Men-Only Spaces: Patriarchy’s Next Gambit

“I just don’t want men in women’s spaces, and I don’t care how those men identify.”

Pushy Dude

Geez, Gary – I’m not gonna marry you just because you say so!

The clip is Kellie-Jay Keen (AKA Posie Parker) attempting to converse with someone called James Max, “It’s up to everybody however they want to live their life, but when it impinges on my life – ” 

“How does it impinge on your life?” Jim is cavalier in his home field advantage.

“If I want to go into a female-only space and there’s men in there who decide that they’re women, then it’s no longer a female-only space, is it?”

I snagged this one as it floated by, so jam-packed with goodies I knew I could pull something out of it. But, beyond that, this guy is so busy being arrogant he forgets to stop running his mouth!

He’s so convinced Kellie doesn’t understand the game he’s playing that he shows most of his cards: “But then, men were told that. They wanted to have men-only spaces and then they were told that was discrimination. They weren’t allowed to do it.”

Right, because everything used to be men-only! – Education, commerce, Law, the Clergy, everything. From at least the Middle Ages until within living memory, people felt sorry for a working woman because it meant her husband was failing to support her in focusing on the homestead. Working women were a manifestation of poverty, of cutthroat economic forces.

Outside of learning a trade to support her family, women were excluded entirely from huge chunks of society for centuries.

When we did venture out, Man’s World was a hostile place. The amount of hard and soft pushback has been completely out of proportion to the threat men face in recognizing women as equals. This scenario where equality means obliterating all boundaries also means scrubbing the record of how overwhelmingly one-sided the threat really is.

Georgian Card Player

Oh shit, did I get played??

Kellie recognized this, of course, “So, men are more unsafe now that they can’t have their golf clubs?”

“It’s not a question of safe. It’s cake-and-eat-it, isn’t it?” Jimmy’s smugness betrays a deep ignorance of a life where you’re romantically and sexually attracted to people who could easily kill you, should the mood strike them. He comes across as one of those guys who thinks a broken heart deserves a broken arm.

“It’s a question of safety for women.”

“So, all men are predators?” This is absurd. But all men are male, regardless of any medical intervention.

“No, not all men. Some are, and we don’t know which ones they are. That’s why we have segregated spaces.”

Everyone knows this. Even if Time started over in the year 2000 and Kellie, Jim, and I all forgot the first few decades of our lives, the story continues – Sarah Everard was killed by a man she didn’t know, distracting from the thousands of women every year murdered by someone they trusted.

But Jim blithely assumes a paradigm that finds equality a great loophole for shoving these skeletons back in the closet. He literally shakes his head as he says, “Right. I mean, isn’t it better that we train all people to be a bit more respectful to each other?”

Can’t we all just get along? I dunno, Jimmy, can women just have some privacy?

“Well, when we don’t have any men committing sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence, then I will totally agree with you. But, until that happens, I’m afraid…”

“So, women don’t commit those crimes as well?” Interrupting her to accuse women of violence without evidence. Is there some kind of Man-Splaining award he’s going for?

“Not at the rate of men, no.” Not by a million miles. Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark, in the same town, in the same fucking country, dude. This has been known since the beginning of time, it was the rationale for women being kept at home – To keep us safe! You know, from men.

Tea Party Chatter

No, really, that’s what he said – I need a man to defend against men!

“Right. OK. I am slightly staggered by your views.” He stammers theatrically for a moment, as if she’s just told him men should be exterminated from the face of the earth.

“That biological sex exists?”

“I may have to change my mind – Maybe it was right that, if you take those views, maybe you should be canceled.”

“Wow.” My thoughts exactly. Kellie doesn’t get defensive at this incendiary statement. She brings her tone down and takes a breath. “You’re on talk radio, right?”

“Yes.”

“OK, and you think people should be canceled for – “

“No,” He cuts her off several times through this exchange,  “I don’t think people should be canceled, and I would like people to have different views, but – It’s just – I find it staggering that you would want to have this kind of discrimination perpetrated against people who are born different from you.”

Those poor, beleaguered transwomen! Stuck in private spaces with pigs like Jimmy here, that’s gotta be a bitter pill to swallow. If such a creature existed, they would inspire great pity for such a predicament.

But Kellie isn’t distracted, her sights fixed on calling out this rhetorical imposter.

