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The experiences trans men and women have with misogyny will never not be fascinating to me. Like, for the first time ever we have this huge sample size of people who have experienced how their gender presentation affects how people interact with them, giving tangible proof of misogyny in action. And it can’t just be swept aside with ‘MaYbE tHe wOmEn JuSt miSuNDerStOoD’ or ‘mAYbe tHe mAN diDN’t MeAn iT LiKE tHaT’. I mean idiots will still make idiot arguments but at least it chips away at them a little bit.
I told one of my friends that I’m being looked at differently in crowds now, and he just said “no you’re imagining it”.
Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.
In that specific case it might’ve been an answer to “Do you look at me differently now”, brains like to short-circuit like that, and not everybody is comfortable speaking for the tribe. “Does the tribe like me?” – “Well I do” – “Does the tribe?” – “I’m not the tribe”.
Honestly people are probably just looking at you wondering if you are trans.
Women aren’t believed, are you a trans woman? If so it could be either that you’re a woman or that you’re trans.
(I hope not to misgender either but) bro, she knows. No need to mansplain it, read it again:
Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.
I was adding to it, not explaining it.
But is it because of being trans in general, or because of the direction of transition?
Hello it’s me a trans woman. I knew before transition about some of it but never really understood. When I was masc I didn’t realize how much of it was basically hidden in plain sight because of how I learned to socialize. After transitioning though omg it’s everywhere. I’m in Seattle right now where I don’t have to try too hard to pass and still get treated at least base line okay. Even then I still use my masc voice more than my femme voice because people take me more seriously when I do. Like there’s a cultural acceptance of trans people here but if I behave more masc I get the privilege of being “one of the boys” even if I’m visually in full femme mode. It’s all so weird
Religon is probably what initially does this to people’s brains
Indoctrinating children into religious systems of arbitrary hierarchy gives little boys god complexes and makes little girls into property.
Oh my goodness yes! Not to mention the whole if you don’t dress “modestly” it’s your fault if you get unwanted attention thing. It’s a grooming ground.
Depends on where you are from, but the sort of thinking that gets people into religion gets people into misogyny even without religion in my experience.
Misogyny is a religion. Religion isn’t just myths and worship, it’s also social orders and value systems.
I feel bad for female-presenting people having experienced being treated worse than their male peers. I didn’t grow up religious or anything, but I can sense where I could be perpetuating that hidden misogyny myself.
For example: In work and social life, I’ll give my phone number away to people I meet. But I’m not interested in relationships, so I’m far less likely to give it to women, since I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m making romantic advances by doing that.
I’m pretty sure for men that aren’t outright misogynist jerks or bullies, it’s stuff like that where they feel as if they might be viewed as awkward providing professional favours to women when they wouldn’t think twice about it for their male peers. That leads to those experiences that women find themselves unable to receive those opportunities to get ahead in their career, or aren’t listened to, or have to advocate their position more when career advancement seems to fall more naturally to men.
For example: In work and social life, I’ll give my phone number away to people I meet. But I’m not interested in relationships, so I’m far less likely to give it to women, since I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m making romantic advances by doing that.
As someone who is relatively active in volunteering/local politics, I’ve been thinking about printing up some old-fashioned “calling cards” (like business cards, but not for a business). Maybe you could do the same, and seeing that giving out your contact info was such a routine habit of yours that you had a ready-made solution for it would stop women from getting the impression that you were leading them on?
…then again, maybe not. Hmm.
I’m female presenting. I’ve known people who thought I was a cis woman for months, and I don’t keep being nonbinary or trans a secret.
When I read actual cis women’s accounts of misogyny, and also trans women’s accounts, I can’t relate. I don’t get shut down the same way. Somehow, despite others perceiving me as female, I kept the tiny part of gender presentation that tells people to sit down and shut up when I’m talking as if I were a man. I don’t understand what it is, but I still have it the same as before I transitioned.
I would love to know what it is so I can share it, but I can’t tell why people respect me as much as they would respect a man. It’s bewildering.
Confidence goes a long way, but maybe that is simplifying the experience too much.
You could be lucky too or maybe you don’t notice the microaggressions.
I think attractiveness plays a large part in a lot of this too, for both sexes.
I think attractiveness plays a large part in a lot of this, too, for anybody.
Iftfy
Thanks, that’s a better way to phrase it.
Not in stem but the same thing happened to me. I used to be able to speak to a room and be heard. Now I need to raise my voice, sound a little whiney or bitchy or nobody hears me. Only my closest friend still asks me for advice or to share my knowledge. Used to happen all the time.
At least I pass. I got that going for me.
One observation I made is that when women get to comprise a significant part of workforce in science, those things seem to be flattened out.
Working in the place and field (Russia, food technology) where women are about 50% of the workforce, I’ve never witnessed anything talked about here. Women are taken just as seriously on the position, they are promoted on par with men, they are in charge of many high-profile projects, and actively taking male and female students under scientific supervision. Any sort of workplace harassment will not just contribute to your potential termination, but will earn you very bad reputation - you’ll be seen as a dangerous weirdo no one wants to deal with.
