Opinion | The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don't Count - The New York Times
The right’s position here is the better known, the movement having aggressively dedicated itself to stripping women of fundamental rights for decades. Thanks in part to two Supreme Court justices who have been credibly accused of abusive behavior toward women, Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years a target, has been ruthlessly overturned.
Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women’s rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.
But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
July 3, 2022, 6:00 a.m. ET
Credit...Brooke DiDonato/Agence VU/Redux
By Pamela Paul
Opinion Columnist
Perhaps it makes sense that women — those supposedly compliant and agreeable, self-sacrificing and everything-nice creatures — were the ones to finally bring our polarized country together.
Because the far right and the far left have found the one thing they can agree on: Women don't count.
The right's position here is the better known, the movement having aggressively dedicated itself to stripping women of fundamental rights for decades. Thanks in part to two Supreme Court justices who have been credibly accused of abusive behavior toward women, Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years a target, has been ruthlessly overturned.
Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women's rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.
But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes.
As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word "women" has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world's population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like "pregnant people," "menstruators" and "bodies with vaginas."
Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women's rights, omits the word "women" from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used "birthing people" in lieu of "women." The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women's rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: "Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people."
It left out those threatened most of all: women. Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.
The noble intent behind omitting the word "women" is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side.
Women, of course, have been accommodating. They've welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They've learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it's assumed women will be the ones to serve other people's agendas rather than promote their own.
But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous? For wincing at the presumption of acquiescence? For worrying about the broader implications? For wondering what kind of message we are sending to young girls about feeling good in their bodies, pride in their sex and the prospects of womanhood? For essentially ceding to another backlash?
Women didn't fight this long and this hard only to be told we couldn't call ourselves women anymore. This isn't just a semantic issue; it's also a question of moral harm, an affront to our very sense of ourselves.
It wasn't so long ago — and in some places the belief persists — that women were considered a mere rib to Adam's whole. Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality.
But here we go again, parsing women into organs. Last year the British medical journal The Lancet patted itself on the back for a cover article on menstruation. Yet instead of mentioning the human beings who get to enjoy this monthly biological activity, the cover referred to "bodies with vaginas." It's almost as if the other bits and bobs — uteruses, ovaries or even something relatively gender-neutral like brains — were inconsequential. That such things tend to be wrapped together in a human package with two X sex chromosomes is apparently unmentionable.
"What are we, chopped liver?" a woman might be tempted to joke, but in this organ-centric and largely humorless atmosphere, perhaps she would be wiser not to.
Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions or opposing views are often brutally denounced for asserting themselves. (Google the word "transgender" combined with the name Martina Navratilova, J.K. Rowling or Kathleen Stock to get a withering sense.) They risk their jobs and their personal safety. They are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs, a pejorative that may be unfamiliar to those who don't step onto this particular Twitter battlefield. Ostensibly shorthand for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist," which originally referred to a subgroup of the British feminist movement, "TERF" has come to denote any woman, feminist or not, who persists in believing that while transgender women should be free to live their lives with dignity and respect, they are not identical to those who were born female and who have lived their entire lives as such, with all the biological trappings, societal and cultural expectations, economic realities and safety issues that involves.
But in a world of chosen gender identities, women as a biological category don't exist. Some might even call this kind of thing erasure.
When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes. The formula on the right we know well: Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the "Don't mind mes." The unanticipated newcomers to such retrograde typecasting are the supposed progressives on the fringe left. In accordance with a newly embraced gender theory, they now propose that girls — gay or straight — who do not self-identify as feminine are somehow not fully girls. Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are "masculine" and others "feminine."
Didn't we ditch those straitened categories in the '70s?
The women's movement and the gay rights movement, after all, tried to free the sexes from the construct of gender, with its antiquated notions of masculinity and femininity, to accept all women for who they are, whether tomboy, girly girl or butch dyke. To undo all this is to lose hard-won ground for women — and for men, too.
