mans best friend is still a dog tho #genderEssentialism

I think one reason we have idyllic, nostalgic memories of #childhood (specifically pre-puberty) is that gender roles hit us in the face at some point after that.

Both boys and girls can (if all goes well) be seen as fun, innocent, nonsexual, cool little creatures. Then when they start to look, sound or act more like sexually mature people...

Boys: Aw, what a cool kid --> Fucking asshole, potential aggressor

Girls: Aw, what a cool kid --> Piece of meat, potential sexual target

This relatively sudden shift in public response pushes people toward particular behavior patterns and reduces options. It limits freedom to be things other than what the world insists you are or a reaction to that. We (I mean USAians, I guess) don't get to exist in a world without those pressures and influences on our thinking and behavior.

Both men and women participate in the sudden flip; it's not just men treating women like sexual objects, and it's not just women treating men like abusers/attackers waiting to happen. It's not the same, and it's not equal, but patriarchy fucks everyone up in some way, and almost everyone also participates in the upfuckening.

I've spent the past 25-odd years thinking about this from the standpoint of a sexual aggression/abuse researcher, and I always come back to "culture" as a massive influence. #Culture is a lot of things, varying over time/geography/groups, tangled into a gordian knot. Untying that has always seemed daunting, to say the least.

And that was when the dominant institutions in the US and other countries were dedicated to reducing the harmful effects of hegemonic gender role norms. Now... fuck. Some days it seems pretty damn hopeless.

I have to believe it's not hopeless, though, or there's no point even trying.

#TootIntoTheVoid #TootMeansFart #GenderRoles #GenderEssentialism #fascism

This original video was arbitrarily taken down, so Talis Adler re-uploaded it , and I've updated the link below.

gender wars part 2: electric boogaloo
Talis Adler
‪#talistheintrovert
#Culture #Politics #SocialJustice #Economics #EconomicJustice #Healthcare #ReproductiveRights #Feminism #Womanism #Trans #Patriarchy #GenderEssentialism #ColonialViolence #Capitalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9oo8iXzug0

Conspiracy Theories We Aren't Falling For
#ParkrosePermaculture
#Culture #Politics #Misogynoir #GenderEssentialism #whiteSupremacy #ScientificRacism #ReSegregation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9gnQfpm_fY

Cis women have been duped into infighting with our trans and GNC sisters. By policing each other’s gender expression, we’re doing men’s dirty work for them.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/the-patriarchy-has-a-secret-weapon-women-4d386a6e75c1

#LGBTQ #Gender #GenderExpression #GenderEssentialism #Feminism #Patriarchy

Gender essentialism-hating herd of cows :)

#memes #tumblr #genderEssentialism

"Try as they might to wrap themselves in the antifascist flag, though, these activists are hailing a decision that represents a ghoulish culmination of fascistic 'family values' agitation in women’s name—something it achieves by stomping on a tiny, ultra-vulnerable minority."

#trans #UK #gender #women #GenderEssentialism #authoritarianism
/2

"The UK Supreme Court’s transphobic ruling on the definition of 'woman' last week is a defeat for all women—even, ultimately, the self-described feminists celebrating it, and the women who will gain in the short term from their alliance with the carceral state."

~ Sophie Lewis

#trans #UK #gender #women #GenderEssentialism #authoritarianism
/1

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-trans-ruling-analysis-uk/

John Lithgow is Laundering J. K. Rowling's Transphobia
Jessie Gender
@jessiegender
#TERF #Trans #GenderEssentialism #RacialEssentialism #whiteSupremacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCucS571588

Are there any more folks with scientific credentials in my timeline with who want to claim Diversity Equity and Inclusion is based on invalid assumptions, is ethically wrong, and demonstrably harmful to society?

If you believe in the pursuit of truth, then why the centuries of intellectual dishonestly and utter cowardice? Why the lies and violence when you could stand up on your hind legs and prove what you say is true?

Where is the new validation of scientific sexism, racialization, eugenics?

I mean, it seems odd that not a single person beating the drum of #whiteness, #patriarchy and European Male superiority today, has ever disclosed peer-reviewed evidence and summarily ended all argument.
#BlackMastodon #Science #Ethics #Politics #SocialJustice #RacialEssentialism #GenderEssentialism

I take except to Prof. Stanley's characterization of the deliberate structure of race and gender hierarchy as a thing of the past, and we now just face a few bad actors and habitual cultural beliefs.

That conflicts with a reality where skin-whitening is a worldwide multi-billion $USD industry in soaps, creams, drugs, cosmetics and a deeply engrained antipathy for everyone with dark skin and specifically people of African descent.

“Erasing History” from the U.S. to Germany: “Wars Are Won by Teachers”
#DemocracyNow #BlackMastodon #Trans #Culture #History #Education #EconomicJustice #RacialEssentialism #GenderEssentialism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoOrkNbNctI&t=28s

“Crack-Up Capitalism”
Historian Quinn Slobodian on #Trump, #Vance, #Musk and the Movement to “Shatter” the State
#DemocracyNow! #Culture #Politics #Economics #Eugenics #Racialization #RaceEssentialism #GenderEssentialism #Hierarchy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIPWekMahXc

How the Alt-Right Made Gender Essentialism Worse
#CheyenneLin #Feminism #whiteFeminism #Gender #GenderEssentialism #Patriarchy #AltRight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urln2oSEXDU

I generally have no serious complaints about the writing of #LouisePenny (the overuse of "bemused" in one novel and some unexplored ignorance about behavioral science notwithstanding). She tells a particular kind of story really well, and her books are page-turners. She's sensitive--sometimes maybe too much, but that's OK--to marginalized identities, etc.

But Clara's Nibling Bean? I'm holding off on final judgment, but right now I just heard the narrative voice declare that the child had a nonbinary identity because a parent forced them into it as a power play against the grandparents, along with what felt like an insistence on binary identities (e.g., framing discussion of the child's gender as "are you a boy or a girl?").

Withholding judgment to the end of the book, because Penny has more than once set up a frame of apparent intolerance as a setting to demonstrate character growth and increased understanding.

Don't be a JK, Ms. Louise. We have enough Rowlings.

#writers #lgbtqia #nonbinary #DontMakeMeComeBackThere #BeCool #please #GenderEssentialism #fiction

Racialized gender stereotypes harm Cis and Trans Black Women.

"With all of this I got, you think I look like a man because of my hair cut?" #BlackMastodon #PatriarchalStereotypes #Misogynoir #GenderEssentialism
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h84M7l5LrSY

@grvsmth

It was by no means an exhaustive search, but here are three sources that helped me with this:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/no-existence-of-trans-people-doesn-t-validate-gender-essentialism/

https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/effects-gender-neuroessentialism-transprejudice-experimental-study

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_essentialism

Definitely a focus on countering essentialism, but I can see space in the concept for some trans folks to have an essentialist aspect to their personal experiences of gender identity.

#GenderEssentialism
#TransIdentities

@grvsmth Thank-you for the reminder. I didn't understand what you meant at first, so I did a bit of reading on essentialism as it relates to trans identities and paths.

What a rich and amazing variety there is!

I will look for language that avoids built-in assumptions when talking about this stuff.

#GenderEssentialism
#TransIdentities