One other observation I made is that international scientists often come from the position of entitlement, which is also weird to me. Male scientists tend to flaunt their position any time they can, and many of the female scientists tend to sort of mimic this behavior, but it feels different, like if they try to claw the attention they were consistently denied.
For me, it is weird and unnatural. Where I live and work, some baseline respect towards your more experienced superiors, male or female, is to be expected, is taught since school, and doesn’t require such performances. Since most school teachers are female, the role of woman as a potential superior to be respected is clearly defined and doesn’t cause questions. Students are not afraid to contact their superiors, but do it respectfully and with full understanding they take valuable time of a high-profile scientist. Why do people have to constantly fight for attention and respect in many other cultures is beyond me.
I share what others have said about your likely difficulty in seeing what’s going on around you. However.
I have a couple of female friends who moved as adults to US from Russia in the 80s. Both said they were shocked when they found out the things that weren’t soviet propaganda, like how women were treated day to day, and the systemic discrimination against racialized people. Neither of them is immune to racist or sexist bevahior, and now having lived here for so long even moreso, but there is a difference in baseline expectations at the macro scale. Years later they still express surprise when even the pretense of attempting equality is absent or made a joke.
That said I’ve met women and men from elsewhere in the former USSR (both older and especially younger than the above) who are very heteronormative and accept their “place” in hierarchy. I understand there was post-soviet backlash culturally. How do you view that? In the past 2-4 decades is there progress, regression or what? My point of view could be tainted by selection bias in terms of who chooses to move countries, and where they land.
The fact that Russia underwent a revolutionary transformation in the 20th C, from serf to industrial, when it could benefit from an existing articulation of gender inequalities, must take some credit for present equality, no? To have such a big material shake up, and at least with the goal of addressing the patriarchy. I dont think in the anglosphere we ever had that.
On your question: I haven’t lived in USSR (born in Russia already), but from what I could gather from relatives and older acquaintances, it was quite similar.
Generally good on workplace equality, quite some everyday/domestic sexism going both ways. One negative change in the workplace since the fall of USSR and rise in private enterprises is reluctancy of some bosses to select female employees, as they are feared to take maternity leave and be on the company’s budget. I wouldn’t say this happens everywhere, but it’s common enough to be notable.
The positive shift in the domestic part started about 2010’s, as new wave of feminism has been accepted by many in the Russian youth. Still, there are some issues on that front, particularly outside big cities.
In any case, the Soviet legacy clearly shows, and it sure has helped immensely, especially in the workplace.
Is this unique to women? Do men experience anything similar in women-dominated fields? I’m not actually sure what these may be; teaching, childcare, hair stylists? I realise this may make me sound misogynist, but I’m really clueless.
This is anecdotal, but male teachers get a special treatment if the school staff is mostly women.
For my anecdotal story, I’ve never been treated worse than when I was doing IT for a hospital and working around nurses, who were almost exclusively women. God it felt like I was in a mean girls movie or some campy coming of age story about bullying.
I don’t think hospitals do count, being burned out could be an official requirement for the job and you wouldn’t notice a difference.
Being burned out doesn’t mean being catty, intentionally spreading false rumors, forming impenetrable cliques, and just being rude and talking behind each others backs.
I get it, nurses are over worked and under paid. But so are a ton of other professions and they dont have this same problem.
Eh, being burned out means exactly (most of) that. Especially being rude is a huge sign of being burned out, because you just can’t muster the energy to be positive, because everything about your work pisses you off, including your coworkers, customers, bosses and the work itself.
There is a difference between “I’m frustrated with work so I will be short with people” and “I am going to systematically create a rumor that one of the IT guys is actually bi” or “10 of us are going to gang up on a new nurse and bully her until she leaves crying”.
Those are some of the worst examples but little petty stuff happened all the time. But it was even little things like every time a nurse would walk away the other nurses would talk about how they’re putting on weight or being a bad mom or some other nonsense.
I don’t know, like I said this is anecdotal stories. But I’ve worked a lot of places in a lot of industries and nurses aren’t the only ones who are overworked, underpaid, and burnt out. But they are overwhelmingly the ones who act the meanest.
Men in fem dominated fields get the glass escalator to promotion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Escalator
Propublica has some useful peices, but it might take an ebsco search or three to pry loose that dangerous and embarassing level of ignorance about what living is like.
Watching sociology videos can be a bit of a grind, but tastes better than foot-in-the-mouth.
Unfortunately I’ve seen men tend to dominate the conversation in women dominated fields as well, but only if they are misogynistic. I work a lot in the fiber arts industry and more often than not it is assumed I don’t know anything because I am a man and humble, but I quickly prove my worth with my 20 years experience and it’s wonderfully collaborative. Then I see so many men come in and say, “Look I knit a sweater! This is easy! Give me praise!” and weirdly enough there are enough people out there that just feed those egos. I completely blame the men in this case, but this problem wouldn’t be so prevalent if everyone was just willing to shut these idiots down.
