So I was back in Mandarin class and the teacher let us know that in ancient times sometimes they wouldn’t even give their girl children names. Their attitude was why bother getting attached to her when she’s just going to grow up and belong to someone else? She doesn’t need her own identity because she is the property of her future husband. If they needed to refer to a woman they would say that’s Wang’s wife. In the same way you would say oh, that’s Wang’s car or Wang’s house. Let’s remember that we give names to dogs, horses, ships and buildings but some human women don’t deserve such recognition. She also touched on sex-selective abortion for a bit and it was all in all a pretty sad discussion today.
I was really moved but it felt like everyone else didn’t care or thought that stuff doesn’t matter because it doesn’t happen anymore. And yet even now women’s identities are being erased when they get married. Their personal history and family ties are untraceable because they are “adopted” into their husbands family. It’s disgusting and I hate that its so nomalized and I hate that even women’s names are not our own. We might as well never have been given names in the first place.
Common throughout history, unfortunately. Women in ancient Rome often weren’t given names beyond their family names; if you needed to differentiate between sisters, you’d often just say “Cornelia the younger / the elder” or even just give them numbers. Their husbands would address them, in private, by the feminine form of their own names (eg. if you married Julius then he’d call you Julia).
A lot of people think the effect has disappeared today, because women typically have less common names than men - a higher fraction of men are named the absolute most popular names like John or Jack whereas women are more spread out over different names.
But it’s really noticeable how often parents give their male children meaningful names - they’ll have a historically important namesake, or be named after a great grandfather, or have a traditional name with a meaning their parents liked. That’s why the common names tend to be common. The names given to female children are chosen because they’re “pretty” names, because their parents just liked the way it sounded, or are even just nouns / adjectives like “Lily”, “Hope” or “Summer”. They emphasise that the role of the female child is to be a pretty ornament, not to achieve meaningful things or inherit anything from a namesake.
They’re often very infantilising - sure it’s cute when you have a two year old named “Poppy” or “Precious” but she’s going to have to grow up and put that name on her CV. They very often use the diminutive -ie / -y suffix (Millie, Tilly, Becky, Georgie, Katy / Katie), which is typically used to indicate something small and cute and which many women have to obfuscate in order to construct anything that sounds like a professional identity. (I know a Katie who is pretending her name is Katherine, even though it’s legally Katie, just so people won’t think she’s being inappropriately informal in a business context.)
They also highlight just how much ageism is directed at women and how much women have to struggle to keep up with fashion, even in something as basic as their names. A traditional male name like “Joseph” or “Edward” or “James” or “Luke” is fine no matter how many centuries it’s been popular for. An off cycle name might be unusual, but that isn’t a bad thing. But dare give a girl a name that was popular too long ago - “Dorothy” or “Mary” or “Dawn” or “Gertrude” - and she’ll be ruthlessly bullied in school for it because it’s a “old lady name for grandmothers”. Don’t you know those names are ugly now, undesirable, associated with old wrinkled women who aren’t sexy? You need a young, new, sexy name like Ava or Madison or Olivia - keeping in mind of course that those will be “ugly” too when your daughter gets old.
The tendency of feminine names to emphasise beauty - and occasionally sexuality, which can be somewhat inappropriate considering the kid has to grow up with that name - is taken to an extreme if you look at porn stars’ stage names, which are all things like Scarlet or Rose or Desiree or Ravyn. Femininity, taken to an extreme, always ends up being about sexual availability.
And when women do try and give their daughters unique names, so they’ll be memorable even if their surname changes, the Daily Mail runs spots to make fun of names like Nevaeh or Unique or Evylyn because apparently that’s chavvy. And maybe it is! I’m not a fan of replacing all vowels with y either! But wow, there are just no good options for women.
And of course the moment you put a recognisably female name on your CV you become less employable, your qualifications worth less. But if you have a gender ambiguous name, you’re punished for being gnc. Good fucking luck out there.
It’s kind of a small thing, next to all the rape and mutilation and career discrimination and all the generally horrible things happening to women. But it’s just… nothing is okay, nothing is equal, no part of the world has actually been completely fixed yet. Even our names are yet another thing we need feminism help improve.