“No, I want men out of women’s spaces. That’s not ‘born different.’ That’s a biological fact, and that biological fact determines whether someone is a risk to women.

And, just like that, we watch him drop the pose of Concern for Transwomen as soon as she calls out their real name! His direct response to this is, “So, is it OK if men said that they wanted women out of their spaces?”

And what would you say qualifies as ‘Men’s Spaces,’ Jimmy?

Crystal Ball

No crystal ball required to see where this is going!

“Do you mean like private spaces, like toilets and places where men might undress?”

He gives a coy little shrug, “Might be.” Might not be. Might be Parliament. Jimmy can’t tell the future.

“Absolutely, of course women shouldn’t be in those spaces.”

“OK, and what about other places?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno – Bars, restaurants, or anything else. I mean, can we just go back to segregated society?” Then we can stop wasting time talking to women.

I think Kellie gets a bit flustered by this idiot so boldly talking out both sides of his mouth. She kind of fumbles the next part, failing to concisely convey how the world used to be a men-only space, and why that had to end.

“The reason feminists of old decided that they wanted to eradicate some of those men-only spaces is because, in those corridors of power, that’s where important conversations were taking place. And women, by not being allowed in those spaces, were out of the conversation.”

Government made decisions effecting women’s lives all the time, usually with no input from us at all. We were bound by rules we had no hand in making and, eventually, we had enough. This is why suffrage was the first organized push of Women’s Liberation – If we’re not in Government, we’ll never get anywhere else!

Jimmy doesn’t bring this up directly, but his angle is understood. Jangling this old chain rattles Kellie a bit, and she doesn’t call him on essentially admitting that transwomen are men with his if you can keep us out, we can keep you out maneuver. 

“That is a very different thing than wanting to keep men out of women’s spaces, like where women are undressing.” It sure is! How did we get here, anyway? He was arguing for men all along, and we’ve gone from poor transwomen using the Ladies Room to men-only clubs in a single step.

Refocusing, Kellie returns to the center of her fight: “Does my 15-year-old daughter have the right to go in a female-only space and expect there only to be females?”

And Jimmy, for his part, returns to Start as well – “If somebody is, or if they have transitioned, then they are a female.”

No. That’s the simple answer here. No, they aren’t. Kellie humors him with some stats before getting there: “Well, ninety percent of men who say they transition have no intention of taking hormones, or losing their genitals.”

Not the point. A man can have all kinds of surgeries to look like anything his heart desires, but those desires betray their source. A man madeover into a woman is only and forever that, nothing more. Full stop. How many of which surgeries he’s had is irrelevant.

Date With A Pigeon

I’m sorry, Reginald – I can only see you as a pigeon!

“And so, as far as I’m concerned… You don’t transition anyway, there’s no such thing. Nobody ever changes from one sex to another.”

This is where this ploy ends. And Jimmy was kind enough to tip his hand and show us what this Male Supremacy movement’s next move might be.

But Kellie is thrown off by the cocky gamesmanship, “What we’re talking about, predominantly with men, is men over the age of forty deciding that they want to dress as women. It’s what we used to call transvestites.”

She tries to bring it back together as the segment ends, “This whole ‘transgender’ [thing] just totally loses the fact of what’s really going on. Most people who call themselves ‘trans’ are not transsexual, they’re transgender. They’re transvestites, in old language.” But Jimmy’s only too happy to cut her off.

“Right. Ok. Well, then, let’s leave the old language.” You’d like that, wouldn’t you? It’s amazing how redefining everything manages to erase so much progress.

This short video speaks volumes, most of it not from our side. I don’t fault Kellie for anything she said, she was factual and goal-oriented. It didn’t matter anyway, Jimmy blocking her with the customary accusations of bigotry.

But the arrogance on display here is truly next-level. He didn’t just dismiss her outright – He toyed with her like a sneering, spoiled child, before tossing her away as she sputtered. I’m not sure what Kellie expected, but our pal Jimmy obviously never had any intention of engaging with anything she was going to say. 

His argument boiled down to, Women shouldn’t have private spaces away from men. And, if they do, men should get whatever spaces away from women strike our fancy. You want private bathrooms? We want private clubs.

And, again, the subtext is clear – Let us in, or you will pay dearly.

Snuffed Cigar

The male ego will be appeased!