I know I’m gonna go on a hot take that looks like is deflecting the problem but I experienced bullying and seen it and it can be worse than how they treat women. I think is related to a play of power the alpha beta shit existed before it now just has a name. Is all a play of power over others an male social status in the eyes of other males may times is defined by the amount of vaginas they have, had and would have access to. I think is all related and women get the short end of the stick a lot more than men but some get get the stick that says “fuck your life haha”. Of couse some men take it entirely with women for some reason too so with them women get both sticks.
And (knowing the internet i say this beforehand) please with this I do not mean to do a whataboutism argument. Women do have a problem here as well as many other problems we all need go help with.
As a man, it is insane to me that this is real.
I have a difficult time imagining malicious intent towards women by all these people. But given how common these stories are, there is something true about it. I just don’t understand why.
Is it really an unconscious cultural thing? Or am I naive about how my fellow men (I guess maybe women too) feel towards women?
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.
I am not defending them. I am expressing my struggle with the reality of this shit.
I think you’re naive but in fairness, it is shocking and hard to believe.
You’re simply not paying attention, because you don’t have to. Not to be harsh. I went from male to female and how I’m treated is night and day. You’ve never tried to see how the other side lives, and when you heard stories that went against your experiences you dismissed them like your mind is trying to do right now.
Why does it happen? Nurture. History. Patriarchy. I could blame a lot of things. It’s mostly that men never get treated the way they treat women.
I’ve heard in my university that a lab manger/ head was trying to always get with the female students, and would ignore male ones, or would not allow male to volunteer in his labs. It’s very close to bordering SH. Most other labs with male PIs don’t really care about either gender
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.
Most people don’t do any of this “intentionally” in the sense that they are aware of the harm they cause. It doesn’t even enter the realm of moral consideration.
To many, there is a genuine belief of superiority that is entirely subconscious. The easiest example is classic mysogyny in a relationship - the woman is “emotional” and therefore the man should be the one to handle “business”. That’s not just 1950s oppression. Some variation of that thought process is shockingly prevalent across generations.
That man doesn’t really think he’s harming his woman. He thinks he’s helping, by being the man of the house. That same logic applies outside of romance. “I am more rational than she is, therefore I should talk now and she shouldn’t.”
That’s not a thought. That’s just a foundational belief that spawns all the other thoughts.
Ever been in an argument with another adult, and a child joined in with some naive half-informed emotional take on society?
An adult usually placates the child - explains, briefly, why they’re wrong - and returns to arguing with the other adult.
That’s how a lot of men see women by default. As inferior, naive, ill-informed, emotional creatures. Not consciously. Not intentionally. Many mysogynists genuinely seem to have the same intentions as the adult to the child - to placate and educate.
But its fucked up, and it’s important to acknowledge that it simmers under he surface. The reason all of this is so complicated and messy is that it is so hard to see mysogyny for what it is.
You genuinely can’t know if a single interaction with a single male was an example of mysogyny, because sometimes humans just condescend to each other. Sometimes humans are just shitty to each other.
But women experience so many of these experiences in aggregate that they can’t give the benefit of the doubt to every man they meet, especially when the man himself might not understand his own implicit biases.
I understand all of that but it seems crazy that it would generate these results so systematically.
Idk. I certainly want a world where gender is a fun little thing and not an life defining element.
Selection bias, the people who don’t discriminate aren’t causing harm so you don’t notice them but since they don’t speak up they aren’t helping either, so the jerks are still setting the tone. The solution is to not just do the right thing but actively call people out the jerks.
I agree with you there. As someone in programming, I don’t quite have the opportunity to fight these things when they happen because… There are no women. (obviously linked to this) but I can’t call out behavior when it happens when I am not around. But I am happy to report that I have been vocal about my support of trans people and fought against transphobia, even at work. Obviously I am not happy it is needed.
So I am trying to see and support victims of discrimination.
Personal experience from when I was newly an adult, and chatting with a female university classmate and somehow got on the topic of games and I started explaining what Steam was, because I just subconsciously assumed, her being a woman, didn’t know.
She politely pointed out I had mansplained to her.
I am very thankful to her for the experience as it’s stuck with me and saved me from making a fool of myself on more than one occasion since.
I’m sure there are possibly small things like this, that you may have been been “guilty” of in the past.
These men, are engaging in similar behaviour cranked up to 1000.
However, it’s even more malicious with them, because it’s not like the last 30 years or so haven’t had constant and increasing messaging (in the anglosphere, at least) about feminism and ways in which women have been treated unfairly.
So, it’s not like they haven’t had the opportunity to reflect, and change.
In summary, yeah, it is kind of baffling, but I will say society, while largely better than 30 years ago, still does have structural as well as conscious and unconcious bias towards women.
