Taking a breif break from porn myth debunking for this...

“Deflecting our criticisms with aspersions upon our character is an ad hominem attack writ large. When your entire argument rests upon insults, you’ve lost the debate. When your entire argument is “look at the tear-stained face”, you never had an argument to begin with. When your entire argument presupposes an assumption which you never bothered to prove, — child, you are a fucking fool.”

Okay then, fool, step up!

First, go on over and read the whole (long, insult ladden) post quoted there. Then come on back over here and sit for a spell…I mean, I'm pretty sure I've already logic-ed this woman into an early grave, but what the hell, my body wax isn't until 2.

Now, read that quote again. See, I’ve already stated that mAndrea fails the logic litmus test due to her over use of insults and emotionally charged language, because using such is designed to incite emotions rather than logic…then, oddly enough, she goes on (see the quote), to say more or less the same thing herself, yet do it anyway. As for the “tear stained face”, well, she’s using one of those too. In this case, the crying girls on the other end are ciswomen. Amber, where is your “fail” stamp? But, let us continue…

But really, did she just call people from the other side of the reality fence…vanilla? Hahahahaaaha! Oh shit, I think I just ruptured something!

Anyway…mAndrea rambles on about how the end all goal is to do away with gender. I’ve heard many-a-feminist state that this is the end goal- no gender. She actually makes some (minor) sense here. However, she forgets three important things: One, we are not there yet, and here in the really real world, people still have to live and function. Two, transpeople do a great deal to dismantle gender and it’ stereotypes. Three, “non-vanilla” (ha, I can’t help it) feminists do a whole hell of a lot to hold up constructed gender roles.

Oh wait, did I just actually make that accusation? Why yes, I did. Why?

Well, if you look around and some of those pervy, non-vanilla feminist blogs, rarely, if ever, will you see any discussion whatsoever about the biological differences between male and female. Why? Because often, it is unecessary. We all know there are differences; different parts, different sizes, different *and varying* hormone levels, different generalized appearance related and external characteristics. This is proven scientific fact. No need to debate. However…if that’s really where it all, for the most part, ends, and everything else is a gender construct, well then…

When these non-vanilla feminists go on about the uniqueness of sisterhood, women’s ability to love and nurture in a manner superior to men, womens greater emotional depth, how men are just more violent, and emotionally stunted…are they not feeding, rather than dismantling, gender stereotypes? I mean, there is no real scientific proof that women are any more “connected” or possess greater natural depth or any other such thing: those are all based out of gender stereotypes and assumptions…stereotypes and assumptions that are predicated on…you guessed it…historical gender roles dictated by…biology.

Now wait, wait, I am not getting all evo-psyche or MRA on ya here…I am pointing out historical fact and biological truth in historical context. Fact is, back in the day, men, due to their (generally) larger physical sizes and higher levels of strength…well, it worked best when they picked up the heavy shit, you know? Which lent itself well to men doing more physical labor, buidling things, fighting in wars, so on. This doesn’t even mean they necessarily did it better, but they sure as hell did it faster, and when the option of roof or no roof on the hut before night/rain fall was a factor, speed counted. Even in the earliest stages of capital economies (right on down to present day), how fast labor could be done? It mattered. And as it was, men could do that stuff faster. Which, you know, put women into other roles…namely care-taker, primary educator, social, and domestic ones. This is no ones fault…its biology, and out of that biology, sprang forth gender roles and all that comes with them.

But, ah yes, with the rise of technology (thank you military, and apparently, porn!), women can do a lot of stuff previously, due to biology, they couldn’t before. A woman can use a fork lift. A woman can drive a tractor. A woman can format the guidence system on a bomb. A woman can pilot a ship or plane (though, after watching Deadliest Catch, I still think the men would have us beat on throwing those dang evil crab pots all over the place…sheesh!) And either way, this is not good or bad, it is based on those biological differences no one is arguing about. Men are larger and stronger as a general rule, and thus, historically, more adept at picking up heavy shit…which lent itself well towards different kinds of labor than the labor that women did. And thus, because one biolgical sex did some sorts of things, and the other did other sorts of things, almost exclusively, for such a long time…well all this played into the concept of gender, and gender roles, and ideas such as “women are better at child-rearing and more emotionally adept” and “men are better at construction and more aggresive”…which are still around today. Even on non-vanilla feminist blogs. Which really has nothing to do with internal wiring or actual emotional variance, but with some very simple things: Biologically we are different…women have babies, men have an easier time picking up heavy shit.