Ah, language/literature analysis! How I love and hate you. Great addiction tho. Thank you!
thatkindoffeministthatkindoffeminist
One of my mates has an old fashioned legal name which they don’t go by. While she likes the name because it has meaning to her, she’s said that most people think it’s a weird simply because it’s so old fashioned.
When it was popular what were the most popular boys names? Joseph, Robert, John, William, etc. Have they become old fashioned suddenly? Of course not.
Is there any part of a woman’s life which isn’t just a trend?
Modern feminists rarely reckon with the true immensity of the legacy of men’s subordination of us. This is the kind of thing I mean. Modern feminists are frequently in total denial about the fact that we were all of us property until, relatively speaking, a few seconds ago.
We have a tradition in my culture, since Somalia was an oral society, where people kept track of their ancestry by memorizing the names of their fathers, their father’s father and so on. This practice is called abtirsi and in theory you’re supposed to know the names until you reach your clan name. I think of all the women in my ancestry whose names was forgotten.
Hi there - I'm trans and Jewish and I'd like to share my perspective on the "trans genocide" thing. I don't think we're experiencing active genocide in the US; that's definitely an extreme and offensive statement to make regarding what's happening. However, I do think that the increasing legislation attacking trans rights and autonomy as well as an increasingly polarized public view of trans people points to the potential for a worse situation that moves closer to genocide.
Now, personally, I live in a state where no laws limiting trans rights have passed. I was able to legally begin my medical transition when I was 15, I've never experienced transphobic violence, and the majority of people around me are supportive of my transition. My experience is similar to most other trans people in my area, with varying degrees of familial support.
But nation wide, we have seen an increase of trans people being murdered, and a massive increase in anti-trans legislation. This legislation aims to strip trans people of their autonomy and privacy. It seeks to put trans children in danger, remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children's access, and enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.
Most of this is happening because right wing politicians can capitalize on moral outrage and fear to win votes. They're scapegoating trans people instead of trying to improve the lives of their constituents. This is kind of politician's thing, so it's not surprising in any way. However, when those policies successfully do win these politicians support, they'll have to make them more extreme. They'll want to make it illegal to exist as a trans person in public.
Now I'm not saying that that's genocide. I think we're an awfully long way off from trans people being mass arrested for being trans, and then murdered by the state. But we are in a rising climate of fear, and I don't think the trans people calling this the seventh stage of genocide are doing so out of bad faith. I think they're doing that because they are terrified of having their right to take life-saving medication, or have protection in the workplace, or be able to use a bathroom, or have children, or wear what they want to wear taken away. And they're terrified of those things because the bills on the table in states across the country put those rights in jeopardy. And if calling this a genocide makes people pay attention? I'm not super mad about it.
Hi, thank you for sharing your perspective on this. I appreciate it.
Your fear is primarily based on sensationalist headlines and interpretations of the law that are unfounded. I can assure you, you are not even in the early stages of a genocide.
But nation wide, we have seen an increase of trans people being murdered
In 2021, the Human Rights Campaign recorded 50 deaths of trans, nonbinary and GNC people.
In 2022, the HRC recorded 38 deaths (source). So. If we take these numbers at face value, that’s a decrease of nearly 25% in one year, in a growing section of the population.
Taking these numbers and the size of the transgender population in the US (1.6 million), in 2021, trans people had a death rate of 3.1/100k, and in 2022, this dropped to 2.4. Again, the numbers provided by the HRC include nonbinary and GNC people, and accidental deaths.
Some of these aren’t even murders or intentional homicides. They just say they were killed. I wouldn’t consider these numbers reliable whatsoever, but they’re the only estimate we have for now. There are so few trans deaths that they can fit on a single Wikipedia page, along with a little blurb about their life and who they were. It would be impossible to do something similar with victims of femicide, since there are too many to count. This page lists victims of femicide, only in Canada, only in 2022, and it is nearly as long as the Wikipedia page I listed above.
This is a perfect segue to my next point, which is to compare trans genocide to femicide, which is actually real. Women are killed so often that the UN has to categorize female murder victims as either killings (unnatural deaths), intentional homicides or gender-related killings (hate crimes, therefore considered in femicide statistics).
ALT
The intentional homicide rate for female victims in the US is 2.9/100k (data from 2021), and it is steadily increasing after having been on the decline since the mid-90s.
