How Do We Call A Truce in the Gender Wars?

December 15, 2018 by Starhawk

The Storm Cycle

In an earlier post, I made what to me seems like a no-brainer suggestion—that we need a unified movement for gender justice that can span the chasm between trans folks, feminist separatists and everyone in between.

Such a movement would be based in solidarity and support for our common, basic human rights—to self-determination, to bodily sovereignty and to be our own moral authority.‍  ‍

That post generated a storm of outrage—not unexpected as even broaching this topic is likely to piss off everybody.But storms bring the rain that nourishes the land, and without them, everything stagnates, so let me now step even further into the tempest and suggest some of the ways we might begin to build such a movement.‍  ‍It starts with calling a truce in our intra-movement battles.

Culture Change is Hard!

We are in the midst of a huge, attempted cultural shift in the way we view sex and gender.I was born in 1951.My mother used to tell a story about me, that when I was about two years old, barely able to talk, she was picking up my father’s clothes from the bedroom floor and grumbling about his messiness.I responded: “My fadder is not a mudder.You’re supposed to pick up his clothes.”

That’s how deep gender conditioning goes.At two, I not only had internalized the roles, I’d taken on the job of being a mini-enforcer.And my mother—herself a proto-feminist who chafed against the restrictions of her expected role—nonetheless told this story with great pride.

Shifting culture on this profound level is not easy, or quick, or painless.‍  ‍It takes immense perseverance, many wild experiments, great audacity and courage, and many mistakes.‍  ‍So it might make sense for us to practice a few of those values long assigned to women—like caring and compassion, for a start—and call a truce in the sex and gender wars so that we can support one another in the diversity of tools we choose with which to dismantle patriarchy.

How do we do that?‍  ‍These are my suggestions...

Acknowledge Trauma and Stop the Violence

At the root of much of the pain and outrage is trauma—the constant assaults, low-level and intense, inflicted by a system that enforces narrow gender roles in order to maintain the power of a few men over women, gender-diverse folks and most other men.‍  ‍So we might do well to stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember that the reason we are screaming so loudly at one another is that we are in pain.

When we’re wounded, we lash out.We fight hard to protect ourselves, and every fight can feel like a fight to the death.We often lash out at those nearest to us—not necessarily at those who are actually inflicting the injuries.

So a movement for gender justice must be a movement that acknowledges trauma and seeks and offers means of healing.The personal is political—and healing our own wounds and offering support and care for one another are political acts.

But being traumatized is not an excuse for inflicting trauma on others.‍  ‍If we are going to make an alliance in the gender wars, we need to stop traumatizing one another.One thing I hear from all sides is “I don’t feel safe.”‍  ‍We’re not safe—in a world of patriarchy and its condoned violence—and we definitely should not amplify that violence against one another.‍  ‍That means:

1. No Physical Violence

It shouldn’t have to be said, but it does. Physically attacking people, no matter how strongly you disagree with them, is not okay.

2. End the Verbal Violence and Name-Calling

It’s time to put away the “I punch TERF” signs, the imagery of violence against women even when couched as ‘performance art’ as in the recent exhibit shown at the SF Library.We need trans folks and their allies to speak out against such things, just as we need to retire the ‘men in skirts’ meme and the imagery that dehumanizes trans folks.‍  ‍

TERF—trans-excluding radical feminist—might have started as a descriptive term but it has become something else altogether.As for calling people ‘nazis’—hey, there are real, bona fide, Aryan-loving Nazis out there, despite how 1930’s that might seem—so let’s reserve that word for them!‍  ‍Terms that dehumanize people encourage and justify violence against women and all gender-nonconforming folks, and reinforce patriarchy.

3. Don’t reinforce rape culture by using or condoning the use of rape imagery.

Just don't.