So I’m not surprised people like this exist.
I hear you but what cranked it up to 1000?
Like I always saw my mom as a extremely competent person, as a child she was flawless. Nowadays, I see her flaws but I am flawed, so if my father and any person I ever met. I am impressed by my sister and how I can be like the person that she is in many ways.
I am talking about my direct family because these women had a lot of influence on me. So I wonder, what was their experience like to think so poorly of women? Not blaming the women in their social circle for being “bad”, I just wonder wtf happened. Where does that belief come from? I don’t think they all had great experiences with their male role models but horrible ones with their female role models. So what is it?
I hear you but what cranked it up to 1000?
I unfortunately am not versed enough in the topic to give a full answer on this, I’d guess upbringing, then personal experiences?
I suppose it’s similar to people who are arseholes in general.
Sorry for the very underwhelming answer haha
I didn’t expect an answer. I am sorry if I made you feel that way. I just wanted to explore the topic with the general topic.
Your answer is a good as mine. I just don’t think people have good reason to be so judgemental to any group as vague as “woman”.
It is an odd thing anyway.
I want to say that “unconscious cultural” doesn’t exist, but I don’t think I’m right on it. You can easily build consciousness on those topics and thus easily spot the cases with risk for any wrongdoing, and with how common and well-known they are, it just feels more like “willingly ignorant”.
Assuming that it is cultural, as it seems like your comment kinda assumes that. Like it seems you are saying, it was cultural but by now it is kinda intentional.
I would argue “willingly ignorant” is bad but also not making it less “unconscious cultural”.
If they were willingly ignorant but also no cultural sexist, they wouldn’t be an issue.
So well you have a point, but I would say that the unconscious cultural sexism could lead to willfully ignorant and you would kinda expect it.
I am not saying, you are fully wrong about the willingly ignorant part, I just don’t think it would remove the cultural part.
Edit: ups edited the wrong comment. Sorry
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women.
One thing I think that goes too far is people either think misogynists represent 0% of 100% of men. It’s neither. There are some men that are extremely prejudiced against women and will cross the street just to bother them, and then there’s a huge slice of men that support women as best they can.
I mean, if nothing else, incels definitely exist and they would treat the women in this situation wrongly. Do you think no one is an incel?
Fair point
I understand now how people can believe sexism is not an issue. Do you not have any people who are women close to you who have faced this professionally?
Honestly, no. I am working in programming. There are no women. We both know why and the answer is sexism.
But even on the way into the job, I have only twice experience someone telling a woman to not do IT that was when I was a student. 1. A classmate, and everyone gave him a lot of shit for it. Seriously, I don’t think he had a friend in the class afterwards. 2. A father telling his daughter. And there I jumped in and challenged him on it.
It is difficult to spot sexism in a different department.
Edit: I misread the question. in my friend circle, I can’t recall any woman complain about sexism at their work, but a former female friend in china. The women in my life had issue with their work but I don’t recall specifically sexism. Tbf, a lot of them work in jobs that are “women jobs” like caretaker.
2.nd edit: I just recalled 1 case where someone complained about sexism to “me”, friend of a friend and I was present. But honestly in that case, it was really bs. Girl admitted that she didn’t know what she was doing and admitted that she didn’t want to learn and then complain why everyone else got real work in the internship… So not the ideal case to talk about the very real sexism in society.
If you don’t mind what do you mean that you understand now how people can believe sexism isn’t an issue?
I want to stress that it is an issue, I just have a difficult time believing some of the shit because it seems so comical to me. What kind of person is that way?
And yet, the Supreme Court in the UK claims that trans people shouldn’t be afforded the same gender-based discrimination protections as their cis counterparts.
Discrimination is a social artifact, based on performed gender, not biological sex (whatever that means), as evidenced here.
here’s a related video from Angela Collier, if you want to read more about how women are treated in STEM
I discovered her channel a few months ago and binged almost all of it. She’s great!
Is it me or is this a uniquely American experience?
I loved in quite a few countries and I’ve never seen this kind of absurd behavior. Granted, in a man, but I’ve never seen a man cut off a woman like that just because she’s a woman, and I’ve never seen or heard comments even remotely about someone being “exotic”. I’ve heard questions like “ohh, and where are you from?” in genuine curiosity, which is fine, I’ve never noticed overt racism like that.
Edit: to clarify, I am not talking about myself. Yeah I had idiots treat me like that and you just ignore them. I’m talking about never seeing this behavior in groups. I’ve lived in Mexico (loooasds of high testosterone machismo there) and even there I’ve never seen anyone that a women so disrespectful just because she’s a woman. Same for skin color or sexual discrimination or whatever. I’m sure it’s out there but in Europe, Mexico, Canada, I haven’t seen it.
Come to think of it: I have seen some of it. A guy who thought that at in company martial arts classes he could grab women’s breasts. I kicked him out immediately, I could not fire him unfortunately as that was not my call. That guy was of course a loud mouth American.
