[a sign reads FEMINIST CONFERENCE next to a closed door, a blue character shrugs and says…]
I don’t care
[next to the same door, the sign now says RESTRICTED FEMINIST CONFERENCE WOMEN ONLY, there are now four blue characters desperately banging on the door, one is reduced to tears on the floor, they are shouting]
DISCRIMINATION
SO UNFAIR!!!
LET US IINN!!
MISANDRY
I’m going to skip the meta-conversation and tactic you used. I don’t think they clarify or further the discussion about why women would want a conference without men.
Regarding natalism, I skipped it not because it was emotional, but it was tangential and unclear in how it was related to the specific topic. Again, I have nothing against emotions playing into one’s politics.
This is only true if you fail to understand the internal needs of the segregated group. In this case, it is to regain power in themselves and through connection to others who get it. This subverts any empathy gap that could happen. When a cancer survivor group meets, I don’t ever know what it was like having had cancer. But I can provide an empathetic space to understand that:
If the only result you care about is how it effects out-groups, then you misunderstand how healing and political movements are created at the earliest stages. How do you think political movements are formed if not in small groups meeting privately?
Women are historically oppressed minorities. Patriarchal systems caused their oppression. Who are the dis-empowered non-woman that are being disenfranchised?
Much of this particulars are covered in the long history of feminism. Recounting it all would take several books. Staying with in the confines of one or strain will help guide the discussion. What feminist literature have you read? Who are your guiding lights in the movement? That will dissipate the vagueness. There may not be one single definition, but the contours for disagreement move from a blob to specific corners of concern. I’m asking for these because if you view these goals as ‘religious,’ it suggests you are unfamiliar with the specific, material policy work and labor history that defines the movement. There is nothing inherently wrong with not being familiar with the field in specificity.
So in sum, I’d like to hear:
No, its a documented and highly scientifically backed effect.
Its not the only effect that I care about but I do care about it.
Political movements are value neutral, or at least subjectively perceived as good or bad depending on who you ask about which movement.
If you want to say that the harmful in-group & out-group effects are a worthwhile sacrifice to achieve other ends, that’s one claim I could see as understandable but I would want to know the specifics of what the actual end goal(s) is/are before I’d support it. Further, the main way a political movement actually grows and achieves positive things is to broaden their support typically. If they lean into leveraging power they might have over a majority they’re using might makes right logic. I can certainly see the utility of that if you view the majority as stupid or evil and I’ll even admit these days its hard not to feel that way given the state of my country. At that point though I don’t even see the point other than cynical power games.
NB’s & men who fall into disenfranchised categories like bipoc, lgbt, homeless/impoverished/working class, and probably most relevant to gender issues is the neurodiverse male population. Not to mention that creating an exclusively women space can attract TERFs, where they can spread their bullshit more efficiently by leaning into the in-group & out-group effects.
Women’s issues is gender issues. Gender is like any social construct, its defined by relationships and collective beliefs.
My feminism? I was critiquing the feminism you are defending that would justify an exclusionary in-group. I’m suspicious of why you’d want to ask.
If you must know, I tend to agree with Xenofeminism. Its the form of feminism that embraces rationalism, any consistent Xenofeminist would agree with me here.