Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Slater

Cheryl,

A couple of thoughts. First I would like to point out that it was Chazz and not ScandalAndy who argued that all genders are constructs of the patriarchy, are therefore invalid, and should be eliminated. In your remarks, you seem to be speaking as though this argument came from SA. I apologize if I am misreading you.

I wonder though, why you don't think it would work to talk about sexism in terms of sex instead of gender. In your paragraph about feminism why couldn't 'woman' be replaced with 'female'? What do you think would be lost? Same for your definition of lesbian. I'm not arguing, as Chazz did, that genders are inherently bogus. I'm just curious why you think, in this particular context, making the same points with respect to sex instead of gender does not work.

I'm puzzled about your first question since I don't think I suggested that SA made any specific arguments about gender constructs with which I disagree. Was I unclear? I freely admit that I deliberatively made some reductive statements about gender theory for the sake of brevity. I connected those to SA because her field of study was gender theory.

As for the difference between woman and female, I don't usually make that distinction in my own life. Neither do rapists, violent criminals, sex traffickers, or people in positions to hire or negotiate salaries. Sure, go ahead and replace 'woman' with 'female'. What does that do for you?