I apologize for returning so quickly to the cesspool that is The Spearhood, but I felt the need to note how head Spearheader WF Price celebrated Mothers’ Day this year: with an attack on trans* women that probably deserves a TRIGGER WARNING for its nastiness and ignorance.
Responding to an Op-Ed in the New York Times by author Jennifer Finley Boylan reflecting on her experience as a mother who also happens to be a trans* woman, Price lashes out at what he describes as
men who reject everything about masculinity. Men who reject it so much that they chop off their genitalia and take female hormones in order to eradicate everything male about them.
You may recall A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam making a similarly transphobic “argument” about the alleged motivations of trans* women a couple of years back.
After this general attack on trans* women, Price narrows his aim a bit, attacking those trans* women who have the chutzpah to declare themselves mothers, focusing his wrath on Boylan in particular:
One of these stalwart, self-mutilating individuals – a “former” male who goes by the name Jennifer Finley Boylan – has declared that he’s every bit the mother as any woman. … If we don’t accept that he’s a mother, we’re bigots.
Well, yes, Mr. Price, not accepting that she’s a mother does make you a bigot.
After setting forth this rather garden-variety transphobia, WF Price spells out the broad outlines of what you might call an MRA Theory of Trans* Womanhood:
I understand why some of the most selfish, depraved men among us would want to relinquish their masculinity. In our society, women are free to pursue their heart’s desire without fear of sanction. Judging women for putting their own needs first is condemned in every mainstream outlet, from Dr. Phil to The Atlantic.
Some men are bound to be envious of this. Some of them go so far as to try to try to become a woman. And what kind of woman do they emulate? The worst parody of one. Gaudy, self-righteous, exhibitionist, attention-seeking, demanding, selfish and all too willing to place their burdens on others.
Ironically, with the possible exception of the word “gaudy,” all those adjectives in that last sentence apply perfectly to Price himself, and more than a few of the other Men’s Rights Activists I’ve had the displeasure of encountering while writing this blog.
Trans men don’t hate masculinity lol. They just want to adopt certain aspects of femininity which they feel better represents themselves.
Ok, it’d still require ASSFAX but that doesn’t surprise me. However, if he counts all anal sex as raping the person on the receiving end, and assumes that all gay sex is anal…sure, I can see how he pulled out of his ass that gay men are 100x more likely to be having anal sex than women. I mean, he’s almost certainly mathematically wrong, and gay sex = rape is so gross as to resemble fish poo, but yeah, I can grok the mind twisting.
What I can’t grok is how an under 10 lb cat just clomped in here like a horse.
I’ll need to check something on prison rape to review his other claim.
Ok, as I thought. The rates of men raped in prison, and women raped outside prison, are about the same. “Funny” how MRAs make the focus of male rape victims about how women are totally rapists!! And not about our fucked up prison system (our = US)
@Argenti:
If he’s counting consensual sexual acts of sodomy as rape, then the latest survey numbers from America say that heterosexual rates of such are high enough that actual incidence would lean heavily towards the women, not the men. Heavily.
And his “forcible” word-drop lets us know that he’s just out and out saying he believes most rape isn’t rape at all, that’s its false claims of rape.
(My previous comment was in response to Howard, incidentally.)
@thebionicmommy:
Well, it all makes perfect sense once the numbers have been adjusted to reflect the fact that (a) any given woman counts as some small fraction of a real person and (b) women exist to be sexually penetrated by men; therefore, the forcible penetration of a woman matters much less than the forcible penetration of a man. You also have to account for the huge volume of false rape accusations made by consequence-dodging sluts, man-hating feminazis, and pretty much any woman ever. After all that, if the numbers still don’t add up, that’s because your feeble ladybrain can’t handle math.
Argenti, you are the best at analyzing stats. Thank you. I’m not much of a math whiz, but I could tell that his numbers had to be way off. I also think he is classifying rape into “forcible/legitimate” rape vs. “phony rape”, and then deciding that any oral or vaginal rape goes in the “phony rape” category.
Howard:
nah… it’s a common trope in the manosphere. See women want to “stop” men from having sex whenever they want it. They think there ought to be rules, and understandings, between people.
This gives some men sad pants (because the women they want don’t want them).
So, because we are against non-consensual sex, we are, “puritans”, trying to repress men in their expression of “natural” urges.
