youthful and hopeful, and as such there was minimum introspection required.
Women certainly could talk about sexism, but it never really went too far. I remember now one time when I reblogged a post that was like, 'I wonder if we ever met an alien species and they classified their society based on entirely different body part'. Now, I understand the reason why our society is class according to biological sex, and the reason and mechanism of women's oppression along that axis. Liberal feminism wouldn't ever tell me that because pondering too much on the nature of sex-based oppression would be too self-indulgent as I'm part of the 'oppressor class' along said axis as a cis woman. You're taught that you should expect people (men) to treat you well, of course - but not to think too much about why they might mistreat you, because you already have all the answers given by the community. The nature of these internet communities is such that you're tricked into thinking that because the internet is the accumulation of all the world's knowledge, that all questions you might have about the world are either answered by the community or are inherently unanswerable.
You have all these people discoursing in front of your very eyes and as the medium is the message, your youthful mind processes this as 'this is where all the important stuff is happening, and this is where our collective morals are developing [once again, because nobody else was talking this way at the time], so taking myself away from this would be a sign of my privilege, and anything else I consume, espeically from a time before this, would be a product of a less thoughtful, moral time, and would be sorely lacking in the kind of analysis people are producing here and now - and once again, if I enjoy the old-school works, then that would just be a sign of my privilege able to ignore all the obvious bigotry within'. So if your questions about sexism aren't answered, addressed or even acknowledged in the space, there's this implication that they're irrelevant to politics and morality itself.
And of course, thinking independently in any way, trusting your own judgment and perceptions, is just another expression of how you're indulging in your privilege and not 'listening to oppressed people'. 'Trans women are women' is the most infamous thought-terminating cliche to come out of this, but 'listen to oppressed people' was the one that had the most influence on me. Because I wanted to be good, I wanted to show care, I was told the primary way I could do that was by shutting up and listening to what other people - oppressed people - had to say for once. And thus ironically, this was a space where I, a woman, almost never said anything, instead in a constant state of re-assessing myself and my politics - my blog had so few followers and almost nobody ever reblogged anything I posted. I barely commented on anything (imagine that!!). I shared fundraisers and petitions and awareness of issues that I didn't have the funds to donate to; but not reblogging them felt bad because it was ultimately no effort for me to share them and low-key an expression of my privilege to not share them.
To many this probably sounds exhausting but I once again want to emphasise that I wanted this, especially as an ex-bullied kid from the 90s-2000s who wanted kindness to be a primary social currency and for cruelty to recieve actual social repurcussions. I would imagine that's why these spaces have a lot of fellow social rejects and weirdos in them - this was going to be a space where people are not supposed to make fun of your appearance, or your weight, or your dress sense, or how much money you have, etc. etc. because these things are 'protected characteristics' as representative of some axis of oppression. I needed to escape the miserable experience that was being bullied; that was seeing 'the jeremy kyle show' be a normal part of british culture; that was the phrase 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me'; that was 4chan harassment campaigns and 'trolling'; that was jokes about fat people; that was the 'edgy humour' of south park and family guy that turned every teen boy I knew into some flavour of asshole; that was 'dead baby jokes'; that was seeing people laugh at 'I'm a celebrity' with scenes of gross bugs shoved into a tank which my family considered animal abuse. And if I had to shut up on certain topics, including transgenderism, in order to recieve some guarantee that people wouldn't be malicious and cruel to me or anyone else, then you fucking bet I'd take that offer.
1. women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are. this has been discussed at length in the radical feminist tradition and the gender critical movement, but it bears reiterating. women are taught from early childhood to disbelieve their feelings of fear, anger and humiliation for the benefit of men.
2. i'd argue that the description of physical dysphoria is one that almost all women empathise with, because of how alienated women are from their bodies by society, in a way most men are not. even women who would say they are comfortable with their bodies have complicated feelings about having a female body in our society, even if they don't have the framework to express it. therefore, when women are confronted with men who make claims about sex dysphoria, they relate and empathise and some can draw conclusions that this distress aligns them with femaleness (i would argue that all women experience sex dysphoria in a misogynist society like ours but i digress). i think there many women also find solace in the idea that someone else could possibly have their physical distress alleviated and want to believe it is possible to find a solution to it.