And when Kellie discarded the ‘True Trans’ ploy, sweeping away the whole argument and clearing the board by insisting they’re all men anyway, Jim didn’t demure like he was supposed to. Instead of retreating to the fallback stance of Trans Advocate, he went in for the kill. That’s masculine aggression for you.

Writing afterwards in The Spectator, Kellie quotes Jim as saying, “I just get the impression she hates men.” She explains this away as sleight of hand, to cover his lack of rational arguments for the destruction of women’s rights.

I think it’s more devious than that – Some men yearn for the good old days. They hate our independence, blaming us for a lack of control in their own lives. By smearing that hatred onto us, they can destroy us and pretend they are justified. Burn the witch!

To claim a woman married to a man hates men carries an insurmountable burden of proof. Kellie just isn’t worried about protecting transwomen, the ultimate straw man. She wants those men out of what were once women’s private spaces!

Jimmy Max acts like his world is ending and Kellie has her finger on the button, just like any child throwing a tantrum and blaming his trigger. She made me do it! Cancel her!

The recent boldness of smug men like Jimmy is frightening. But if we listen to him where he refuses to listen to us, we won’t be surprised by the tricks up their sleeve.

 

 

 

Two Vital GC Arguments From An Unlikely Source

It’s not every day I find something I think everyone needs to hear.

Today was one of those days. These are the moments that still fill me with hope.

Dreamy Seamstress

Maybe someday, we’ll get to be people after all!

Two Truth Bombs And A New Subscription

Michael Browne has been feministing about as long as I have, with even less exposure. 

I assumed YouTube’s algorithm made the introduction but, retracing my steps, I found his video on Ovarit. He appears to have uploaded it himself.

Michael has been taking on the big boys for a while, releasing long, detailed responses to the likes of Riley J Dennis and Contrapoints. More recently, he commented on Philosphy Tube’s transformation and even Lindsay Ellis. 

Which is great, but I guess podcasts are what the cool kids are listening to while they clean house. This guy’s saying things I haven’t heard from anyone else.

Which is a damn shame. In his quest to leave no stone unturned, he’s sharpened a point or two I think could really leave a mark.

Countering Contrapoints

Contrapoints’ persona is generally outside my tolerance for counterintelligence research. That is to say, I have never sat through one of his videos. I prefer my YouTube dry and educational, or frivolous and weird.

Michael’s style makes watching pointless anyway, stopping every sentence to slice and dissect.

In this way, he manages to sift out the kernel of conflict at the center of modern feminist politics.

Contrapoints: “We’re using a cultural language of feminine signifiers to prompt others to see us for what we are. 

But also, if one person calls me ‘sir,’ that’s gonna ruin my day. So I’m desperately throwing glitter spaghetti at the wall in hopes the light catches some glimmer of womanhood.”

Michael: “You are dressing more feminine than you want to in order for society to accept you as a woman, while at the same time complaining that gender critical feminists are the ones constricting your gender expression. 

It seems to me like you’re much more constrained having to present an overly-feminine image to appease a society that does not largely accept gender-nonconforming people.

Getting The Answer

I think we’ve really got something here!

You don’t want to be misgendered. You’re basically forced to present yourself as hyper-feminine.

[This] totally contradicts the end goals of gender critical feminists. [They] want a world of total gender-nonconformity. 

However, in that situation, you’d be fucked – You cling to gender signifiers as a means to ensure that people refer to you by the gender you consider yourself to be.

Brushing aside the blatant admission of narcissism from Contra here, Michael has got him dead-to-rights and I can’t believe everyone isn’t repeating this everywhere!

This is that contradiction everyone keeps telling us doesn’t exist, spelled out in all its shimmering glory!

The only way they can be women is by wearing a mask of femininity. If we succeed in breaking that mask, they can’t be women. If women are recognized as full human beings and not a set of behaviors and body parts, their charade becomes a lot more difficult.

But we have nothing to lose but our chains.

We are directly opposed to each other in our goals. The amount of energy and rhetoric that goes into obscuring this is truly a wonder to behold, ain’t it?

Trans Kids of History…?

In his most recent upload, Michael credits Alex Aaron of Gender Mapper fame with another keystone insight. 

She said, ‘Thank goodness we don’t have this legacy going back of children killing themselves because of gender dysphoria!