I don’t entirely disagree with you here; but the overall context, where Price is ripping into trans people and is adamantly mis-gendering them, makes any quibbles about ‘where does self-labeling become a problem’… it makes it a little problematic.
Howard — the more you know! I’m one of today’s lucky 10,000!
thebionicmommy — given that, my only guess as to how he managed to get 100 times more likely is the total bending of logic that qocheedy describes.
Something like that must be going on (or, and this is possible, he’s a country with a much higher rate of prison rape…doubtful given the US sucks, but possible)
I know it means looking like I agree with Joe, but I had a similar “buh?” moment when I read this. I mean, Price isn’t denying that Boylan does parenty things; he’s denying that she’s a woman. So I’ guess I’m not sure what a list of “things parents (including Boylan) do” had to do with that.
@Freemage I figured it was probably a “tone doesn’t translate over the internet” thing. For my part, I apologize for getting defensive.
@Howard Bannister
No, I dig. I consider self-labeling pretty unassailable*…it’s labeling of other people I don’t want to let go unexamined.
* With caveats for certain labels that automatically imply assigning a particular label to other people. Actually, “mom” is one of those – if you go around calling yourself a mom but nobody actually considers you their mom, there’s a disconnect somewhere. But! If you call yourself a mom and someone whom you call yourself a mom in relation to also calls you Mom, then by Mom you’re a mom.
And WTF Price sucks.
Price was also denying her the status of mother as well as the status of woman. I was agreeing with Boylan’s point that suffering, or working hard and worrying to raise children, is what the job of motherhood is about. Motherhood can sometimes begin with birth, but it is definitely not a necessary part of the job. I think Joe was just trying to accuse me of overlooking dads and male caregivers, even though the post was about a trans* mother. He probably thinks its misandry to ever discuss anything and not make men the central focus.
Oh, I see, a Germanic-derived, French-influenced language like English is too mongrel for you, eh? It must be the light-fingered way English has with words it likes from other languages, and carries them around on its back like those junk muppets from Labyrinth.
“English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.”
― James Nicoll
I’m going to have ‘Dance Magic Dance’ in my head alllll day. Thank you, Falconer 🙂 That, at least, shoved some of the MRA gender arglebargle out.
Agreed – I have 3 mums, and they’re all awesome.
I love the lucky 10,000 concept. 😀
Sadly, I ran into those numbers due to a massive case of fail by Will Saletan at Slate… (sigh)
Back in my old life I thought he was a clear thinker because of how he could use progressive language to come up with utterly bog-standard conservative conclusions. Sometimes opening up one’s eyes can be painful. Heroes lose all luster!
The closing credits song “Down in the Underground” is just as haunting… I love Labyrinth SOOOOO unironically…
Did you guys know Bowie auditioned for Elrond? And PJ turned him down!
Were we doing Trans 101 book recs earlier in this thread? I wanted to repeat the Serano rec – she’s a feminist biologist with personal experience, her analysis is multifaceted and very enlightening – and also mention S Bear Bergman’s The Nearest Exist May Be Behind You. It’s a collection of essays that I read early in my feminist days, so at the time zir stuff on gender as performance was new and mind-blowing, and ze introduced me to the terms transmasculine and transfeminine (and also the idea of butch as a gender identity unto itself). Ze also has some interesting stuff on being trans* and Jewish.
I have a serious love for Labyrinth, it’s awesome. That and The Last Unicorn.
I’ll watch most anything with Jennifer Connelly in it, I think I had a small crush on her when I was a tyke.
@Falconer
Did you ever see The Rocketerr? Unappreciated classic, if you ask me.
Er…The Rocketeer, that is. Typo monster is stalking me!
Labyrinth and the The Last Unicorn? *hugs*
They are on my movie pile right now.
Lets be honest MRM folks don’t want Jennifer to be recognized at all. He would throw a tantrum if she got recognized on fathers day too (not saying that should happen just observing that there is no winning….if that makes sense).
@the bionicmommy
It is misandry to ever focus on womens issues in the eyes of the mens rights movement. They pop up on ANYTHING that focuses on women. They claim they are about “human rights”.
Their logic is if cancer advocates showed up at every convention not about cancer and whined about how their cause isn’t being acknowledged.
Sorry for vanishing. I’ve been dealing with some stuff. I just got laid off 🙁
So, getting things in order and figuring out how I’m gonna make it work have been priority number one.
I love The Rocketeer!