In other words, “The body has been made so problematic for women that it has often seemed easier to shrug it off and travel as a disembodied spirit.” - Adrienne Rich
3. women want to believe that male oppression and men aren't really that bad. to comprehend the scale of women's oppression, and to fully understand that the men you know and love are as complicit in it as any other, feels like balancing on the brink of madness. women are desperate for evidence that things aren't as bad as they suspect.
Andrea Dworkin says it best: “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”
that is part of the allure of the trans movement for these women in denial. breaking down the categories of male and female, and denying the social dynamics therein, means they don't have to grapple with the ugliness of misogyny.
anyone else have thoughts on this? i'd be keen to hear if others on radblr think
women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are
Yes, but also our lack of social dominance makes us not stand a chance even if we're resistant or don't want to be accommodating.
Men are retaining their language and spaces because they are socially dominant and get violent often.
The palpable threat of violence or icy social exclusions men give to anyone not a biological man has protected them from trans mania. Trans rights advocates are just happy to not be murdered or beat up by men . But from women, no amount of capitulation or acceptance is enough.
Men are so socially dominant, trans rights is incapable of forcing any meaningful change to their spaces, rights, speech or power. Hence so many straight bros being happy to entertain it and receive pats on the back when they do the bare minimum (They're treated like Jesus Christ just for saying "trans rights") . Saying "transmen are men" does effectively nothing to them- doesn't increase a threat of violence towards men (it doesn't matter to them if a natal female ends up in a male prison-her funeral, not theirs), doesn't make them lose sports competitions or scholarships, doesn't make it likely that someone non-male will be selected for an important position. Like the patriarchal status quo remains firmly in place. So they can either be light of heart about it and jump on the TWAW wagon or ignore it entirely. Their choice.
Women have been targeted by trans rights advocacy specifically BECAUSE of our reduced status in soceity. It's not possible for TRAs to get anything from men, so all validation, resources, space, and attention has to come from women. Wether we're being nice about it or not.
Also women just literally care about things more. When I first joined tumblr in 2012 I became instantly enamoured with the 'social justice' part of the site because it was the first place I saw where people were visibly, openly caring about things. The 2000s were not a very kind time to be alive - this was the era of exploitative reality TV, of raunch culture, of the 'obesity epidemic' obsession with headless fat people in the news, and my parents disliked all of it - I grew up with them showing visible disgust at all casual cruelties in the media and felt very alone in caring about them. Reaching adulthood after being a caring teen and finally finding a place where caring about people is the fundamental element of the community blew my fucking mind.
SJW spaces where place where your politics and morality mattered. I learned a lot during that time - I was introduced to the concepts of oppression and privilege, cultural appropriation, etc. etc. And I was told about all these different axes of oppression: gender, sexuality, class, ability, and so on. And part of this 'education' involved an introduction to the concept of gender, of cis and trans, of nonbinary genders, and a 'debunking of myths about trans people' that I'd never heard of. I was hungry to learn, I wanted to be a good person, and here was the only place where other people were going to tell me how to do that. When you learn about the nature of oppression and you're told that you're an oppressor on multiple different axes, and one of those is your status as a 'cis' person, you're under extra care to not question it, just as questioning my privilege as a white person in those spaces would have me under fire. Yes, social pressure comes into it - but it was social pressure that I directly invited into myself because I thought it was a beautiful thing that the community weren't separating politics and morality, and I still do.
Unfortunately, even though the SJWs recognised women as an oppressed class, there was an incredible lack of information in these communities - I was rarely encouraged to read anything outside of tumblr. I went in with minimal, surface-level understanding of how and why misogyny works, and came out of it with even less of an understanding. The thing is, for all the emphasis on caring, this was a community of young, naiive women such as myself, telling each other how to care about other people; ultimately, for women 'learning to be a good person' is always going to necessitate outward action; you're discouraged from ever thinking inwards, from trusting yourself at all. It was all about how you can change your mind, change your language, change your actions, change what media you watch and how you watch it. It was lively and positive and youthful and hopeful, and as such there was minimum introspection required.