This just makes me think more and more that this may be a problem in all countries, just that it’s a huge issue in the US.
Lol not from what I’ve heard about Italy
I lived in Mexico, arguably worse macho-wise, and even there men didn’t behave that shittily
I live in America and haven’t noticed this as a man, I assume the misogynists have enough self awareness to keep it somewhat out of sight. The last time I noticed something inappropriate, the person quietly left the company a few weeks later. I have no idea if it was related to what I saw, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I 100% believe that it happens, it’s just not visible to me.
Usually its not explicit, but patterns happen can be seen. Sometimes its not obvious unless you are specifically looking for it or the one directly receiving the treatment.
Trans experiences are just one case where those patterns become a lot more obvious. I remember someone telling a story about how often transitioning, someone’s father and brother started giving football explanations to her as if she were new to the sport when she’d been just as involved for her entire life. Its not like they were intentionally trying to be malicious, but they clearly subconsciously decided “woman needs to be taught how ball game works” even when its someone who they previous thought of as a man and didn’t treat like that.
Of course cis women point out that same kind of treatment. And often people just think they’re imagining things.
Sorry, but this sounds exactly like what male privilege is. Assuming that it doesn’t happen near you because you haven’t noticed it.
Ask your female friends what sorts of sexism they genuinely face regularly and I think you’ll learn a lot.
That is what I meant. I’ve never seen this behavior in meetings where someone just dismisses a woman/person of color/lgbt/etc just because.
I think this sort of behavior is especially prevalent in the US because even in Mexico guys didn’t behave like that.
This is why I learned to stfu about experiences I don’t understand.
I say that as a person of color trying to explain my perspective and be given deer-in-headlights responses, or worse, dismissal and denial.
lol no, I have had problems in the UK and Europe. The old world is extremely hierarchical and the older generations have some weird lingering quasi-religous gender issues.
Granted, i’m a man
you haven’t noticed racism and sexism because you are a male who’s the “proper color” for the region in which you reside.
male privilege and white privilege are often misunderstood to mean like “special privileges” and poopoo’d because plenty of white men struggle to get by in this world, but that’s not what it means.
it means the privilege of ‘being taken seriously’, the privilege of ‘benefit is the doubt’, privilege of ‘basic respect and decency’.
it also has the benefit/drawback of ‘privilege to be blind of misogyny/racism’. I believe you wholeheartedly when you say you’ve never seen it, but that’s the “privilege”.
The responsibility you hold in return for this “privilege” is you must believe the words of peeps who don’t share this “privilege” when they tell you their experiences. after all, why would you see these things? How else would you experience them when you aren’t directly a part of them?
'course you wouldn’t! That’s fine! Normal! why would you see them? those things aren’t directed at you. that’s really all the “privilege” is!
back to responsibility, be careful not to dismiss the words of people who have direct experiences of racism and sexism just because they don’t match your own. remember, these things aren’t directed at you!
have a good one
Dear God.
No, not what i meant.
I meant that I never saw other people behave like this in public, in group meetings, in the day to day lives.
I’m not dismissing anyone, don’t out words into my mouth. I was literally wondering if this issue is more prevalent in the US than in other countries because I haven’t worked in the US. Every time I read about this its the US.
In companies that I have worked or have owned I have never seen this behavior and I have never been made aware of it. My wife has never experienced.iy either. Haven’t seen this in Mexico, not in Canada either, not in Europe either. Mind you, these are personal experiences but I GOT EYES. I can see if someone behaves like an asshole and the only one single person that does come to mind in mexico, was a loud mouthed American who thought it okay to grab women’s breasts.
Stop nit with the male privilege thing. I don’t trample on your work, don’t trample on mine either
I’m trying to tell you that privilege affects us all. im saying that words like ‘i don’t see it here’ are a form of dismissal you need to be wary of using. Im not “trampling on STEM”, im explaining that preconceived notions of fairness you have can color your perspective, because you have not been forced to see otherwise. when i said “be careful not to dismiss”, i meant that your words were toeing the line towards dismissal. i can see upon reread that it could be taken worse than i intended, so i’ll be even clearer in saying “you must be careful not to”, not “you’re being dismissive right now”.
my whole point is: privilege is a double-edged sword and despite trying, your position in society means you cannot see these things as well as those who are forced to see.
Do you fundamentally disagree with this concept? Do you believe that what I’m saying is possible? I’m not coming at you from a high horse, im saying these things as someone who has reevaluated their own perspective with privilege in mind and wants to share what they’ve learned.
Stem is still heavily dominated by Men, biology might be different as more woman are in bio than men are, and becoming more common in other stems. engineer and programming sitll gear towards men.
I was actually joining the chat to write that things are not that different in biology. I have a PhD and 7 years of postdocs behind me. Over the years I have :
- been denied a management position because “the team was only men, who wouldn’t listen to me” (spoiler alert, they put an incompetent guy in charge who screwed up massively and I ended up taking over, successfully).
