Discussion with a radical feminist

Radical Feminist Friend (RFF): Hey !

Me: Hi.

RFF: We were talking about creating a new non-mixt feminist group since there is a lack in this town.

Me: Cool.

RFF: Do you want to come ?

Me: Am I going to get kicked out ?

RFF (looking suprised): Uh… No.

Me: Oh, pleeeease, come on !

RFF: Well, if you want to, we can kick you out, but then you come back.

Me: Fine, but tied up.

RFF: Great. See you next week, then ?

(Yes, I was supposed to stop blogging here, but since one of the reasons I started this blog was the “radfem VS trans blogwar” (I lack a better term), I thought it was circling the circle)

Effects of transition on salary

I found what looks like an interesting article about the effects of transition on salary in the workplace. But I could only get the abstract.

Before and After: Gender Transitions, Human Capital, and Workplace Experience

Abstract

We use the workplace experiences of transgender people – individuals who change their gender typically with hormone therapy and surgery – to provide new insights into the long-standing question of what role gender plays in shaping workplace outcomes. Using an original survey of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender people, we document the earnings and employment experiences of transgender people before and after their gender transitions. We find that while transgender people have the same human capital after their transitions, their workplace experiences often change radically. We estimate that average earnings for female-to-male transgender workers increase slightly following their gender transitions, while average earnings for male-to-female transgender workers fall by nearly 1/3. This finding is consistent with qualitative evidence that for many male-to-female workers, becoming a woman often brings a loss of authority, harassment, and termination, but that for many female-to-male workers, becoming a man often brings an increase in respect and authority. These findings challenge the omitted variables explanations for the gender pay gap and illustrate the often hidden and subtle processes that produce gender inequality in workplace outcomes.

Submitted: August 8, 2007 · Accepted: July 29, 2008 · Published: September 11, 2008

There is also a NYT article that talks about it.

Via Feminist Law Professors.

Edit: I found a PDF version of the article freely downloadable.

About “femme”

I quite like the “femme” thing and, well, I wouldn’t say I fit 100% with it (I would be quite a butchy femme), but it probably corresponds more to me than either “woman”, “butch”, or any other gender subcategory.

What I like in “femme” identity is what I see as a notion of “constructed feminity”, in opposition to a natural mainstream feminity.

The term in itself shows this: it means “woman” in a foreign language (french), so how I see it is that you’re quite feminine in a “foreign way”.

The term “female-to-femme” that I have seen used sometimes (see femmes as trans identity on Sugarbutch Chronicles) also goes in this sense: there is a transition to “go femme”.

And now… well, those two terms actually puzzle me a bit.

Let’s start first with the trans’ thing. I can understand that some femmes feel as “transgender” and I think indeed the “femme” identity goes out of classical gender norms. I can understand also the
feeling of “transitionning”. But :

• first, there is the sort of “appropriation” of trans’ “vocabulary” even if, honestly, I don’t care much personally, I see trans’ as quite open and anyway I don’t think that the fact of defining as “female-to-femme” means that this person will consider having faced the same thing as a trans person.
• second, which is a bit paranoid but, well, after being excluded and excluded I think it’s quite natural to become it a bit, I am afraid that redefining “femme” as “female-to-femme” could be a way to exclude trans’ femmes. Now there again, I don’t think that if an individual defines as “female-to-femme” (as I can define as “male-to-femme”) it’s a problem, but it would become  excluding to trans femmes if “female-to-femme” started replacing the “femme” term.

And now, since that was about the “female-to-femme” term, let’s talk a bit about the “femme” term itself.

As I said, it means “woman” in french. Obviously in french, we don’t use the term “femme” since it would be indistinguishable from “woman”, so we say “fem” (I think it also exists in english, but I think it is less frequent). Which is quite ironical, because it is pronouced the english way. So in the two languages, the terms sounds a bit “foreign”, crediting there again my theory of “non natural feminity”.

But, well, I wonder: why is it “femme” ? It is not “mujer” or “mulher” or “frau”. Now maybe it is because of pronunciation issue, but I wondered if it was because of some kind of… well, french women reputation, or something like that ? Does someone knows the origin of the term ? The truth is, I’m not even sure of the reputation we have. I know there is the term “french kiss” and I think some sensuality associated to french women, and on the other hand I think we are also thought to be dirty with hairy armpits. Already a femme/butch dichotomy, I guess :)

New achievement of “feminism”: 4 young muslim women excluded from school

Again a new achievement of “feminism” as it is conceived by some groups in France: 4 young muslim women were excluded from their high school in La Réunion (a french colony département d’outre-mer, so under french law) because their wore a “veil” (I don’t know if that’s the right term in english, but that’s the most direct translation for the term used in french). Actually, six were initally excluded, but two of them eventually agreed to not wear it anymore.

This is due to an application of the law voted in 2004 concerning “ostensible religious symbols”, which is supposed to enforce “laicity” at school by forbidding to wear religious symbol; but its real focus was of course the  “veil” (wearing a cross is not a reason for exclusion, and in Alsace-Lorraine region it is still okay to have classrooms with big crucifix).

In France we have the concept of “laicity”, of which we are quite proud: there is separation between state and religion. I think it is good and important. But when it comes to forbidding some individual to express his/her belief, I think it is going a bit too far.

This concern about laicity was mixed with some pseudo-feminism arguments to attack muslim women. Now, don’t get me wrong: I am myself quite critical of Islam, as I am of other religions, and I do think that it sucks that women are coerced or even educated into wearing the veil.

But the thing is,  when “feminism” is actually attacking women, excluding them from school or deniyng them their right to obtain their nationality (recently a woman was denyed this because she wore a burqa) because they are oppressed ? Well, you’re doing it wrong.

My opinion of that is that “feminism” is used by the state for racist and colonial purposes (as are regularly human rights at broad in order to justifiy invading a country). The sad thing is that it is very difficult to express either a disagreement with this politics or a support for “veiled” muslim women, even inside leftist and feminist groups: for example in 2004 I was part of a group who participated to demonstrations against the law concerning “ostensible symbols”, and we were regularly treated of “anti-feminist”, “islamo-fascists”, and such.

(There are similar patterns concerning the way defense of sex workers is silenced, but it is another subject).