If there ever was evidence of the persistence of sexist double standards it’s the fact that anybody takes Konstantin Kisin seriously as an intellectual. He’s interesting when he talks about life in the Soviet Union, but he has little else to offer.
Excellent piece. You write eloquently about how girls notice things and become bewildered. A girl knows what she likes and doesn't like, but then receives negative feedback suggesting that she actually doesn't know or she wouldn't feel that way. ??? And then she further discovers that the things she is not supposed to like are admirable, and the things she is supposed to like are clearly lesser. ??? I think most girls spend their adolescence in a state of bewildered shock until they wise up to the fact that this is all meant to make them lesser creatures, when they clearly are not. And then girls find themselves wondering why anyone with an ounce of decency would want to do such a thing to another human being . . . My experience leads me to think that most women exist in a state of continual gobsmacked-ness.
On another point: Until very recently, when it was unaccountably taken down, there was a video on YouTube of Simone De Beauvoir being interviewed, and explaining about her oft-misused statement that one is not born but becomes a woman that OF COURSE she was not trying to say that sex was not real. In fact, she scoffed at the very idea. (The video used to be here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aekr9sLbVhQ )
Last, a book recommendation: "The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide." I think you'd love it.
Incredible breakdown of how feminists get blamed for noticing th every thing they critiqued. The Baron-Cohen conflation is the exact problem - taking behavioral patterns and rebranding them as sex categories just reinvents the wheel feminists were trying to dismantle. I spent years in academic spaces where people kept citing that one Beauvoir line without reading the next paragraph and the frustration is real. The pencil case story captures something important about how girls learn to spot arbitrary rules versus actual constraints, and that discernment is foundational not destructive.
I read and re-read that para in 'The Right to Sex' and it nearly broke my mind. I approached the book (some of which isn't terrible) with the attitude that 'OK, here's an actual Fellow of All Souls, this should at least be one of the best accessible explanations of the intellectual position these people hold.' And then there turned out to be.... nothing there. It's not an explanation. It's not even an argument. It's just a statement, an assertion, a credo. Which, fine - I have beliefs. But I try to practise some basic intellectual hygiene by recognising them as such. From someone in her position, this stuff is just inexcusably abject. I found it genuinely bewildering, in a Wizard of Oz behind-the-curtain kind of way. I still do.
"it’s fair to say I still see a lot of “showing the men I accept women have different brains, thereby proving MY brain is just like the men’s” in certain female commentators today"
I always want to throw them a fish, they are such good performing seals when they do this
Brilliant. So many sentences here I want to quote and memorize (of course giving credit. The difference between sex and gender is clear, and pointing this out needs doing daily. Blaming feminists for is illogical. The same persons who know that men saying they're women aren't actual women will still believe that women supporting 'trans' ideology who call themselves feminists are actual feminists. (eyeroll)
It's not. Save your brain. I've started to use "channeling Judith Butler" as a description for anything with circular reasoning, incompatible analogies, and vocabulary which is like trying to nail Jello to the wall.
To refute Konstantin Kissen is like arguing with a termite. Of course he's an idiot. And radical feminism ( whatever that means ) no more invented human socio sexual perception than anyone or any other group of lucid human beings.
Wonderful essay and also -- I am glad to learn I am not the only person who has that 80s Transformers jingle permanently embedded in my brain squiggles.
The framing of atypical behaviour with respect to sexual stereotypes as “gender” is a modern and totally malign one. Feminists were not the first to challenge the norms, and neither till the rise of Butler and similar maniacs did feminists (to my knowledge) name sexually atypical behaviour as “gender”, and shoehorn into a ton of crackpot theory as a smokescreen for autogynephile men.
If there ever was evidence of the persistence of sexist double standards it’s the fact that anybody takes Konstantin Kisin seriously as an intellectual. He’s interesting when he talks about life in the Soviet Union, but he has little else to offer.
Excellent piece. You write eloquently about how girls notice things and become bewildered. A girl knows what she likes and doesn't like, but then receives negative feedback suggesting that she actually doesn't know or she wouldn't feel that way. ??? And then she further discovers that the things she is not supposed to like are admirable, and the things she is supposed to like are clearly lesser. ??? I think most girls spend their adolescence in a state of bewildered shock until they wise up to the fact that this is all meant to make them lesser creatures, when they clearly are not. And then girls find themselves wondering why anyone with an ounce of decency would want to do such a thing to another human being . . . My experience leads me to think that most women exist in a state of continual gobsmacked-ness.
On another point: Until very recently, when it was unaccountably taken down, there was a video on YouTube of Simone De Beauvoir being interviewed, and explaining about her oft-misused statement that one is not born but becomes a woman that OF COURSE she was not trying to say that sex was not real. In fact, she scoffed at the very idea. (The video used to be here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aekr9sLbVhQ )
Last, a book recommendation: "The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide." I think you'd love it.
I've not heard of that title. It looks fantastic. Thanks for recommending!
Incredible breakdown of how feminists get blamed for noticing th every thing they critiqued. The Baron-Cohen conflation is the exact problem - taking behavioral patterns and rebranding them as sex categories just reinvents the wheel feminists were trying to dismantle. I spent years in academic spaces where people kept citing that one Beauvoir line without reading the next paragraph and the frustration is real. The pencil case story captures something important about how girls learn to spot arbitrary rules versus actual constraints, and that discernment is foundational not destructive.
I read and re-read that para in 'The Right to Sex' and it nearly broke my mind. I approached the book (some of which isn't terrible) with the attitude that 'OK, here's an actual Fellow of All Souls, this should at least be one of the best accessible explanations of the intellectual position these people hold.' And then there turned out to be.... nothing there. It's not an explanation. It's not even an argument. It's just a statement, an assertion, a credo. Which, fine - I have beliefs. But I try to practise some basic intellectual hygiene by recognising them as such. From someone in her position, this stuff is just inexcusably abject. I found it genuinely bewildering, in a Wizard of Oz behind-the-curtain kind of way. I still do.
"it’s fair to say I still see a lot of “showing the men I accept women have different brains, thereby proving MY brain is just like the men’s” in certain female commentators today"
I always want to throw them a fish, they are such good performing seals when they do this
Brilliant as usual, a forensic takedown of the blizzard of challenges to feminist analysis.
Brilliant. So many sentences here I want to quote and memorize (of course giving credit. The difference between sex and gender is clear, and pointing this out needs doing daily. Blaming feminists for is illogical. The same persons who know that men saying they're women aren't actual women will still believe that women supporting 'trans' ideology who call themselves feminists are actual feminists. (eyeroll)
Some of the people you quote hurt my brain. I'm going to have to reread this not to understand you, but rather them - assuming that's possible!
It's not. Save your brain. I've started to use "channeling Judith Butler" as a description for anything with circular reasoning, incompatible analogies, and vocabulary which is like trying to nail Jello to the wall.
To refute Konstantin Kissen is like arguing with a termite. Of course he's an idiot. And radical feminism ( whatever that means ) no more invented human socio sexual perception than anyone or any other group of lucid human beings.
Wonderful essay and also -- I am glad to learn I am not the only person who has that 80s Transformers jingle permanently embedded in my brain squiggles.
“More than meets the eye!”
The framing of atypical behaviour with respect to sexual stereotypes as “gender” is a modern and totally malign one. Feminists were not the first to challenge the norms, and neither till the rise of Butler and similar maniacs did feminists (to my knowledge) name sexually atypical behaviour as “gender”, and shoehorn into a ton of crackpot theory as a smokescreen for autogynephile men.
Conflating the two is not clever.
Out of respectful curiosity: who do you consider to have been the first to challenge gender stereotypes?