Those on the right who are threatened by women's equality have always fought fiercely to put women back in their place. What has been disheartening is that some on the fringe left have been equally dismissive, resorting to bullying, threats of violence, public shaming and other scare tactics when women try to reassert that right. The effect is to curtail discussion of women's issues in the public sphere.
But women are not the enemy here. Consider that in the real world, most violence against trans men and women is committed by men but, in the online world and in the academy, most of the ire at those who balk at this new gender ideology seems to be directed at women.
It's heartbreaking. And it's counterproductive.
Tolerance for one group need not mean intolerance for another. We can respect transgender women without castigating females who point out that biological women still constitute a category of their own — with their own specific needs and prerogatives.
If only women's voices were routinely welcomed and respected on these issues. But whether Trumpist or traditionalist, fringe left activist or academic ideologue, misogynists from both extremes of the political spectrum relish equally the power to shut women up.
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I think we have finally found evidence supporting the horseshoe theory of politics in America.
I don't fully understand why girls and women are beset upon in society. I don't get how it happens in the "queen" community. Because we all have mothers and they 'own' our respect. To go out and make life harder for a girl or woman is just stupid in my opinion. I don't really perceive the problem that I read about. Where is it happening and where is it coming from? And yes. . . what is this ISSUE exactly?
I think we are confronting the contradictions in a model of social justice that goes about de-decentering the dominant and instead centering and accommodating the marginalized.
The original game plan was to tell whites and males, and particularly white males, that they should take their place at the rear of the progressive stack. That they have had a pretty good run and we have heard enough from them and now it is time to hear other voices.
But the method taken to its conclusion is now erasing women and centering the transgendered and non-binary.
Maybe the method and model deployed by the left is flawed?
It's above my pay grade to propose a new method and model but if somebody doesn't get cracking the Supreme Court will impose one for us.
Point of clarification: Lemuel G are you "Gulliver"?
I can see the shifting of focus and it is needed. But. Not to make 'victims' out of whites or girls and women. All of us have been 'pained' even through our joys in this country and life! I simply find it essential that white men especially stop trying to own the rest of us! Just cooperate and let some of everybody lead the country forward. Stop the lying, distrust, and deceptions to what is essential ourselves.
Transgendered people have a role to play in the scheme of a diverse society and culture. Such role is not to deny a girl or woman her status as female, mother, independent, forceful, and/or accomplished. Transgendered people are not going to advance ahead by suppressing someone else as they come out of the 'closet'! It simply won't work.
I wish to learn more about this 'split' and antagonism in the Trans/progressive movements. Something seems 'fatally' wrong here. That is, transwomen should NEVER make enemies of females from whom they derive their self-interests.
C'est moi. Gulliver was the main character in Gulliver's travels. I think after what is more than two decades of being Gulliver across a few platforms I have decided to retire it.
Women who used to be men may wish to be treated as men. They may wish to attend meetings of and join organizations that were founded by women to advocate for women. They may seek to make it illegal to even ask about the sex they were born with. They may demand that we call them by the pronouns they prefer.
But the truth is that they are men with special needs and demands that are being catered to. They are not actually women.
The solution that the left seems to be coming up with is to scrub the word "woman" from our vocabularies.
(Everything I just said derives from this article that was seeded.)
Politically, it is a disaster for the coalition on the left. It is the left eating its own.
It is the left too busy eating its own tail to even effectively address the anti-abortion crisis without mentioning a laundry list of concerns before they get to focusing on women and access to abortion.
I don't really know what to make of the present moment. (I am talking about the collapse of the left as opposed to just abortion.) Sometimes I think the left has overreached on certain social issues. And other times I think this is just all the fault of the right and there was really nothing the left could have done differently that would have made a difference.
Interesting. Trans-persons should not go about making enemies, nevertheless. After all transpeople know what it is to be oppressed and repressed. Additionally, women 'early on' set the brand in place. Some respect and humility is the order of the day!
Women, what we have traditionally known women to be, have issues and concerns unique to being a woman. One obvious one is that they can become mothers, whether they are seeking to or not.