ALT
That only includes the pink and red circles shown in the UN’s chart, not accidental deaths or unknown deaths like the HRC includes in their counts. Some countries have as many as 10.6/100k women die a year.
TL;DR: The murder rate for trans people in the US is not increasing, it is decreasing. This isn’t indicative of a trans genocide in the slightest.
But nation wide, we have seen […] a massive increase in anti-trans legislation.
As I was saying earlier, this idea stems from sensationalist headlines. It’s concerning to me how widespread the misinformation about anti trans legislation really is, when house bills are publicly available online. You can literally do a quick Google search and find that most of these bills are nothing burgers.
Unfortunately, it’s easier for you to just go on a website like translegislation.com and have them tell you what these bills say. I’ll do some of the work for you and go through how these sites lie to you.
Alabama imposing criminal penalties on providers of trans healthcare? Sounds scary. Let’s see what the source they linked, the HRC, has to say.
ALT
Ah. So it’s specifically regarding transgender youth. As in, minors. This is after going through an insanely long title detailing how bad the bill is. The trans legislation tracker essentially lies by omission, implying that all trans healthcare is being criminalized.
Going to the bill in question, AL SB184, we can see that it actually acknowledges the existence of dysphoria in children.
However, they also acknowledge that this feeling may be fleeting, and that making permanent changes to a child’s body solely on account of the child’s personal sense of identity is unwise.
I won’t go through every single bill here, as this post is already very long, but you get the idea. Feel free to send another ask if you would like me to look at specific bills.
Back to your ask: the way you speak of these bills shows that you’ve never read them for yourself or know how legislation works, since you’re acting like it’s the beginning of Armageddon.
This legislation aims to strip trans people of their autonomy and privacy. It seeks to put trans children in danger, remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children’s access, and enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.
I’m assuming by autonomy and privacy, you mean the choice to undergo medical transition and the bathroom/locker room/women’s sports issue respectively.
Bills limiting “gender-affirming” care are focused on children, since puberty blockers like Lupron are now known to have very negative and permanent effects. The bills don’t ban adults from choosing to take HRT. It’s extremely profitable for doctors to continue to prescribe HRT and for surgeons to continue to recommend expensive plastic surgeries. Legislation won’t go that route unless there’s a massive shift in public perception.
The “Save Women’s Sports Act” literally just limits participation in women’s school sports to females only. That’s it. The trans legislation tracker even acknowledges this.
Most of these bills are copy pasted from eachother, which is why they’re all dubbed as “Save Women’s Sports.” Here’s a snippet from HB61 in Ohio:
ALT
If someone’s sex is brought into question, a simple blood test is all that’s needed. Contrary to what the media may have led you to believe, there are no forcible genital inspections. No trans person is being forced to undress for this. Only 6 trans “girls” are affected by this in Ohio, out of 400k total athletes in girl’s sports. So I’m not sure why this feels like a precursor to genocide to you.
remove information about what it is to be trans or queer from children’s access,
Personally, I don’t think children should be aware that medical transition is even a remote possibility unless they are in extreme psychological distress related to their sex. Even then, therapy is usually the best solution. I don’t think the “Gender Unicorn,” a surprisingly complex graphic created in part by an alleged violent rapist and groomer, should be used in classrooms to teach children about gender ideology. Gender ideology should be taught to college students who are better equipped to form their own opinion, not children who barely know how to read.
There are better, more useful things to push in our education curriculum, like compulsory comprehensive sex ed. That way, young men don’t learn about sex through violent pornography, and young girls don’t accidentally get pregnant without knowing what it means. This would also be a good time to teach them about sexual orientation. Leaving it up to the parents or focusing on abstinence evidently doesn’t work.
enforce archaic ideas about what it means to be a man or woman.
The lack of self-awareness here is pretty astounding. The trans movement actively enforces these archaic ideas of gender by telling tomboys that they might actually be a boy. This implies that femininity is what makes womanhood, which is objectively untrue.
By telling masculine women that they are men and feminine men that they are women,you’re literally enforcing the gender roles you say you’re destroying.
They’ll want to make it illegal to exist as a trans person in public.
You can speculate about this all you want, but you can’t see laws limiting child transition and keeping sports sex-segregated as writing on the wall. We’re not even close to that.
