Happy International Women’s Day! Women are over

And with a disturbing rise in anti-transgender hate here in Canada and around the world recently, I want to be very clear about one more thing: Trans women are women. We will always stand up to this hate – whenever and wherever it occurs.— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 8, 2023

International Women’s Day went mainstream in 1977, the heyday of the women’s rights movement, and has been celebrated on March 8th ever since. In those days, women’s rights were about women. But that is boring and passe, except for the outfits. Today, we still like Gloria Steinem’s glasses, but have no idea if she has a vagina or not, and honestly, who cares! She’s got parts, right?

The future is here and it’s not female. A female is a relic of the olden days, before they had penises and stubble. Don’t be sad — we had a good run! Like, centuries. But now it’s time to wrap it up.

Today, President Biden offered Alba Rueda, a man with long blonde hair, an International Women of Courage award. Rueda is Argentina’s Special Envoy for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and the country’s first male politician with long blonde hair. It is very brave of him to accept an award for brave women on a day for women. Most others would be ashamed. A bold move!

In Canada, a country so progressive they’ve progressed all the way up to a size Z bra, Hershey’s celebrated Fae Johnstone, a man who has made destroying women’s rights into a career, as part of their International Women’s Day campaign, “She For Her.” Johnstone protested my testimony against Bill C-16 back in 2017, on account of his desire to access women’s washrooms, which he did at Parliament that day, thereby proving his dick was a girl one. In response to Fae’s view of the future, where everyone is able live as their authentic selves, adam’s apples and all, a #BoycottHersheys campaign was launched by women who still believe International Women’s Day is for women.

.@Hersheys is putting the face of a trans-“woman” on chocolate bar wrappers with “HerShe” highlighted in honor of international women’s day.
Hershey’s is erasing women. pic.twitter.com/JzRkAtwTdO

— Leftism (@LeftismForU) March 1, 2023

Canadian media was not having it, alas. At ChekNews, Laura Brougham criticized the #BoycottHersheys campaign, writing, “This is the latest high-profile example of trans women facing backlash just for being who they are.”

It’s funny to defend men who want to be women in this way, as clearly the “trans” prefix attached to “women” demonstrates a desire to be someone one is not. If “transwomen” were already women, there would be no need to “trans.” You would just be a woman. And if you were indeed going to “just be who you are,” you would just be a man. You wouldn’t need to change a thing — body or pronoun.

But what are meanings of words to trans activists or Canadian media? Surely nothing more than a suggestion.

Broughton acknowledges that “trans rights” are not in fact under attack in Canada, as they have full government and institutional support, but quotes KJ Reed, a faculty member in Women and Gender Studies at Vancouver Island University (VIU), who offers a long list of ways people who call themselves trans still suffer. Reed tells Broughton:

“People who experience discrimination don’t always have the resources or the time to seek redress under the law. So it means taking time off work, it means talking to lawyers, it means accessing a system that requires both time and monetary resources.”

This is an interesting point, because the only people I know who have had to hire lawyers or “take time off of work” (on account of being fired, to be fair, but who doesn’t need a break sometimes!) within the gender identity debate are women who say men are not women. In any case, if the only discrimination being faced by men claiming to be women in Canada is that sometimes they have to take time off of work, I think they’re doing ok.

Reed is not only a faculty member at VIU, but apparently is also a PhD candidate in the department I graduated from at Simon Fraser University (SFU): Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Things seem to have changed quite a bit!

Back when I began studying at VIU, then at SFU, Women’s Studies was still Women’s Studies. There were courses about women and work, women in the media, women and sexuality, Indigenous women, African women, women in film, and more! In around 2010, everything changed. Pretty much across North America, Women’s Studies departments became Gender Studies departments, and the course material became focused not on women, but on gender theory. I was lucky enough to still be able to get away with focusing my work on actual women back when I was completing my graduate degree, and even produced a radio project featuring radical feminist lesbian, Sheila Jeffreys, who had been critical of transgenderism for many years at that point. My supervisor was not a fan, and said so in her feedback on my grad project, but I managed to graduate with a 4.0 despite my insistence on including cancelled radical feminists who were anti-porn and anti-transgenderism in my work.

