Mel

The reason why women* are "allowed" to be masculine when men* "aren't" allowed to be feminine under patriarchy is because DYKES and BUTCHES and other masculine women* SPENT DECADES FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS TO EXIST PUBLICLY.

The fact that women* can wear pants and suits etc. and are not constantly forced to be hyper feminine/in adherence with strict gendered dress codes without punishment (AND ONLY IN SOME COUNTRIES!) is a win on behalf of feminist political action NOT because of some baseline acceptance of masculinity in everybody by the patriarchy.

(*and people forcibly socially classed as women and men)

Like oh my lord some of you need to shut the fuck up and learn what it was like to be socially classed as a woman before the sexual revolution and what it continues to be like outside of the imperial core.

again, maybe you weren't thinking about those arguments when you wrote this and were simply intending to give a round of applause to the feminist movements of the 20th century for an oft overlooked or downplayed win, and if that is the case, then agreed. it was a very important accomplishment.

however, at the present time, we've got some very charged and harmful rhetoric going around that use pretty much the exact same framing you used here with the exact same blindspots, and so i figured i'd do you and your audience the kindness of making sure the implications of your omissions didn't go unnoticed.

I made this post because I have seen the, frankly, anti-feminist anti-butch argument that "masculinity is inherently accepted by the Patriarchy, even in women and people assigned female, whereas femininity is always inherently punished by the patriarchy in everyone of every gender identity" go around this website for awhile now. The argument that regularly gets brought up in favor of that misconception is the fact that women* (and people classed as women) are allowed to dress "masculine" whereas men* (and people classed as men) are always punished for dressing "feminine" — and this is simply false in both cases.

This post has nothing to do with drag queens and male transvestites fighting for their own rights to exist as gnc people, and everything to do with the fact that one very specific feminist success and the lack of education around it has led a lot of under-educated people to believe that one form of gender non-conformity is accepted by the Patriarchy when another isn't - when that's literally just lie actually.

This is a post about the history of masc activism being erased and ahistorically treated like a facet of the Patriarchy.

so, i've looked through your blog some now, and it seems that when taking this post in the context of many of your other posts, it seems my suspicions were, in fact, right on the money about the dogwhistles i was hearing. anyway.

is my masculinity always an asset? fuck no. a central tenant to intersectionality is pointing out how conditional pretty much every privilege and oppression can be, but it acknowledges this complexity in order to build a more robust way to talk about patriarchy and other systems of oppression.

and at the end of the day, if i know nothing else about the place i'm going and want to ensure my smoothest interactions with people there? i'm going with the vest and Oxford shirt or the tank top and jacket rather than the flowery blouse.

and while yes, it took a lot of fighting to get even here, you can't tell this story without also asking why men in dresses are still largely met with ridicule by most of society. was it because the equivalent fight wasn't fought? or was it because patriarchy is more amenable to people seeking or emulating masculinity than people rejecting it?

NO IT ISN'T. IT LITERALLY ISN'T.

And that's a fucked up thing to try to imply to someone who was correctively assaulted for just verbally expressing the desire to present more masculine.

You are actively denying the lived realities of people just because you haven't personally experienced it and that's a terrible thing to do to other trans people.

Apparently it's oppositional sexism when people classed as women and girls (which inherently includes trans women because I get accused of saying shit I'm not) are violently corrected for expressing masculinity. And not just like. sexist Patriarchal coercion.

While gender expression is thus less explicitly criminalized than sexual orientation—the same project reports 66 countries that criminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults—LBQ+ people interviewed for this report repeatedly named gendered discrimination against masculine gender expressions in particular as the catalyst for a lifetime of economic marginalization, discrimination and harassment at work, psychological abuse, and physical and sexual violence. [...]

