23 / 12 / 08
Gender is a *pivotal* concept in every feminism theory.
Gender was used to refer languages' grammatical features, also known as, masculine, feminine and neutral words. Gender is also sometime used by people to indicate sex, to avoid embarrassed.
*After 1960s*, gender was adopted by feminists to explain difference between women and men. According to them, sex is biologically difference between male and female, while gender refers to externally socially imposed behaviour norms to educating female to be different from male, especially against whose will. ( So in #Ayano 's opinion, gender has a negative meaning inside.)
So for feminism, gender is:
1. Externally imposed behaviour norms with morally arbitrary.
2. Represent a caste system where male over female.
3. A process of socialising Male to be aggressive (or be "manly"), Female to be submissive (or be "girly")
Therefore, it is clear that presenting gender behaviour norm is a hierarchy value system, where female are trained by social norms to be submissive, while male are encouraged to be curiously adventure.
Then, for those who've NOT been imposed to an unwilling position, they thought:
1. Gender oppression is FALSE
2. Gender hierarchy is FALSE
AUTHOR: Queer feminism not only doesn't acknowledge gender oppression, but also assert that the bane of gender inequality is a belief that there's only 2 genders.
For RF: to destroy the gender (social norms) at all.
For Queer: to build more gender forks. (?)
#Ayano :
To destroy gender or building more gender forks are the same, so this is not AUTHOR's core concern. What most important is [[aeon_2016_Rebecca Reilly-Cooper_Gender is not a spectrum#What Gender is and What Gender is NOT.|Gender's reproductive function]]
Author used an analogy to explain it.
Just like height of people, almost no one could tell themselves as TALL person or SHORT person, most of them are at average height. aka non-binary height people.
So does gender, no one could say that they are absolutely Masculine or Feminine. So everyone could be regarded as non-binary.
So, creating non binary is, as author acclaimed, creating a new false binary system dividing non-binary and non-non binary aka cis-gender.
Besides, author argued that being a pansexual is impossible, because no one could be feminine and masculine at the same time. According to her, a pure masculine and a pure feminine, whatever the define is, are opposite of each other. ( #Ayano disagree with this, this imply AUTHOR thought a person should be stable, linear and still. 人不能由对立的部分组成吗？未必吧。不要小觑了人的张力。)
As above mentioned, feminism believe that gender represent a hierarchy system, placing female and male into different social roles arbitrarily.
So, AUTHOR consider:
GENDER IS NOT: a taste of preference or fancy personality which adopted by nonbinary.com
GERDER BUT IS: A value system that ties behaviours and characteristics to reproduction function.
Under such a system, AUTHOR herself absolutely want to be regarded other than just a woman, a domestic housewife, a sex gratification. AKA transcend the socially constructed stereotype.
While gender self identity seems solve that problem but factually NOT. No one would stop calling AUTHOR as a woman if AUTHOR called herself agender.
According to Author,
A transsexual is someone who has dysphoria and distress on their sexed body.
A transgender is just someone, yet content with their body, but still self identity themselves as opposite sex.
As for transgender's birth assigned gender theory,
As no one ever know if they are feminine or masculine when they are born, so no one is ever a binary at birth. Everyone should have the free will to live as they want, free from being imposed by external norms.
If gender = spectrum:
then: everyone = binary ( #Ayano they are not the same, binary is just a category here)
aka no one = cis-gender
#Ayano so who makes the term cis?
And unsatisfactorily,
The thought that gender is a spectrum
1. Obscure the reality of gender oppression
2. Erase and invalidate the experience of transsexual people.
Gender is a value system that says there're two types of personality, determined by the reproductive organs you were born with.
Both sexes' developments are constrained by it.
Against rigid category around sexes.
RadFem won't stop anyone from defining themselves in ways that make sense to them, or expressing their personality in ways they find enjoyable and liberating. But problem emerges when someone starts demanding that others call themselves cisgender.
Why rage against cis-gender label?
A kind of reaction of who turn from subject to the others. ( by #Ayano )
Author disagree that so-called cisgender are pure masculine or feminine. ( by AUTHOR )
Cis-gender for transgender is a concept as "others" towards "us". non-binary define themselves based on binary cis gender. They can't tell what they exactly mean without using term cis-gender. (by AUTHOR)
Personality is a spectrum but gender is not a spectrum, changing your identity as any sex or gender won't help alleviating imposed gender value structure, but intensify it.
The solution is not to reify gender by insisting on ever more gender categories that define the complexity of human personality in rigid and essentialist ways. The solution is to abolish gender altogether. We do not need gender. We would be better off without it.