No doubt I would have been burned at the stake had I been attempting this even half a  decade later, which I surely would have, had I continued on to do a PhD as planned. Instead, I went into journalism, yet another unfeasible place for me, considering my insistence on sharing inconvenient views and platforming the cancelled. I remember dreaming of working at the CBC. Ha! Carol only-one-side-to-this-discussion-and-it’s-mine Off would not have liked that much. Speaking out loud about women’s rights is the same as being a Holocaust denier at the CBC.

In an effort to continue saying “women” instead of “gender,” and hateful things like “men are male,” I went fully independent, via this very website!

I had no idea how bad things would get.

Ten years after I launched Feminist Current as a place for women to discuss and write about woman things, without compromising to third wave postmodernist NewThink, women are done.

International Women’s Day is for men, which means it is no longer.

The Women’s March tweeted:

David Eby, Premier of British Columbia and leader of the BC NDP took the opportunity to shout out his beautiful bros:

Rather than amplify the hateful voices targeting trans people in the replies to previous posts, let me just say, on #InternationalWomensDay – and every other day of the year, trans women are women. https://t.co/eGrEoTNBbn

— David Eby (@Dave_Eby) March 8, 2023

And of course, Canada’s Top Feminist, Justin Trudeau, announced:

“When women and girls are empowered, entire families, communities, and societies succeed. So today, as we mark #IWD2023 and celebrate the incredible women and girls in our lives, let’s keep working to build a more equal and equitable future.”

He made sure to add:

“And with a disturbing rise in anti-transgender hate here in Canada and around the world recently, I want to be very clear about one more thing: Trans women are women. We will always stand up to this hate — whenever and wherever it occurs.“

And there you have it. Men are women, and International Women’s Day is about them.

We are done. We are over. Time to move on. I mean, we’ve been women this whole time! Let someone else have a shot.

Let’s be the bigger uterus-havers and wish Justin Trudeau all the best in his efforts to make babies out of two penises.

The post Happy International Women’s Day! Women are over appeared first on Feminist Current.

These Guys Send Random Women Money to Celebrate International Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day, there are countless causes for celebration and conditions to lament. But really, whether you’re looking to honor women’s accomplishments or address the wrongs that have yet to be made right, there’s only so much your thoughts, prayers, and Twitter posts can do. So, some men who want to make their commitment to the day known choose to make a material impact: by giving money to random women on the Internet.

Among the women who receive money from strangers and the strangers who send it, International Women’s Day (IWD) represents an opportunity. For the women, it’s an obvious chance to bank on their womanhood. What good is the day if you aren’t being paid a bit extra for it? For the men, it might be an innocent means of showing appreciation—or, in many cases, a good excuse to flex their desire to be financially dominated. (Names in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.)

Adam, 28, in Chicago, uses IWD to seek out women who might be amenable to receiving his cash. He indulges in this practice year-round, but IWD makes a bigger dent in his checking account. “Anytime women post that they’re accepting money, for whatever reason, gives me a chance to send,” he says. On IWD, he often sees women tweet about their desire to receive money in a semi-joking way. “Celebrate by sending me a real life woman all of your money,” one recent tweet says, for example. Adam approaches these women asking for their CashApp information, then sends $10 or so to “gauge interest.” If they’re responsive, he often sends $150 to $200. He budgets around $1,000 for the day.

“Anytime women post that they’re accepting money, for whatever reason, gives me a chance to send.” —Adam

Chris, 52, in NYC, tries to set a budget of around $300. He expects to send to 2-5 women, ranging from $30 to $150 each. Like Adam, he chooses who to send to based on their tweets. “I like the ones who tailor their persona to lightly degrade men and talk about how it’s only the natural order of things for men to spoil women, especially on IWD,” he says. “It’s almost as an act of reparations for the oppression of women.”

While he hopes to stick to his limit, he hasn’t been quite so disciplined on previous International Women’s Days. “I once gave my credit card info to a woman for IWD, and she maxed it out,” he says. “I think the credit limit on that card was around $5,000. I recall seeing bags, shoes, and lingerie charged to the card. She also bought men’s shoes for her boyfriend, which was crazy, but later I knew it made sense for someone like me to fund a hot woman’s boyfriend too.”