Nadia, an LBQ+ activist in Lebanon recounted how, in 2019, a man in Beirut threatened to shoot her after she defended a female friend he was sexually harassing: "If you are butch-presenting, there’s an attitude from men of “you think you’re a man, we’re going to treat you like one, but we know you can’t handle it.” If your girlfriend is being harassed in a bar and you try to protect her; if you’re femme, you’ll be sexually harassed along with her. But butches get punched. The violence is immediate. This is why we don’t go out much. I had a gun pulled on me once because I stood up to a guy aggressively hitting on a friend of mine. He threatened to use it and said multiple times: “I’ll show you” and “you’re trying to become a man.” It’s not just about inflicting violence on your body; it’s about proving you’re not as strong as you’re pretending your body is. This stuff is way more nuanced than men trying to “show you what you’re missing” by raping you. It’s not just about “here is the dick you need sexually because you’re a lesbian.” It’s about “here is the dick you aspire to physically have; I’m going to show you that you cannot have it.” It’s about putting queer women in their place. A stark reminder about violence against those who struggle to take up space. [...]

LBQ+ advocates in Argentina, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and the US reported that from a young age, styles of dress read as masculine, gender-nonconforming, or androgynous resulted in threats from parents to remove girls from school, compounding the already precarious access to education that girls face globally. A 2017 Human Rights Watch report examining discrimination against LGBT students in the Philippines found that “teachers scrutinized girls they considered ‘butch’ or masculine, and took steps to separate them from other girls to prevent them from becoming close.” One 22-year-old bisexual woman who had attended high school in Manila told Human Rights Watch that more masculine-presenting girls were “especially targeted.” [...] As a UNESCO report on discrimination and bullying in school noted, “[e]xclusion and stigma in education can also have life-long impacts on employment options, economic earning potential, and access to benefits and social protection.” According to interviews, if women continued to wear these same styles of masculine-coded dress later in life, they experienced employment discrimination. This included rejection from jobs in indoor employment otherwise available to lower- and middle-class women in many countries, such as in hotels, restaurants, catering, cleaning, administration, and secretarial work. [...]

LBQ+ activists in Argentina, El Salvador, and Kyrgyzstan told Human Rights Watch similar stories about masculine-presenting LBQ+ people in their communities being routinely pushed into precarious jobs with poor labor rights practices (farm work, sex work, and auto shops, respectively) or primarily male-dominated fields where they face further forms of abuse. Rosa, an LBQ+ activist in El Salvador, reported that several butch lesbians in her community were compelled to work as sex workers after being repeatedly rejected from work they were otherwise qualified for, such as jobs in restaurants, food trucks, and hotels due to wearing pants, collared shirts, and their hair short. As sex workers, they were exposed to a wide range of human rights violations and dangers. [...] "Whenever a lesbian sex worker is detained, they say we are insane, that we are lesbians because we haven’t had a good fuck. Before they take you to jail, you get raped. Then they bring you and charge you. You are targeted as a sex worker, hunted down on the street the way we all are, and then you are punished like a lesbian. When police raid brothels and homes, the masculine lesbians get treated “like men.” This means more forceful handcuffing, kneeling, and stripping their shirts off." According to Rosa, police are “far more brutal” to masculine-presenting queer women, which is particularly dangerous given that their masculine-presentation is a large part of what originally forced many LBQ+ people into sex work. Thus, masculine-presenting queer women’s discrimination in employment may lead to police violence after being pushed into sex work.

also notice how this report covers areas that aren't the US or Canada or the UK or Australia. hence why ftmtftm said ONLY IN SOME COUNTRIES is people seen as women wearing pants (not men's pants, women's pants) socially acceptable.

tbh i think at a certain point, trying to distinguish between oppositional & traditional sexism fails because they necessarily function as one. anti-queerness is fundamental to patriarchy, as fundamental as misogyny is, and misogyny is inherently anti-queer as is misandry, and anti-queerness is inherently misogynistic and misandristic.

but behind that slight awkwardness is someone you already care about, inviting you to know them better.

you could endure that awkwardness and actually pay attention, maybe ask a question. it might get easier with practice.

it might be worth that practice, not just for your relationship with this specific person, but also your relationships with everyone you know and their frail mortal bodies.

it would be a mistake to think that this represents the natural behavior of chickens.

it would be a mistake to think that the social displacement harms we do to each other as marginalized people under a great deal of stress, under capitalism, represents the natural behavior of people.