To obscure their concerns under layers of other people's concerns is not fair to them.
Since I am not a woman myself there is a risk of coming off as a concern troll trying to triangulate with someone else's issue. I've had a bit of a front row seat during the pandemic to a women's issues course being taught via zoom by my wife from our living room. It was amazing how the first lesson was a minefield of even defining the scope of the term "woman."
Who would have thought that women would have to fight to reclaim the word, 'woman'?
Happy Fourth of July! Independence day! Women, should not have to reclaim the word, "woman." I expect everybody involved should get their collective attitudes together!
Is this the gist of this article, nevertheless?
Separated from the 'hot button issue' I am having trouble, even after rereading the article, of processing what is causing this 'trouble' between transpersons and women. Can I get an example or two?
I think the article itself gives jumping off point or two.
Feminist academics have been forced to resign their posts for making the obvious point that women and trans-women are not the same thing. Women's issues are now being discussed without even using the word woman.
It is an issue I have become aware of partly because I know a woman who teaches a course on women's issues. Even defining what a women is in order to proceed with the rest of the material is a walk across coals. The risk is that a student who identifies as a woman, but was not born one, is going to cart themselves off to the dean's office and complain that their identity was not acknowledged. That they were traumatized. That their parents are hiring a lawyer. That they want the course redesigned to spend more time on trans-women.
Perhaps an important thing to remind ourselves is that the Dobbs decision disproportionately affects women and if we can't state that clearly we have lost before we have begun.
Maybe as time goes on, and transsexualism is normalized, it will be difficult or "impossible" to point out the differences in outer appearance between trans and cis persons, but I see it as a problem for a future society. I am flabbergasted that issues are arising already. One thing does leave itself open to question:
Are trans-persons (both, female and male) inherently aggressive people who boldy attack their roles naturally? What I mean is this, in the homosexual 'universe' it has always been a 'step beyond' for males to have gumption to wear high-heels and dresses and females to 'butch' in a world made for women in pink!
I am going to keep my focus narrow on the point that women should be able to advocate for women.
They should be able to call themselves women and be able to advocate for themselves without former men crashing the meetings and changing the agenda. Sometimes subgroups need to be able to determine who is in and who is out so they can advocate for themselves.
Taken to its ultimate conclusion that means white men should be able to form groups to advocate for themselves too?
I really don't know. I am still digesting images of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers storming The Capitol. If people want to band together for their common interests they should at least manage to not be spouting hate speech and planning insurrections.
'Subgroups'?
Do you want to have an organization for gay men to advocate for gay men? Then maybe you don't want transvestites who aren't gay joining the group and making the group's agenda less clear.
Our society is composed of thousands of Venn Diagrams. Groups and subgroups.
Did you think by subgroup I meant group of lesser status?
Groups come together for a purpose: Good or Bad. There are no indifferent groups.
And I am appalled to read that girls and women will let boys and men overrun them in their own lane. Just don't do it. I was out today and it is notable and remarkable that everybody I saw, crossed, and talked today, the bold, beautiful, warrior, and the ugly is here because of girl or woman. Trans-people have mothers too, you know! They should remember this 'forgotten' fact when they abuse the love women provide in this at times forsaken landscape .
Then let us distinguish between the groups with good purpose and the groups with bad purpose.
I think women who resist are being punished and quite frankly canceled.
But I don't want to come off as dismissive or phobic of the trans community. I am from NYC and there is no shortage of people testing the boundaries here. If I was at a cocktail party and the person I was chatting with for 10 minutes was trans it would all be cool. I'm retired now but if I was at work and on a team with a member of the community it would be just fine. I have been in community organization situations with trans people in leadership and they did a stellar job. I'm married now so my thought experiments end with casual engagements.
But does that mean I accept the premise that men who have decided they are now women or women who have decided they are now men are no different from biological men and women?
C'mon. We can just point to the facts.