Naturally, with men looking to be financially dominated, plenty of sex workers and financial dominatrixes make IWD a serious part of their calendar. Victoria Silver, a professional findomme and editor in NYC, expects a $100 tribute from each of her submissives for the day. “It gives another reason outside of the regular findom relationship for the tribute, tying in ‘female superiority’ as a fetish,” she says. “A lot of finsubs believe they’re inferior to their female dominant, and this is an added reason to celebrate.”

Some men with no sexualized interest in giving women money choose to do so on IWD, too, employing a similar mentality. As Ben, 35, in Los Angeles, explains, he has sent women he actually knows money on IWD because: “One, the wage gap/oppression of women. Two, it’s fun to give gifts and make people happy. And three, it’s less intense to do it on a specific day rather than for no particular reason.”

“IWD presents a unique opportunity to give to other women who may be outside the findom community.” —Brian

But even among those finsubs, some believe it is their obligation to give women money on IWD, whether it’s sexualized or not. “I like the idea that there is a specific day dedicated to women and everything they’ve accomplished, and if I can support them in any way, then it’s the least I can do,” says Brian, 24, from the southeastern US, who regularly gives women money as part of an interest in financial domination. “IWD presents a unique opportunity to give to other women who may be outside the findom community, since there are more women asking for money, even in a joking way.”

And with that, many women—both financial dominatrixes and not—make use of the one day a year dedicated to the causes of their gender. While a specific Google illustration or a note on the calendar about the holiday might be nice, nothing impacts women’s day-to-day lives quite like an injection of cash.

“I guess in this material world, money is the answer for us all,” says Mistress Isha, a dominatrix in France. Like Victoria, she expects at least $100 each from her submissives for IWD. “I really do think women getting paid for nothing in return, just their identity, is a small but effective way to fill the social gap between the genders.”

Whether it’s from a friend who wants to better support women or a random guy online who might be eroticizing the whole dynamic, plenty of cash is being digitally exchanged on International Women’s Day. On Twitter, in particular, the path to being on the receiving end as a woman seems as simple as making your interest known. Go ahead and buy yourself flowers—someone on the Internet will probably want to pay for them.

Follow Magdalene Taylor on Twitter.

Western voices dominate research in Asian feminist academia – Why?

Drawing on her study of authors and publications across various journals focused on Asian Feminism, Francesca Earp finds that Asian feminist voices continue to be underrepresented. As these voices are critical to both the relevance of research in the region and in their contribution to wider feminist thought, she argues more needs to be done … Continued

Women in the history of linguistics—from marginalization to recognition

Women in the history of linguistics—from marginalization to recognition

Women’s History Month raises issues of erasure and marginalization, authority and power which, sadly, are still relevant for women today. Much can be learnt from the experience of women in the past. We find inspiring stories of women who overcame prejudice and constraints of all kinds and who sometimes managed to gain recognition from their peers, only to be excluded from the history of their discipline. 

In the field of linguistics, this marginalization relates to some extent to what is today considered part of linguistics and the current valuing above all of theoretical work. Words matter: a broader definition of linguistics allows women across the centuries to be included in this scholarly field. Given the cultural and practical limitations imposed on their access to education across all cultures, we need to look outside more institutionalized and traditional frameworks to discover the contributions made by women to the study of language structure and function.

Classic histories of linguistics, very rarely, if ever, include women scholars. We set about uncovering the contribution of women linguists—from European and non-European traditions— and their ideas and writings to give them the recognition they deserve. A group of equally motivated and determined scholars joined us in our quest. We looked for names, works and ideas, especially in those liminal spaces not reached by official historiography, that is, outside institutions, universities, and academies in more private and domesticated spaces. We decided to challenge categories and concepts devised for male-dominated accounts and expands our field of enquiry: we turned our attention not only to pioneers and exceptional women, but also to those non-exceptional women who nevertheless quietly moved forward our knowledge of languages, their description, analysis, codification and acquisition. Painstaking research in archives and libraries, looking at manuscripts and printed sources, gradually unearthed rich, fascinating, and often unexpected evidence of women’s contribution. 