“This phenomenon of children coming out as transgender and killing themselves is a recent phenomenon. We know that because we don’t have stories of people going, ‘Oh, all of these children are killing themselves and we’ve got no explanation for it.

All of this said over the frozen smirk of Philosophy Tube’s resident transwoman, as Michael picked apart every sentence of his coming out video. 

The preoccupation with trans kids strikes many as related to pedophilia, and this may be true. But there’s a strong, simple motivator for every trans person and every ally – Legitimacy. 

Trans adults generously share their formative experiences. The somatic obsesses them as much as it confuses them, and they have plenty to say about it.

Bored Reader

The plot’s getting a bit predictable, don’t you think??

The narrative is the key. Humans have always made sense of ourselves and our world through stories. Without that backstory, all you have is an adult who decided to switch teams.

Someone old enough to know better. Someone who might be interrogated about the crap they’re saying.

By projecting these ideas backward and linking them with trauma, it makes them unquestionable in the individual. And if there were trans kids 30 years ago, there must be trans kids now, out there suffering the same fate!

That’s the difference between memories and dreams – Memories can be double-checked outside our heads. If there are no trans kids, there are no trans adults. This is why the children had to be sacrificed to the Gender Gods. 

I’m glad someone gave this man an Ovarit invite. We need this kind of sharp analysis if we’re going to cut through the Woo, and I love seeing younger people who make so much sense.

Michael’s channel is small, but I encourage everyone to go and listen to him articulate gender critical arguments with true British precision.

Is Trans A Form of C-PTSD?

If someone’s identity is built on lies, refusing to play along might be a kindness.

Hold Still

Hold still! You look ridiculous…

Tough love is out of vogue, but it has its uses. As we argue in circles while Identity Politics and Gender Ideology rewrite our cultural rules, it’s worth considering this as a possible strategy.

An Uncommon Manifestation Of A Common Problem

Why are young girls rejecting their developing bodies in droves? Why do men want to escape manhood?

I really think it could be an unrecognized presentation of C-PTSD.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a newish idea. Psychology has been shaken recently by lots of famous experiments failing. Decades of results have suddenly been called into question.

Since no one really knows what’s going on, I humbly suggest this interesting diagnosis.

PTSD is caused by a single event so jarring, it scars you for life. Complex PTSD comes from ongoing trauma, such as childhood abuse. Or maybe from living in a system that’s rigged against you.

The symptoms of C-PTSD are

  • Reliving the traumatic experience

Obsessive behavior is often related to this, as the subconscious mind tries to reactive the emotional cycle to resolve it and begin healing

  • Avoiding certain situations

Like anything that might trigger dysphoria?

  • CHANGES IN BELIEFS ABOUT SELF AND OTHERS
  • Hyperarousal (anxious, jittery, paranoid)
  • Somatic symptoms

Male periods, anyone?

  • Lack of emotional regulation

It’s MA’AM!

  • CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS

Like perceiving yourself as something you’re not?

  • Negative self-perception
  • Difficulty in relationships
  • DISTORTED PERCEPTION OF ABUSER

Many trans-identified females have been abused by men, and I’m willing to bet many Brave&Stunning transwomen were abused as small children by a woman who was supposed to care for them

  • LOSS OF SYSTEMS OF MEANING

But this is probably the clincher – This disorder can cut you loose from reality.

It’s not surprising how well this fits – I think most of us are suffering from some level of trauma just from living in this modern world.

Hush Little One, Mommy’s Self-Soothing

Maslow’s name may be on the chart, but he didn’t create the Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom of the pyramid, Tier 1 contains basic physical things, like food and shelter. Tier 2 is stuff like safety and security.

…And this is where most parenting stops. We ensure our kids have new shoes on their feet and clean sheets on their bed, inspect that they’ve eaten their vegetables and brushed their teeth. Homework and sports are often made to stand in for personal development.

Tier 3 is the warm fuzzy stuff – Belonging, friendship and love. This is where we fumble – As parents, as partners, as people. As a civilization.

Underparenting is an epidemic. Boomers love to call Millennials entitled and self-absorbed, forgetting who our role models are. They invented Latchkey Kids and sent the divorce rate into the stratosphere.

Red Teddy

Mr. Bear gets to sit up front because he’s been with me longer than you!