I can understand your confusion. I have found that I do not know how to 'chat it up' with trans-females or trans-males, because interestingly enough, though I am homosexual and celibate, I do not have an 'avenue' to discuss sexuality with a trans-person anymore than I do with discussing interracial relations with a black male and a white woman. Such discussions simply do not "issue forth" of its own freewill. In transpeople can even be bad taste as it would out their persona.
That said these complex situations are going to be par for the course in the future and so some ground rules of conduct would be nice to have in place.
Thank you for bringing up this subject. There is much to discuss. I, for one, hope it can be done.
I am an older person and do not expect to control the world that comes after me. But I do think something is going awry with regard to women being able to advocate for women in the current paradigm.
My generation didn't fix the world. The current generation probably won't fix the world. And the generation to follow will probably look back at us all and give it another tweak.
First of all, WTF do transvestites have to do with this?
Secondly, WAY BACK in the 80's, gay men embraced EVERYONE who was dedicated to advocating for them. Trying to pretend that having 'allies' makes one's 'agenda less clear' is shortsighted, it has actually been a saving grace.
Well gee Lemuel, isn't the critical interpretation of nouns what your seed is all about?
Interesting that you seem to think that this is a 'new' thing. It's been ongoing for generations.
That's why they're the LGBTQ+ - they're ALL INCLUSIVE - unlike some.
"But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes."
I haven't seen women kicking and screaming at that crowd. Women are happy as 'birthing parents' and 'people seeking abortion'?
Sad to see the up votes for this seed. The author misrepresents quite a bit of the 'facts' presented.
Happy Independence Day!
Hi Dulay, I am missing something here . . . can you help me 'find' it? What is happening out there?
Here's an example of the author's misrepresentations:
The Lancet article wasn't 'on menstruation'. It was an article about an exhibition at the Vagina Museum in London, UK.
The 'other bits and bobs' weren't part of the exhibition.
Oh, and BTW, how a female author could write 'human beings who get to enjoy this monthly biological activity' about menstruation, I don't know. Never heard menstruation described as something women 'enjoy'.
Yes, I 'clocked' that too. But didn't know how in the world to process it. This one:
Left me perplexed too. As I don't get why women would be diminish or impugn their own validity. Big questions. I need help processing. . . .
The original article is behind a pay wall so I don't know if the author provided links to any of those claims.
Here's what the ACLU tweet stated in full:
I view this seed as a 'shiny object' to distract. 2 sentences about the overturning of Roe and a soliloquy on 'but we can't call ourselves women'. Pathetic.
It was sarcasm. She knows nobody enjoys menstruation.
This is the sort of discrepancy you hang your hat on??
Call yourself whatever you want.
That should be the beginning and end of it.
But it isn't the beginning and end of it. Women can't call themselves women and band together in common cause because people with a different backstory and different biologies are demanding that they be in all the same places and considered to be no different from actual women. And it has gotten to the point that institutions are reluctant to even refer to women as women.
The author rightly calls it erasure.
Discrepancy?
I see that you avoided addressing this:
You've been around long enough to know that I actually READ links and do research on sources before I comment. I hang my hat on that research.
Your author misrepresented the Lancet article she referenced [which I actually READ] in a sad attempt to bolster her 'shiny object' distraction. I find it sad that all too many swill the pablum shoveled to them without doing their own due diligence.
Then why contradict yourself with the rest of your comment?
Why don't you think that EVERYONE gets to call themselves whatever they want?
It's a TERF article and a stupid one at that. Standing up for trans-women doesn't dilute the work needed for other women's rights. It's just a way to look down at a smaller minority group to make (the author or her readers) feel superior.
There is a difference between being allowed to call yourself what you want and actually being what you want yourself to be called.
Yes. Indeed.
I noticed the same misrepresentation on another article regarding marijuana use. I noticed that was locked when the poster lost whatever argument he put forth.
Trans-women do not have uteruses.
I am going to let this article written by a biological woman advocating for biological women's concerns continue speak for itself.
(I am locking the comments.)