Ineffable
Yes, this is TERF rhetoric. No, I am not endorsing it. But I am taking it seriously.
Please take it seriously, and if only for the sake of argument, assume that the writer arrived at her position from a starting point of radical feminist theory, not through abductive reasoning from a starting point of fear/hate of trans women.
The argument in the first half of this piece boils down to representation in media and literature, to the way pop culture accurately depicts what it’s like to be a man, and what it’s like to be a woman. A bold choice, for sure. One certainly could have tried to tie other feminist talking points, like the wage gap, domestic violence, to the transgender debate in a similar fashion.
It is not clear if the argument is just “men can’t write women but women can write men“ or also “men don’t read women“ or “women authors are not represented“. From there, it’s the next step to say “because male authors can’t write women as well as women can write men, most AMABs cannot know what being a woman is like as well as AFABs know what being a man is like.”
All I can think is “How do you know?“
How do you know that most women understand what it’s like to be a man who isn’t a Marvel superhero? How do you know that the pop culture you consume captures what it’s like to be a man? How do you know it doesn’t fail in the exact same way to describe what it’s like to be a woman?
What if this is a general failing of pop culture?
What if the world is full of women who don’t know what it’s like to be a man? What if the world is full of both men and women who know exactly and very specifically what the gender roles look like, how they want men to act, how they want other women to act, but still they are unable to imagine what it’s like to be a man living under those constraints? What if the world is full of men who feel like they have to be a certain kind of way because of women who say “I don’t know, you are free to live your life. I, personally, just don’t find it very attractive if men aren’t masculine.“
I think the world is full of women who have very strict, very specific views about men, but who are completely unable to empathise with men.
The weird thing is this: Feminists know this. If you talk about something rather banal and minor in the grand scheme of things, like shaving your legs/pubic hair, you’ll find lots of feminists who point out that the individual preferences of men and a status quo of women already mostly shaving creates some kind of Nash equilibrium where no woman can decide to not shave without risking something or making “not shaving” into a thing, into a statement. No man is obligated to feel a certain way about public hair. Even if we “normalise” not shaving, or not wearing make-up, no man is obligated to prefer one way over the other, in aggregate, this creates the reality under which women live. As the feminist argument goes, men are quite aware of their preferences, or their requirements for women. They just can’t imagine what it’s like from the other side.
And yet, women exist who have opinions about men driving big cars, men wearing suits, men having jobs earning more than women. Many of those women are completely unable to imagine what it feels like to live under those conditions.
Many trans people do know. If they don’t spend the rests of their lives in a tiny queer bubble in Portland, they experience what it’s like, even if they could not correctly imagine it before transitioning.
I think it’s possible for a trans man to know what it’s like to be a man because he lived as a man, not because I think he correctly internalised the male experience from a book of fiction. I know some trans men who describe experiences that track with my experience of being a man, and some whose experiences of gender roles are drastically different, because they don’t pass as men, and are instead presenting as some kind of “genderqueer”, never read as man, but read as “woman who is bravely defying gender stereotypes”.
I think this is the kind of experience of being a man that TERFs must be referring to when they talk about what it feels like to be a man. They don’t talk about fiction.
I find the idea that you can gain enough insight into what it’s like to be a man through pop-cultural osmosis, but not enough insight into what it’s like to be a woman a bit.. strange, because there is a lot of chick lit out there, and trans women could easily read that. They could be outliers in terms of their media diet. Or does chick lit not describe what it’s like to be a woman? then how do you know that mainstream media describes what it’s like to be a man? But beyond that, surely at least if you pass as male or female and live as male or female, you get additional insight, right? And that’s the kind of insight radical feminists/gender critical feminists care about, right?
There are people who transition and are surprised by what it’s like to be a man or woman, by how they are treated differently, in both directions. It’s like Mary’s Room. Nothing you can read about this can prepare you for first-hand experience. There are bisexual men/women who have dated women/men their entire lives and are surprised by what it’s like to date another man/woman.
Or maybe there is another quality of being a man that is accurately conveyed by pop culture, and I am a man, and I understand pop culture, and I understand what it’s like to live in a male gender role, but some men are the gender equivalent of a p-zombie, performing masculinity without feeling like what it feels like to be a man.