For the earlier periods, it was difficult to find women who published grammars or dictionaries, but they did exist. Marguerite Buffet in seventeenth-century France wrote a volume of observations on the good usage of French specifically aimed at women (Nouvelles observations sur la langue françoise, 1668). Similarly, in 1740, Johanna Corleva published a Dutch translation of Port-Royal’s celebrated general and rational grammar. In Portugal, in 1786, Francisca de Chantal Álvares produced a compendium of Portuguese grammar for female pupils in convent schools, the Breve Compendio da Gramatica Portugueza para uso das Meninas que se educaõ no Mosteiro da Vizitaçaõ de Lisboa, at a time when the majority of women did not have access to formal education. Further afield, women missionaries were also active in the field. Gertrud von Massenbach joined the Sudan Pioneer Mission in 1909, as a teacher of mathematics in Aswan, in Nubian territory. Her linguistic interests led her to publish a dictionary with a grammatical introduction of Kunûzi Nubian (Wörterbuch des nubischen Kunûzi-Dialektes mit einer grammatischen Einleitung, 1933) and a collection of Nubian texts (Nubische Texte im Dialekt der Kunuzi und der Dongolawi, 1962).

But there is much more. Women were, for instance, the intended audience or dedicatees of some of the earlier vernacular grammars in Europe. The Gramática de la lengua castellana (1492) by Antonio de Nebrija, the very first printed grammar of a vernacular language in Europe, was commissioned by Queen Isabella I of Castile and, according to Juan de Valdés, was meant to be of benefit, “para las damas de la sereníssima doña Isabel” (“for the ladies-in-waiting of Her Very Serene Highness Queen Isabel”). Women were translators, language teachers, collectors of data on endangered languages, and creators of new scripts. In Jiangyong county (Jiāngyǒng xiàn) of Hunan (Húnán) province in China, a rural territory surrounded by mountains, the nǚshū script (“female script/writing”) was used and transmitted among village women for at least one and a half centuries: a variant of the Chinese script, it represents a significant example of Chinese women’s contribution to character invention and development. 

Women also assisted male members of their families, or male colleagues, in their work as linguists. Lucy Catherine Lloyd (1834-1914), the sister-in-law of the German linguist Wilhelm Bleek, was his most important collaborator. Together they created the nineteenth-century archive of ǀXam and !Kung texts (today called the Digital Bleek and Lloyd), an invaluable resource for linguists working on Khoisan languages. Cinie Louw followed her husband Andrew Louw to South Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) to work on the Morgenster Mission, learning the local language, Karanga, a Shona dialect, and becoming a fluent speaker. Their 1919 translation of the Bible into Karanga was a joint effort, preceded in 1915, by an important manual of the Chikaranga Language. 

Other women’s linguistic work has been neglected or overshadowed, the men with whom they collaborated reaping the benefit of their efforts. The young Chiri Yukie (1903–1922) helped codify the oral tradition of the Ainu people of Hokkaido in northern Japan. Thanks to her bilingual and bicultural knowledge she was able to collect a wide range of oral performances, preserving them for posterity and making them accessible by translating them into Japanese. Her invaluable work ultimately ended up promoting, instead, the career of a prominent male academic who was awarded the Imperial prize for his work on the Indigenous language. 

What came to light, piece by piece, through reading their personal stories, was the challenges women had to face in male-dominated academia. Women’s personal and professional life cannot be separated in a way that has been possible for male scholars across the centuries. Theirs are often tales of perseverance and determination. Take the example of Mary Haas, a stalwart of twentieth-century American Indian Linguistics and a central figure in the Boas-Sapir tradition, which laid the foundation for current language documentation practices. Haas found her marriage in 1931 to Morris Swadesh limited her opportunities both within linguistics and with respect to employment generally. Given the scarcity of academic appointments, she considered getting a teaching certificate to teach in public schools in Oklahoma to support herself and her fieldwork on Native American languages. However, as a married woman she was unlikely to get hired in a public school. Undeterred, she wrote to Swadesh asking for a divorce so that she might be able to support herself. Swadesh agreed. Their divorce was meant to allow Haas to pursue more avenues of employment, although her plans were ultimately interrupted by World War II. 

Uncovering such stories proved complicated, but extremely rewarding. And the more we found, the more we have become convinced that there is still so much more to discover.

Read a free chapter from Women in the History of Linguistics on Oxford Academic.

_{Featured image from the cover of Women in the History of Linguistics by Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Helena Sanson.}

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