Women certainly could talk about sexism, but it never really went too far. I remember now one time when I reblogged a post that was like, 'I wonder if we ever met an alien species and they classified their society based on entirely different body part'. Now, I understand the reason why our society is class according to biological sex, and the reason and mechanism of women's oppression along that axis. Liberal feminism wouldn't ever tell me that because pondering too much on the nature of sex-based oppression would be too self-indulgent as I'm part of the 'oppressor class' along said axis as a cis woman. You're taught that you should expect people (men) to treat you well, of course - but not to think too much about why they might mistreat you, because you already have all the answers given by the community. The nature of these internet communities is such that you're tricked into thinking that because the internet is the accumulation of all the world's knowledge, that all questions you might have about the world are either answered by the community or are inherently unanswerable.
You have all these people discoursing in front of your very eyes and as the medium is the message, your youthful mind processes this as 'this is where all the important stuff is happening, and this is where our collective morals are developing [once again, because nobody else was talking this way at the time], so taking myself away from this would be a sign of my privilege, and anything else I consume, espeically from a time before this, would be a product of a less thoughtful, moral time, and would be sorely lacking in the kind of analysis people are producing here and now - and once again, if I enjoy the old-school works, then that would just be a sign of my privilege able to ignore all the obvious bigotry within'. So if your questions about sexism aren't answered, addressed or even acknowledged in the space, there's this implication that they're irrelevant to politics and morality itself.
And of course, thinking independently in any way, trusting your own judgment and perceptions, is just another expression of how you're indulging in your privilege and not 'listening to oppressed people'. 'Trans women are women' is the most infamous thought-terminating cliche to come out of this, but 'listen to oppressed people' was the one that had the most influence on me. Because I wanted to be good, I wanted to show care, I was told the primary way I could do that was by shutting up and listening to what other people - oppressed people - had to say for once. And thus ironically, this was a space where I, a woman, almost never said anything, instead in a constant state of re-assessing myself and my politics - my blog had so few followers and almost nobody ever reblogged anything I posted. I barely commented on anything (imagine that!!). I shared fundraisers and petitions and awareness of issues that I didn't have the funds to donate to; but not reblogging them felt bad because it was ultimately no effort for me to share them and low-key an expression of my privilege to not share them.
To many this probably sounds exhausting but I once again want to emphasise that I wanted this, especially as an ex-bullied kid from the 90s-2000s who wanted kindness to be a primary social currency and for cruelty to recieve actual social repurcussions. I would imagine that's why these spaces have a lot of fellow social rejects and weirdos in them - this was going to be a space where people are not supposed to make fun of your appearance, or your weight, or your dress sense, or how much money you have, etc. etc. because these things are 'protected characteristics' as representative of some axis of oppression. I needed to escape the miserable experience that was being bullied; that was seeing 'the jeremy kyle show' be a normal part of british culture; that was the phrase 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me'; that was 4chan harassment campaigns and 'trolling'; that was jokes about fat people; that was the 'edgy humour' of south park and family guy that turned every teen boy I knew into some flavour of asshole; that was 'dead baby jokes'; that was seeing people laugh at 'I'm a celebrity' with scenes of gross bugs shoved into a tank which my family considered animal abuse. And if I had to shut up on certain topics, including transgenderism, in order to recieve some guarantee that people wouldn't be malicious and cruel to me or anyone else, then you fucking bet I'd take that offer.
So that's the feminist take on handmaidenry, I'd be interested to see how much this forum agrees with it. I think there's to be said for point 3 in OP's post, I've said before that troons rely a lot on weaponised empathy to get people to go along with their illogical ideas about reality. But I think among handmaidens there is this thing where they think "finally, there are men who get it." They percieve troons as being oppressed in a similar way to what they percieve for themselves so they think that troons will make for natural allies in the fight for feminism. But instead troons have just taken a wrecking ball to the accomplishments of 20th century feminism because troons may identify as women, but they don't really seem to identify with women or have a whole lot of empathy for their struggles.