Now I’m not saying that that’s genocide. I think we’re an awfully long way off from trans people being mass arrested for being trans, and then murdered by the state.
I’m glad to hear you are moderately sane.
But we are in a rising climate of fear,
Your phrasing reminds me of US politics in the wake of 9/11. When people act out of fear, decisions are made in haste, and wars are started over made-up WMDs. Being fearful clouds your judgement.
Look around you. You’re safe and accepted. The trans flag is flown almost everywhere in June. A trans woman won the NCAA National Champion title just last year. For International Women’s Day, multiple companies featured trans women. Time Magazine featured many trans women as Women of the Year. Language is now inclusive, so women don’t actually exist anymore. We’re just uterus havers. This is all to cater to trans people.
Yeah. It’s getting to be a bit much, isn’t it? Don’t you expect the least bit of pushback, especially from women? We aren’t living in fear of some invisible boogeyman. We are angry at how rapidly our hard work has been undone.
We’re pissed that after decades of feminist progress, we’ve regressed to being considered non-men once again.
and I don’t think the trans people calling this the seventh stage of genocide are doing so out of bad faith. I think they’re doing that because they are terrified of having their right to take life-saving medication, or have protection in the workplace, or be able to use a bathroom, or have children, or wear what they want to wear taken away.
Puberty blockers and HRT do not save lives. They actually haven’t been proven to have a substantial enough effect on mental health to consider them an adequate treatment for gender dysphoria.
ALT
2. Trans people have the same basic human rights as any other human being.
3. Many places are adding gender-neutral bathrooms in order to accommodate the growing trans population. No one is checking your genitals at the door of a bathroom, no one cares that much. I care about girls being assaulted at school by boys in skirts and the school boards covering it up in the name of trans acceptance (x).
4. Trans people remove their own ability to have children by going on puberty blockers, HRT and even eventually physically castrating themselves. If you mean the ability to adopt or foster children, I don’t know. Gay and lesbian couples still have a hard time adopting to this day, so progress can be made in that department.
To conclude this hodgepodge of various facts, screenshots and links, I’ll leave you with this:
I fundamentally disagree with you that crying “genocide” is in any way helpful for your community. It’s not. Most of Western society might have forgotten what genocide looks like or doesn’t even know what the word means anymore, but you should know better as a Jew.
The attention trans people get from saying that they’re going through a genocide is overwhelmingly negative from people on both ends of the political spectrum at this point. People are annoyed at trans people for making shit up, which ruins your movement’s credibility.
When you have to lie to get someone’s attention, you’ve already lost.
A list based on stuff that I’ve seen, not saying each one is perfect representation or even necessarily feminist. But they are entertainment that I have enjoyed as a woman. Enjoy.
Children’s:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Korra (sequel to Avatar above)
Kim Possible
Mulan
Anastasia
Moana
Cheetah Girls
Cadet Kelly
Aquamarine
She-Ra
*note there are family friendly ones in the other categories as well
About women’s rights/issues (viewer discretion on some of them depending on what you may or may not want to watch):
The Morning Show
Bombshell
The Handmaid’s Tale
On the Basis of Sex
Iron Jawed Angels
Mona Lisa Smile
Belle
In a World
Whale Rider
Bend It Like Beckham
Hidden Figures
Good Girls Revolt
Mrs. America
Orville (some eps)
Unbelievable
The Breadwinner
Strong female presence/relationships:
Dead to Me
Grace and Frankie
Tuca and Bertie
The Joy Luck Club
Thelma and Louise
Fried Green Tomatoes
Wine Country
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Street Food (the eps which focus on women)
Misc:
Ocean’s 8
The Hunger Games
Luna Nera
Cursed (2020 series)
The Kitchen (2019)
Salt
Killing Eve
Someone Great
Ghostbusters (the female cast one)
The Spy Who Dumped Me
Wonder Woman
Captain Marvel
Marvel’s Agent Carter
Star Wars (newer)
Miss Congeniality
Ex Machina
Disenchantment
Parks n Rec
Star Trek Voyager
The 100
Legally Blonde
Others I am checking out/on my list to check out: Cable girls, call the midwife, alias grace, the addams family, the hunting ground, mad max fury road, bomb girls, and a league of their own
