ableism – GenderTerror

The Tokenization of Relationships

“But I have Black friends!” “My cousin is gay.” “That’s not true! My uncle is transgender!” We’ve all seen it before, the tokenization of relationships in order to prove a fact. Someone with friends, relatives, or ever partners who belong to a marginalized community cannot be against that community or hold ideas that are oppressive against them, right? Of course they can. The tokenization of relationships to prove a point even solidifies this point. How?

We’re all the same.

By saying you are friends, related to, partners with, etc. X marginalized group and thus cannot hold beliefs that harm other members of the group, you are saying that all members of the group are like your friend, family member, partner, etc. This is erasive and simplification of the complexity and variance of the group. In order for you to be supportive of the entire group, you are saying their identities and lives are just like that of the person you know.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

This tokenization also uses said relationship as an object, proving that there is nothing you can do or say that would be problematic because you have some relationship to this marginalized group and they have never said anything. This goes back to the fact that it holds the idea that these groups are all the same and cannot hold varying, let alone conflicting ideas or beliefs. If one person of a group believes something, all other beliefs must be incorrect. Interesting how this only applies to the ones who agree with the person who is defending their actions, beliefs, thoughts, etc.

Continue reading “The Tokenization of Relationships”

Trans Exclusionary ‘Radical’ Feminists Aren’t That Radical

Radical feminists…:

Believe that society must be changed at its core in order to dissolve patriarchy, not just through acts of legislation…Radical feminists believe that the domination of women is the oldest and worst kind of oppression in the world. They believe this because it spans across the world oppressing women of different races, ethnicities, classes and cultures. Radical feminists want to free both men and women from the rigid gender roles that society has imposed upon them. It is this sex-gender system that has created oppression and radical feminist’s mission is to overthrow this system by any possible means. (Source)

Sounds pretty wonderful, I mean, it’s the basis of feminism and got its start in the 1960’s. Radical feminism is what started the push for women’s rights, especially the critical idea of patriarchy and how women are oppressed in society. While there are various subgroups and various definitions of radical feminism, they all believe in one thing; changing society and getting rid of the patriarchy thus, ending the oppression of women.

By most notions, any feminist could be considered radical if they wish to change society at its core and how it functions, especially in regards to how women are treated through gender stereotypes, gender roles, and how society views its definitions of gender. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, in summary, believe that trans women are men, trans men are women (and especially traitors), that trans women rape the bodies of cis women for existing, and that being a woman is not an identity. Many of them harbor the idea of shared girlhood, which is the notion that there is a universal narrative that is experienced by all female assigned at birth people, something that trans women will never understand. These women and their supporters actively lobby against trans-inclusive health care, protections, and basic rights. However, trans people are not the only ones they harm in their crusades.

However, when it comes to TERFs and their beliefs as well as their approaches, there is something unradical about them. In essence, they support the patriarchy and how it oppresses women.

TW: Rape, TERFs, transphobia, transmisogyny, misogyny, sexism

Continue reading “Trans Exclusionary ‘Radical’ Feminists Aren’t That Radical”

The Myth of Slacktivism

A ‘slacktivist’ is someone who chooses to do all or most of their activist work through online mediums such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on. These people are often disregarded as lesser and lazy activists when compared to those who are able to do activism work offline. For example, UrbanDictionary.com defines slacktivism as, “The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem”. The example given is people signing online petitions as opposed to getting involved in neighborhood watches or other offline activities. The concept of ‘slacktivism’ and that people who focus their ideas online are ‘slacktivists’ is extremely problematic and downplays the importance and reach of online activism.

The idea of slacktivism is rooted in ableism. Not everyone has the ability to mentally or physically engage in activism offline. For example, someone who has to deal with social anxiety may not be able to attend marches or large gatherings. Someone who suffers from a pain disorder may not be able to walk in marches or stand for long periods of time. Implying that people who participate in online activism are inherently lazy, ignores the fact that some of these people may not be able to physically attend activist events, no matter how much they want to. These people do important work in the ways they can, such as online work that is so quickly discredited without thinking about the reasons someone may not be able to attend or do offline work.

The idea of slackitvism is also classist. I live in an area with no public transportation. There is no way for me to attend many meetings, marches, and so one without a ride. The idea that people who participate in online activism have the means to travel or to take time off of work in order to participate in offline work is classist. For example, people may not be able to take off work in order to attend offline events and thus may spend valuable and limited free time doing online work. For people in areas with limited resources, the closest areas that have a large enough resource pool may be hours away. These people may not have the resources in order to set up their own grassroots organizations or the money and time to travel and thus, resort to online activism in order to be a part of events and causes they feel are important to them.

Continue reading “The Myth of Slacktivism”

#DearCisFeminism

Trigger Warning: Trans*phobia, transmisogyny

Following trends like #CognitiveCissonance and #FuckCisPeople, #DearCisFeminism has quickly been spreading like rapid fire across Twitter. This hashtag, like the others, is to call into question the double standards that feminism has towards its acceptance of hateful and oppressive ideology while pushing trans* people, especially trans women, out of the picture. Tweets covered broad topics anywhere from the dominance of butch/masculine people in feminist discourse (while rejecting femme/feminine people as upholding the patriarchy), the refusal to call out TERFs (like Brennan) on their misogynistic and bigoted statements, and how cis feminism often ignores women of color, sex workers, the poor, and others while focusing on their own middle class white cis needs.

Continue reading “#DearCisFeminism”