- had a boss who systematically doubted my opinion (while he was not a specialist of the topic) but listened to the very same argument from a male colleague
- had male Masters students who could speak uninterrupted during meetings when I couldn’t
- got denied a tenure position for a guy with the same profile (literally the same topic and same labs) but much less experience than mine (like 5 years younger) This last one broke me, I ended up quitting academia
Patriarchy is not only cruel towards women, it’s also dumb. It’s like corruption. We’re hurting ourselves, all of society, including men, by not giving the fitting positions and proper compensation and recognition to people who merit them.
This must be another reason why conservatives are so afriad of trans people: they disprove their misogynistic assumptions.
I feel for OP. I really do. I want everyone to be treated as equals, honestly.
However, does OP even realize that their anecdotal experience doesn’t even remotely satisfy the (heavy) burden of proof for their biased hypothesis?
In a blind study, everyone in a room going silent when a trans person talks is not necessarily experimentally a 1:1 to everyone in the room going silent when a biological male talks. MANY people that have transitioned (whether they want to admit it or not) have a noticeable difference in their vocal timbre than their biological counterparts. Maybe people went silent because they were fascinated by or fixated on the unusual timbre of the OP’s transitioned vocal cords. We will never know… and some of us realize that correlation does not equal causation.
For example, you wouldn’t conduct a scientific study where you’re attempting to show the differences between how males and females are treated and choose to have one of your control subjects be a trans male. It’s just different despite how inconvenient and hotly debated that truth is.
Additionally, OP was in the same department for years and then transitioned. So, naturally people would approach a more experienced person for help or advice regardless of perceived sex if they knew that person was there longer than them.
Obviously there are differences between how men and women are treated…but OP seems to be using the worst possible anecdotes to provide proof for their hypothesis without correcting for these sometimes subtle inconsistencies. Maybe OP thinks they pass as a male a lot more convincingly than they actually do.
The opposite happened to me when I transitioned. When I was perceived as a guy, if I was in a meeting, people didn’t instantly fall silent if I spoke, but if they tried to overtalk me and I just kept speaking, they would eventually give way. I transitioned 8 years ago, and from the earliest days of my transition until now, if someone starts overtalking me, they will just keep doing it even if I don’t stop talking. The only way to stop them is to vocally call them out and ask them to be quiet until I’m finished.
Similarly, I used to be seen as one of the two “tech guys”. The person that people would come up to and ask for tech advice to avoid calling the internal helpdesk. After I transitioned, they started coming up to me and asking me where the other tech guy is.
My career has stalled since I came out. I’m in a trans inclusive country, in a trans inclusive workplace, and I transitioned so long ago, that most people don’t know that I’m trans or simply forget. But since coming out, the various shoulder taps in to project opportunities and the like just don’t happen anymore.
Maybe people went silent because they were fascinated by or fixated on the unusual timbre of the OP’s transitioned vocal cords.
It’s a nice theory, but it’s somewhat strange how my own experience as a trans person transitioning from male to female had the opposite impact. Did people start overtalking me because they were fascinated by my timbre?
Additionally, OP was in the same department for years and then transitioned. So, naturally people would approach a more experienced person for help or advice regardless of perceived sex if they knew that person was there longer than them.
Again, it’s a nice theory, but in my case, they stopped approaching me. And even the ones who don’t know that I’m trans don’t approach me that way, because I’m not seen as one of the “tech folk” anymore, despite not losing my experience when I transitioned.
but OP seems to be using the worst possible anecdotes
Similarly, you are using the least likely possibilities that contradict the first hand experience of folk directly in these scenarios to fit your pre-conceived notion of what is happening.
Yeah, the OPs post and mine are anecdotal, so you shouldn’t take either of our experiences as universal truths. But your takes aren’t even anecdotal. They’re suppositions.
Thanks for sharing. All these experiences are very illuminating regarding the lesser impact of socialization, too. Like, I might have thought my female colleagues had just been told to cede the floor so many times they didn’t often speak at meetings. And that could still be adding to it, but here are the same individuals with the same habits getting starkly different treatment.
Even knowing these trends from countless other stories and statistics, hearing each additional experience helps keep it in mind and see more often when it’s happening.
I like to frame socialization as a lifelong process. People raised female often describe these experiences at formative years. And I’ve seen many trans men struggle to find their voices as adults.
But as a trans woman I and many I’ve spoken to had multiple socializations. Effeminate male: more or less bullied into gender conformity, including things like being mocked for passivity; gender conforming male: taken seriously and encouraged to speak up more; and adult female: treated like you’re bad for speaking up and routinely discounted and underestimated.
Oh and there’s the secret fourth socialization: trans woman: basically it’s female but when you assert yourself you’re accused of male socialization.
That’s true.
Thanks for not immediately dogpiling me and instead actually making some great points. I appreciate the perspective.
