Is Germaine Greer Transphobic ?

[Saffron]

miga Wrote:

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> > There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is in

> > the name.

>

> Just because your view on the subject is black and

> white doesn't mean that a third, considered view

> doesn't exist, or that GG does not hold such a

> view. I won't summarise it, it's easy enough to

> find, but she is very far from "endorsing FGM"!

>

I didn't state that a third view did not exist. I stated that there is no nuanced view on FGM, nuanced in this case meaning 'subtle'.

Nothing subtle here: GG stated that attempts to legislate against FGM were 'an attack on cultural identity,' and 'One man's beautification is another man's mutilation.'

This would of course be true if one believes that the essence of female identity revolves around physicality, and that women are defined only by their past cultural experience not by their personal experience to create culture. Culture doesn't exist timelessly in a vacuum. It is thankfully progressive. Changing a culture for the betterment of individuals' well-being is hardly an 'attack'. It is not seeking to destroy the culture, but to grow the culture in way that improves the welfare of women and their society.

Her view on transwomen is as follows:

"Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognise as women men who believe that they are women and have had themselves castrated to prove it, because they see women not as another sex but as a non-sex. No so-called sex-change has ever begged for a uterus-and-ovaries transplant; if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were made mandatory for wannabe women they would disappear overnight. The insistence that man-made women be accepted as women is the institutional expression of the mistaken conviction that women are defective males."

GG herself reduced the matter down to a bit of female plumbing. I would personally be surprised if there are not any transwomen who would desperately love to have a uterus, by the sheer fact that humans are incredibly diverse in their personal desires. Also, this definition would sadly question as non-female, any XX woman born with a defect rendering her not to possess a uterus/ovaries.

Her argument lacks logic and is begging the question in the classical rhetorical style. She is a feminist in the sense that she seeks to raise 'women' up, but in so doing she puts down other humans. It's no wonder many young people now see 'feminist' as a tainted word.

[Blah Blah]

Agreed Saffron. Human identity on any level is complex and to reduce any part of it to one aspect of biology is ridiculous.

[miga]

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> > > There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is

> in

> > > the name.

> >

> > Just because your view on the subject is black

> and

> > white doesn't mean that a third, considered

> view

> > doesn't exist, or that GG does not hold such a

> > view. I won't summarise it, it's easy enough to

> > find, but she is very far from "endorsing FGM"!

> >

>

> I didn't state that a third view did not exist. I

> stated that there is no nuanced view on FGM,

> nuanced in this case meaning 'subtle'.

OK - but GG also supports the actions of feminists within cultures affected to challenge FGM, so that's already more subtle than "FGM is good" or "FGM is bad".

She highlights that there are a whole host of different practices that fall under the umbrella of FGM, not just the most horrific cutting and sewing up people imagine.

She further points out that the actions are carried out by women on women, that they see it as an important part of their version of what being a woman is, that more men than women within the societies where the practice exists want it stopped.

She further contrasts the practice of FGM to the plastic surgery of genitals in the West which isn't outlawed - a weak argument, but an interesting one given that some women voluntarily undergo FGM later in life, such as the LSE anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, much as some women voluntarily get surgeons to cut them.

Finally - for context, the quotes you make are taken from her book "The Whole Woman", the full paragraph follows:

"Human beings have always modified the external appearance of their bodies in one way or another; one man's beautification is another man's mutilation. Looked at in its full context the criminalization of FGM can be seen to be what African nationalists since Jomo Kenyatta have been calling it, an attack on cultural identity. Any suggestion that male genital mutilation should be outlawed would be understood to be a frontal attack on the cultural identity of Jews and Muslims."

Someone put the abridged version of the relevant section online:

http://triggeralert.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/germaine-greer-on-male-female-genital.html

Again, I think her view is much more subtle than that she "endorses FGM". She has a view of FGM which is nuanced, including issues such as cultural relativism, the women's right to choose what they do with their bodies, and the possible hypocrisy of what our society condones women do to their bodies and what it wants to disallow in others.

> This would of course be true if one believes that

> the essence of female identity revolves around

> physicality, and that women are defined only by

> their past cultural experience not by their

> personal experience to create culture. Culture

> doesn't exist timelessly in a vacuum. It is

> thankfully progressive. Changing a culture for

> the betterment of individuals' well-being is

> hardly an 'attack'. It is not seeking to destroy

> the culture, but to grow the culture in way that

> improves the welfare of women and their society.

It depends on where the progress comes from and whether it's enforced or self-generated (the latter of which I think GG is fully behind), in my view. And that's exactly what I think she contests - when you "improve" someone else's culture based on your understanding of what's good for them, their "welfare", you're starting from a position of your culture being objectively correct. I think that kind of interventionism is tricky in this instance, because you are saying that all those women who participate in a ritual which they see as key to their identity are suffering from false consciousness.

[miga]

Saffron Wrote:

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> If one says that they can be judged on this alone,

> as women have different experiences to men, this

> answer would be negated by the fact that we all

> have different experiences to each other.

OK - that's at least consistent - if we allow for the fact that everyone has different experiences, and that the physical is not a factor, then it's logical for people to self-categorize as whatever they please. Is that what you're saying?

But why then do some men (if that's not too problematic of a term to use) feel the need to become whatever it is they think women are in that case and why does that process revolve precisely around a physical sex change of the type GG describes? Is their idea of what a woman is correct - it seems to be very much about physiology?

I think GG's argument is that changing your physiology to mimic a woman's at some point through your life does not fit her (obviously) definition of what a woman is because it's only a physical change (and an incomplete one in most cases), and there must be some other factors that define a woman. I don't think she's saying a more "complete" physical change would do the job.

I haven't the foggiest where she stands on the cases of physical androgyny or on trans people in the other direction.

> > She is a shit stirrer, I don't agree with a lot

> of

> > what she says, but her views have been reduced

> to

> > a caricature, which is a shame.

>

> Well, she could have defended her views by

> speaking at the university, but she declined.

> She's had loads of free publicity in the press,

> and she can now go home and cry in to her

> considerable fortune while she continues to sell

> her books. She has courted the controversy that

> has made her a caricature. She seems to sleep

> quite comfy in the bed she made for herself.

Who cares how much money she makes? She wouldn't have been able to defend her views because the panel had nothing to do with trans issues.

[farrago]

I was a fellow from 2008-2014 of the same Cambridge college as GG. Though it was before my time, there was a very unpleasant episode where she was extremely unkind to a transsexual fellow (outing this person to the Torygraph). I don't think for a moment this is a matter of principle with her. It's a strangely personal obsession and while I think she has a right to say whatever she wants (and I think the students probably overreacted with their petition), she is not only outrageously abrasive, but also unapologetic when she behaves in ways that are deeply and unnecessary hurtful to individuals. She's scarcely the victim here.