I understand what you’re saying, but the difference between having an extremely limited amount of male privilege due to others identifying you as male, as opposed to being actively oppressed by that same society via sexist oppression, is huge. It literally IS two sides of one coin—not because nature draws a firm line…

Sure they’re not in a position to take advantage of it equally, because not all male-bodied people can or wish to embody hegemonic masculinity equally. That doesn’t automatically mean they encounter sexism in the way women do, or experience sexist oppression in the way women do, though. It means they have less male…

I don’t know what you mean. at all.

I think trans women are excluded from the privilege of being a man who fits the box of what a man is supposed to be—of being a hegemonic male in the correct way. True. However, I think that’s pretty separate from male privilege, which is literally just about having a male [or male-seeming] body. Obviously that’s a…

Sure, I get that. Except that instead of taking the perfectly logical step of explaining to children, especially girls, exactly what the dangers are and then signing them up for self-defense and arming them with pepper spray and tasers, we keep them ignorant and claim it’s for their sake. We teach them about stranger…

Who said I’m not talking to you? I’ll talk to you. You’re allowed to talk here.

Maybe? I bet it depended significantly on which branch of Christianity. This is interesting, actually. Do you have a citation?

For sure. Well—I think she’s doing good work where FGM is concerned, but hopefully using these nasty political influences to do it. However, yeah, participating in racism is never an okay thing.

and I call it both. People are complicated and there are no heroes. She can be doing good work and still be working with the Right. It’s possible.

Thanks for sharing your experience, but I don’t think you really understand how deep sexism goes. Women compete for men’s attention because of how sexism has influenced us to behave, not because of some innate wish or impulse. Without the competition for scarce resources that sexism initiates, women would stop…

This is so a thing! I wasn’t allowed to walk down the damn street by myself until I was almost ten years old, wasn’t allowed to cross the street when shopping with my mother until I was twelve...and then as a teenager, I found the world intimidating and overwhelming, and my parents were like, why don’t you go out with…

I think children, especially girls, need to be taught very early on that they have control over their bodies, they can and should run from situations that feel uncomfortable—and just generally that they have bodily autonomy and boundaries that deserve respect. I think we need to explain to kids what can happen, in…

I understand. Honestly, it reminds me of nothing so much as mothers in the U.S. starving or way over-exercising their daughters thin—so their daughters will be less attractive to rapists, more attractive to the right kinds of men, seem less promiscuous, etc.

I completely agree, and I think it’s important that you pointed that out.

Right-and we stopped doing that when we stopped having castratos singing in Rome i.e. literally centuries ago.

True, and I think it’s great you pointed that out. It’s also important though to point out that trans women did have male privilege prior to identifying and living as trans women, and that can influence a person into not recognizing sexism in themselves or in others.

I sort of agree with you, but not about telling Rebel Girl to call what happened to her FGM if it helps. Do NOT do that. It is like calling the grief you feel after your father dies “trauma.” It is NOT trauma, not medically or psychologically, and mislabeling your experience actually marginalizes all those who…

WORD and didn’t FGM become a thing for “hysterical” women and girls for a while, and/or women diagnosed as neurotic?

You mean before it was popular in the West already, since it was originally a Jewish practice [a Western culture] and then became a Christian practice [a Western culture] and then a Muslim practice [a Western culture]?

yeah and circumcision was originally [to Jews, of which I am one] about cementing one’s covenant with god...i.e. it was a sign of HONOR, not a requirement for one to be deemed good or worthy. It was like-a way to symbolize the godliness of men.