Everything they are describing is well supported by solid evidence that you can look up. Further, in conversations of what would drive women out of stem, the welcome harshness and sexism pushing people away is the core of issue.
Ultimately this dismissive attitude towards a well known and understood phenomenon speaks to the arrogance of those that disagree with the well established reality.
You are going out of your way to poke holes in someone describing a very rare and valid view that demonstrates the discrepancy gender presentation gives in lived experience, and how it follows well tested sexist trends by holding their tumblr post to the standard of a scientific paper. You are so desperate to preserve your warped world view that the severity of sexism in STEM isn’t as big of a deal as it is made out that you have taken a genuinely ridiculous position.
Do better.
You are going out of your way to poke holes in someone describing a very rare and valid view that demonstrates the discrepancy gender presentation gives in lived experience, and how it follows well tested sexist trends by holding their tumblr post to the standard of a scientific paper.
I used a scientific approach in the science memes community. You don’t seem to care about actual science. You’re going out of your way to believe pseudo science in the name of being kind to someone.
Do better.
I used a scientific approach in the science memes community.
The issue is that your application of “the scientific approach” is to dismiss the entire field of research up to now, and demand that OP prove their point from first principles. It’s not a reasonable response to what they posted.
What we’re seeing here is an example of how it’s possible to be both right and very wrong at the same time.
You don’t seem to care about actual science.
…and the second issue is that you’re now attacking the integrity of the people calling you out on it, for no clear benefit other than to put them down. Go back and read Rule #1.
read the personal attack I was responding to in which the person closed with “do better”?
Have you ever utilized a case study in your work? The value of research is in having a variety of things to pull from. All you’re doing is writing up the considerations page and slapping on the cover.
Whats your agenda in doing so?
My only “agenda” is intellectual honesty and scientific reproducibility.
Drawing from the experiences on trans test subjects to prove a hypothesis about sexism between CIS males and females is the very definition of a biased study.
I’m happy to discuss OP’s hypothesis for a study on sexism against trans people in a study using trans test subjects… but that’s not what this is, is it?
Do better.
My opinion is that including trans people in this sort of study actually reduces the bias, because they’re the only people who will have experienced the social impacts of presenting both male and female at different times. All cis-gendered people will be inherently biased towards their own limited experience.
That’s a good point. Certain types of studies would be improved by this type of diversity.
I get it gals, I wouldn’t want to be around this either. Oof.
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That is horrible that anyone has to go through that.
wow, that’s really out there for being bee movie erotica
Idk I’m pretty hard rn
Could be anaphylactic shock
I transitioned to male 15 years ago, I was already well into adulthood by that time so had experience to compare. 100% agree with the post. It was night and day. (I’m not in Stem; just generally in life.)
The weirdest thing was some of the individual people who changed how they treat me over time, for the better. After I started transitioning. Its cool they are so trans positive and affirming I guess. But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
Now as a man I struggle to notice when I’m getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience. Sometimes I have been oblivious for years until I finally clocked it or it was pointed out by a woman.
It has made me much more respect cis men who manage to have a keen eye on sexism. Especially those who are masc presenting. It is so easy to not notice. It’s very comfortable. People are polite. You have good luck. To all the guys commenting here that it doesn’t go on around them: it sure as fuck does.
I think this is a huge problem even with people that would say about themselves that they respect women, or even that they are feminist. A lot of men on the left suffer from a total absence of introspection. They may not want to treat women differently, but then they just repeat patterns they have learned without any reflection, and end up doing just that - talk over women, mansplaining to them and so on. It’s the same with any privileged group of people.
Men/white people/other privileged groups: if you do not reflect your actions and question your own thought patterns and influences, you will likely discriminate against others. Because the wold that influences us is total dogshite. Strife to be better.
Right. There’s so much we do automatically, behaviours we’ve picked up from our culture, or are condoned by our culture, that we don’t realise are discriminating.
Sometimes we should just, I dk, listen to what people that have different experiences to us say. I figure, I have no idea what it is like to question my gender, so maybe I should shut the fuck up and listen to what people who do tell me. The problem is, a lot of men do not listen.
Is there one gender friendlier to trans people? Just wondering. I feel like women may be, but that is my bias from my attitude towards men lol.
shut the fuck up and listen
But dont need to turn off your brain. There are plenty of dumb trans people out there and you can find a trans person to represent any position.
Is there one gender friendlier to trans people?
I doubt it. It depends. I mean, women are friendlier, in general. It depends. And trans men are more likely to be “passing” living stealth. So its a different thing. I hardly know what anyone thinks of trans people unless I ask, because 99% of interactions I have are as presumed cis.
One thing I know is that everyone loves men. Cis men, trans men, doesnt matter. People value men. This is why all kinds of anti trans horseshit specifically targets trans women. In the UK recently there was a ruling about the definition of “woman” as it relates to trans women. But no definition of “man”. Why! Why are only women subject to such shit. Trans men are implicitly pulled in and adversely affected but women are the ones who have the law about their bodies.