Do you really think growing up as a societal preoccupation prepped them to be doting parents?

According to Very Well Mind, “What does the uninvolved parenting style look like? These parents have little emotional involvement with their kids. While they provide for basic needs like food and shelter, they are, for the most part, uninvolved in their children’s lives. The exact degree of involvement may vary considerably.

But, to be fair, our grandparents didn’t know what they were doing, either. They won the war, alright, but they were raised by Victorians during the Great Depression. The amount of cultural knowledge lost in the shuffle of the early 20th century is mind-boggling.

Mom, You Ruined My Life!

Healthline blames the mother, of course: “Thanks to psychologist Mary Ainsworth and her attachment theory, we know that the trust that a mother instills in childhood positively affects not only the child’s present, but also their future relationships.

Take a deep breath – We can’t defensive here, because I think they’re onto something important.

Mothers have a unique window of influence. Like it or not, we are the ones who have the babies. I’ve heard an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a little extra effort in those early days has a powerful effect.

Longitudinal studies by Stanford University showed, “significant disparities in vocabulary and language processing efficiency were already evident at 18 months” when infants were spoken to more often. “By 24 months there was a 6-month gap between groups in processing skills critical to language development.

Our preoccupation with prestige is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It stunts our development and perpetuates generational abuse.

It’s always the Capitalism! Isn’t that weird?

We want to skip to Tier 4, that shiny prestige and accomplishment everyone is talking about. Who needs love when you have respect? Instagram followers can’t break your heart.

But thousands of Likes can’t fill that hole. Dopamine hits don’t really make up for feeling disconnected from everyone around you.

And no one will ever get to Tier 5 – Self-Actualization – if we all skip Tier 3 and go straight for that shiny trophy.

Those Pesky, Icky Feelings

Family life is almost quixotic these days, generation upon generation playing house when the mood strikes. The rituals of daily life ring hollow for us, we have forgotten the meaning behind any of it. Our cultural obsession with proving our merit leaves little room for connection without transaction.

The inability to form organic, non-transactional connections with others is the hallmark of narcissism.

But we have to prove our worth if we want any hope of getting a slice of the pie. And the pressure ratchets up as there seems to be less and less pie to go around.

This might get me hate but, – Almost no one gets their own emotional house in order before having kids. The blind lead the blind through childhood, faking authority even as we cringe at our own issues.

A lot of us are preoccupied with our own shit the whole time we parent. My own parents definitely were. Putting someone else’s needs first requires a level of emotional maturity many breeders have not reached. 

So, the cycle repeats. They say we each make our own mistakes, no matter how hard we try. No parent is perfect, but some of us are downright awful. My generation got screwed pretty bad, and we’re well on our way to passing on this new tradition.

Little Girl With Baby

Thank heaven for vino!

Some of us bury ourselves in work. Some of us drink. There are carefully cultivated drug habits, Collectible collections, bouts of binge eating, hours upon hours of TV and video games.

Some of us obsessively exercise or count calories. There are the tattoo addicts, even a few who adore plastic surgery. Then there’s the crowd who cut to the chase and just reject their identity entirely.

They said we could be anything, and damned if we didn’t take them at their word.

Post-Traumatic Disorder Complexes

Generational trauma, stripped bare by Postmodern rejection of everything, has swirled us up in a dust devil of dissociation. Previous generations dealt with war, plague and politics, but they had some pretty rigid social structures to fall back on. It was much harder to act out your mood back in the day, so it didn’t matter so much if everyone was kinda crazy.

These days, we have the terrifying freedom to think and do just about whatever we want, minute to minute. But even the greatest explorer has a home port to return to.

The recommended treatments for C-PTSD include psychotherapy, EMDR and medication – Therapy. My Ph.D. is in Armchair Psychology, and even I can see evidence of failure at every level. Failure to give us the internal tools we need to build meaningful lives.

Adrift in a sea of filtered faces, we latch onto whatever or whoever gives us the feeling we finally belong. Or at least something that drowns out the howling wind in the void.

I dare anyone to find another explanation that covers so much without relying on Ladybrain

Or an ethereal female essence

Or sex-role stereotypes.

Something that justifies sterilizing children. I won’t be holding my breath.

Regardless, maybe we should treat our adversaries like the cranky little kids they are – By enforcing Nap Time.