Simple, ain’t it?

Still with me? Well yeah, despite this very simple (and 100% logical) theory, there is still a whole lot of gender bianary reinforcement on non-vanilla feminst blogs. And why is that? Well, because even as much as they might want to dismantle gender…they cling to some aspects of it, because patriarchy and opression and other assorted bullshit aside, well, either there really are other differences, or the supposed differences that are stereotyped/hardwired/culturally driven into our brains? Well, some of them (namely the ones you see them talking about) are…cool. I mean, being considered sisterly or nuturing or caring? That’s not a bad thing, is it? Especially when the other side gets things like “violent” or “emotionally stunted”? Oh, I can see why certain memebers of the tribe cling to that shit…

So then, how and where does this play into the transperson thing? Well, on one side…the vanilla feminist one, it doesn’t, because…ahem…we’ve evolved past all that shit mentioned, and are big on ID as you want, do to/with your body as you want, and live as how works best for you. When our momma's told us you could grow up to be anything you wanted, we believed them. You can blame tech and porn if you want, but if that really neat woman over there also happens to be able to pick up heavy shit? I don’t care, and I don’t assume she’s trying to fuck me, co-opt me, or bring down tribe womyn (a gender construct of its own, really…based more on ideology than biology…after all, I’m cis, as are a lot of other women, and we’ve been tossed out. more or less, for being male identified or male centric or whatever…and none of us have penises, except for the strap on kind…and is not such concept, in and of itself…gender based?) I mean, I tend to think that some people, regardless of biology, are more caring or nutruing than others, some people, regardless of biology, are more aggressive or violent than others, and these things play out very differently because of our social and gender conditioning, but it does not change that some people are more (insert adjective here) than others. Hell, aggression is a good example: Men are often more physically aggressive than women are, because society says that’s the way men are. Women, however, are no less aggressive, they just manifest it in different ways.

She then goes on about how transpeople are the patriarchy’s subversion wing or something (dammit, I thought that was my job) and how a transwoman (who, in every way except via biology, are women and ID as women) are enforcing gender norms for wanting female bodies. Hum. Okay. First off, I want fucking cybernetics! Talk about fucking with gender! But, more imporantly…

How many times have we heard this? “Transwomen will never know what its like to have a womb, to birth babies, to breastfeed, to have…gah…PMS! They won’t ever be real women!” Yep, sure enough, those things are biological. They are also things many cis-women cannot, due to biology, do. And hey, sure enough, sooner or later, due to biology…no woman, cis or not, can do those things. Does it make them not women…or do their feelings and all that gooey internal stuff deem that they still are?

???

I’d say the same stuff, that emotion and gooey internal stuff, applies to transwomen as well. If having ones tubes tied does not revoke her woman card…hell, I assume you follow me here. You’d have to be an idiot not to. And shit, for folk who are so tied up in fighting gender…as those non-vanilla feminist sure seem, in a shit ton of ways, they are tied to it. And it is those women who mAndera is using as “the crying girls”. I reckon the rest of us? We don’t really give a shit, we’re just happy when people are as comfortable as they can be. My identity, my status as a woman, my place in the world and in life are not at all threatened by transpeople. Not in the least.

And now, a brief bit on transphobia. Our author there, mAndrea, claims not to be transphoic, but she betrays herself a bit. Phobia means fear. And while she may not be afraid of transperson X walking down the street…she does appear to be afraid…afraid of them co-opting feminism, womanhood, whatever, and that is, via the word's definition, fear. And hey, just for the hell of it, to round out the bingo card and all: Humm, fear of people. History for ya. Europe. The 30’s. Hey, those Jews/Gypsies/Slavs/Disabled People/Homosexuals/ Dark People…they’re different from us. They do things we don’t get. We think they are strange. But dammit, they are mixing into our culture, getting some acceptance, making some money, living their lives, just like us. Fuck, they're getting somewhat normalized! What can we do?

Hey, you claim to be a feminazi, sooner or later, someone will draw the seemingly appropriate parallels for you. Hate is hate, lady.

But what do I know? Even if I am being logical, I’m still just a pornified, male identified, cis woman who wants to be…a cyborg.