dreamer_easy (
dreamer_easy) wrote2008-12-17 09:29 am
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Food for thought
I said: Discussing the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival recently, which has long excluded transwomen who don't "share the experience of growing up under patriarchy", I wondered if I'd qualify as a woman by that definition, lacking so many female experiences: never been raped, never experienced intimate violence, never been pregnant. For that matter, I've only worn makeup a handful of times.
Multiple commenters remarked that rape was not "part of being female" and one disputed that "most women have been raped". Now the confusion is partly my fault for being unclear, so I've clarified what I meant in the comments - that rape is an experience of a large proportion of women "under patriarchy". But think about this: why were the only objections to the mention of rape? Why didn't anyone argue pregnancy is not an automatic part of being female,or dispute that "most women have been bashed by a boyfriend or husband"?
Multiple commenters remarked that rape was not "part of being female" and one disputed that "most women have been raped". Now the confusion is partly my fault for being unclear, so I've clarified what I meant in the comments - that rape is an experience of a large proportion of women "under patriarchy". But think about this: why were the only objections to the mention of rape? Why didn't anyone argue pregnancy is not an automatic part of being female,
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For what it's worth, transwomen do get a lot of that shit. They may not have grown up under it, having the outward appearance of boys, but then again they might have been constantly bashed for being sissy boys. When they start putting on the outward appearance of women, with or without surgery, they have to put up with the same crap that the rest of us do -- sexual harassment, discrimination in the workplace, pressure to conform to female beauty standards.
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(Also, most people are more aware of men being raped than becoming pregnant, possibly leading to a reading of childbearing not as 'female-necessity' as 'female-exclusive'. A guess, anyway.)
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But I think the objection (at least on my part) comes from the repulsive nature of rape. I certainly *hope* it's not part of most womens' experience, and in my own experience, I've known few women who've had that experience. (At least, few that admitted to it. At least two or three have had unpleasant dating experiences that might be considered rape under the broadest definition of the term.)
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