I was just reading Julie Bindel’s latest in which she asks when people will recognize the harms gender ideology is causing to women and girls and particularly lesbians (paraphrasing). This makes me wonder: Why is it seemingly so difficult for some to see that gender roles/expectations are assigned on the basis of sex in order to implement and maintain the subordination of females? The thought that springs to mind is that when one is living in an oppressive system, there’s a taboo around speaking about the oppression. I wrote about this in my last piece but felt a reframe might be helpful.
I came to understand the dynamics of abuse and oppression around the same time and found that while some form of abuse is usually a part of oppression, it’s also a useful frame for understanding oppression. When one lives in an abusive family, there are spoken and unspoken rules the abuser institutes and one of the most central rules is that the abuse mustn’t be spoken of. Abusers will convince their targets that the abuse is a form of love, that it’s necessary or deserved because the targets are unruly or badly behaved and if any of the targets attempt to speak out, they or their loved ones will be punished. This happens in a system of oppression too. Women and girls learn from the time we’re little that male domination is the natural order of things, males demeaning or abusing women is love, we need males for protection and true happiness, and that if we speak about or question any of it, we will be criticized, gaslit, ostracized or worse.
But how does “gender” factor in? Gender roles and expectations are set as soon as the sex of a child is observed. Except in rare cases, sex is physically observable at birth but as soon as a child is swaddled in a blanket or clothed, it’s no longer so easy. Female babies are often identified by dressing them in bows, dresses, flowers, and the color pink. Otherwise, it’s often hard to tell what sex a child is before puberty. Think of all the times young children are mistaken for the other sex due to their hair or clothing. But why is it so important to delineate what sex a child is through clothing and hairstyle in the first place? Those who recognize the sex-based oppression of females might say that it’s so adults can tell which children to socialize into subordination.
Hair and clothing become classifiers that signal to adults which sex class a child belongs to and thus, how they should be socialized. Bows, dresses and pink signal to adults that a child is a female (subordinate) and consciously or not, adults will treat her accordingly. She will be socialized to be agreeable (“sweet”, “nice”, “soft”, and “caring” are code for agreeable) and to prioritize males (mainly through idealization and prioritization of heterosexual relationships and motherhood). These characteristics and interests are called ‘feminine’ or appropriate/natural to females. A female who does not epitomize femininity is seen as unnatural, unfeminine, and unacceptable. Since gender ideology prioritizes gender role socialization (or gender ‘identity') over sex, an ‘unfeminine’ must change her sex instead of adults changing their sexist treatment of her. She learns only girls are feminine/subordinated.
At the same time, gender ideology makes discussion of sex-based oppression taboo. Instead of critiquing sexist gender roles, scrutiny is directed towards women’s desires for female-only spaces and female-only relationships. Because the definition of woman as adult human female is deemed ‘bigoted’, and the word woman is being deleted and replaced by more vague ‘inclusive’ terms, discussion of our sex-based oppression and sex-based concerns becomes an offense punishable by criticism, gaslighting, ostracization or worse. Thus, we’ve come full circle, back to the abusive family system where questioning or naming our abuse is not allowed.
To return to the original question: I think one of the reasons more people don’t understand or speak out against the harms of gender ideology is because we’re living in a patriarchy where we’re not allowed to see or discuss our sex-based oppression. While some will acknowledge we live in a patriarchy, few can or will talk about how it’s perpetuated. Anything that threatens to reveal the abuse/oppression—and with it, the abuser/oppressor—is carefully guarded against.