Interesting, cheers mate.
In the UK recently there was a ruling about the definition of “woman” as it relates to trans women. But no definition of “man”. Why!
I think that’s also largely because it’s women who feel vulnerable with men in their ‘intimate’/‘private’ places like bathrooms or sleeping spaces - not so much for men. So questions like, “will the prison rules make this person share a room with me on the basis of their self-identification as a woman” are more of a concern for women than for men.
And of course efforts aimed at elevating women in e.g. STEM. If you have a women’s tech group, or a women’s gaming group, giving special help to women because their gender puts them at a disadvantage, do you, should you, must you, include trans women? That’s going to come up about women not about men. Men’s groups of these days tend to be much less relevant.
I agree the ruling should have considered both genders equally though. Actually, does it not? Or was it just the discussion, not the actual ruling, that was all women-focused not men?
It is only about trans women. The discussion, the case etc. As usual.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t
It came about after the Scottish government included transgender women in quotas to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.
Trans women experience all the opposite of what trans men do. Their status plummets on transition. They experience more violence abuse and harassment than cis men, trans men or cis women. The idea of excluding them from women’s stuff is ignorant.
As to people “feeling safe”, people “feel unsafe” for lots of reasons. Differences in perceived race, sexual orientation, disabilities so forth. Perceived gender variance is only one reason. Should we segregate sleeping spaces by race?
On the other hand, I guess I can take advantage of these things and these spaces?? I’m assigned female at birth. I’m a biological woman?? Nobody would guess to look at me. And as I’ve been saying I’ve had many years of male privilege. But if we’re checking documents, well nobody can argue with me if I want to. Nor with the OP.
Trans masc person checking in. Might be my bias or community or something but I get way less misgendering by guys under 30 than basically any other demographic. They seem to pick it up faster and be really chill about it in ways that a lot of the women in my life really don’t seem to get as comfortable with.
But there is definitely a part of my brain that sees men as being of my tribe in ways that women are not. Like not to say that I don’t have incredible women in my life whom I have incredibly close bonds with… But there’s definitely some kind of cognitive distance that has always kind of been there.
I think trans femmes might experience a similar situation with feeling accepted by women ( Or maybe not because TERFs tend to look at them as a threat) but to answer your question about if the bros are alright… Yeah, they good.
Not him or transmasc, but as a trans woman, gender doesn’t influence how bad someone is, but it does influence how they are bad. Transphobia (directed at trans women) from cis men often looks like disgust and direct violence as well as oversexualization. There’s also an element of seeing themselves as knights in shining armor to cis women. From cis women it’s more likely to look like ostracization, backstabbing, and calling for men’s protection.
If you noticed that that’s how cis men and women tend to treat cis women they hate, congratulations, you’ve figured out why one common refrain from trans women is that transmisogyny is a form of misogyny.
But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
I would think because they aren’t aware of it.
Now as a man I struggle to notice when I’m getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m usually in communities where - as far as I know - people treat women equally. (Or in different culture communities, so that’s a whole different area.) So I tend not to notice if there’s special treatment for men. This will remind me to be more aware.
I think people get defense around the idea of “male privilege” because they think it’s getting them something extra. It’s more all of the shit you don’t have to deal with.
Exactly. As a teenager I hated the concept. Partly because I’d been bullied for failing to perform masculinity as a child, partly because I was not happy with the whole boy thing, but also because all the shit so many cis men say.
But when I transitioned I saw it. And I saw trans men starting to receive the privilege I was losing.
preach. it is for reasons such as what you stated that i fully give my blessing to women transitioning to men. level the playing field by any means necessary. this is survival.
i try to embrace my male archetype because i think the worlds needs strong men, but i have come to understand the feminist perspective and i don’t think there’s any conflict with masculine men being empathetic. as a matter of fact, i think a truly confident man doesn’t need to worry about being vulnerable and is in touch with their feelings. the macho american culture is not who we are. it is an aberration directly resulting from abrahamic religious values being hijacked by sociopaths to pave the way for authoritarianism and further subjugation of women.
and i think it’s up to all of us to break these insecure macho idiots down into kneeling before a new age of humanity. make them heel to understand that they were weaklings all along.
Just to be clear: women do not transition to men to level the playing field or materially benefit themselves.
Studies of post transition income show that trans women go down (sometimes drastically) whereas trans men tend to stay about where they would have been. You get benefits of being treated as male but then you have discrimination and other problems as a queer/trans person to balance it out. So while I can report on the moments when socially and structurally I am treated as a man, it isn’t the total experience if my life. I still am trans. There are significant problems associated. I wouldn’t reccomend it as a career enhancer. To say nothing of how unpleasant transitioning just in hopes of getting a raise would feel.
I agree with regards to masculinity.
yes. you’re right. i understand that it’s more than that and that it’s not really viable as an economic strategy, but i like to show support where i honestly can.