Practice Non-Binary Thinking

Binary thinking is not just about gender.Whenever we fall into the trap of either-or thinking, ‘my way or the highway’, ‘zero tolerance’, ‘with us or against us’ we reinforce a binary view of the world in which people are either good or evil and those traits are seen as fixed and unchangeable.As Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”Binary, authoritarian thinking cannot dismantle binary sex-roles or binary, authoritarian structures of power. 

We need a different world-view, one that sees the world as a web of relationships, and sees people as complex, nuanced, imperfect but capable of growth and change.

Accept That People Make Mistakes‍  ‍

A movement of perfect people would be a very small movement, indeed!‍  ‍To make deep, overarching changes in culture and power structures we need a broad movement, one made up of imperfect people, as we all are.‍  ‍We need to find ways to welcome people in, to grow and learn and change together.

Hold Each Other Accountable for What We Do and Say

Don’t label people as something they ‘are’.If you say, “Mabel is a TERF” it implies that “TERF” is a fixed, unchangeable identity, like being a Martian.It obscures the actual views that Mabel might hold, or the acts she might have committed, and actually makes them more difficult to name and challenge.If Mabel holds trans-exclusionary views, or supports oppressive policies, be specific in naming what they are and how they could be changed.

Welcome Conflict, and Learn to Do it Well

Conflict arises whenever people come together and care about something, because we have differing ideas, values, needs and priorities.In the binary, authoritarian world-view, conflict is easily framed as good vs. evil.We have no choice but to fight to defend the good, and eject the evil!‍  ‍

But our intra-movement conflicts are rarely between completely good and completely evil people or positions—they are more often differences of opinion, of interpretation, of priorities, or needs.‍  ‍If we engage in respectful dialogue, if we argue passionately for our perspective without dehumanizing our opponents, we actually strengthen our own arguments.‍  ‍And we model the freedom and openness that a libratory movement must stand for.

Let’s Focus Less on Language and More on Rights‍  ‍

Language is important, but in progressive movements today it has become almost a fetish—as if by getting the language just right and policing one another to use the proper terms, we could force change to happen.New terms and new linguistic formulations can broaden our minds and give us new ways of thinking—but they can also become markers of who is in the know and who is out.‍  ‍

The jargon can become a substitute for thinking and mask the lack of true understanding—especially when it comes from academia and cannot be intuitively understood unless someone explains it.There are times when it is extremely useful to talk about ‘cisgendered women’ or ‘female-bodied persons’, but if we are looking to build a broad movement for major social change, there are times we need to just talk about women, and use the language that is commonly understood.‍  ‍

We can differ on just how we define all of these terms and still stand in solidarity to defend one another’s basic human rights.

From Safety to Solidarity

We can shift from a framework of safety to one of solidarity. Of course we all want to be safe—and especially so if we carry a history of hurt and trauma. We should make sure our movement spaces are free from physical and verbal violence.‍  ‍

But if we define ‘safety’ as meaning ‘no one will espouse views that might upset someone else’ we actually create unsafety by fostering an atmosphere of mutual policing and thought control. I would love to be able to assure my trans friends or friends of color that no one will inadvertently say something insensitive or use the wrong gender pronoun or commit some subtle microagression in any space for which I’m responsible. But there is no way I can truthfully give that assurance, no way to prevent people from making mistakes. And when I attempt to do so, I actually create the unsafety of silencing that is especially traumatizing to those who have suffered from the censorship of the larger culture.

What I can offer is solidarity. I can say “I will stand with you in this space or any other and defend your rights and your humanity, and ask others to do so.”

Practice Restorative Justice

We need a framework of education, dialogue and restorative justice.Restorative justice moves us out of the frame of revenge and punishment, and instead sees wrongdoing as tearing a rip in the fabric of community.Restorative justice aims to repair that fabric and find a path back into community for the person who has done the harm.‍  ‍

Offenders can be reintegrated when they take responsibility for their actions, and make amends.No one is discarded.Everyone—even a serious offender—is seen as capable of change.

Institute Fair Evaluation Processes for Accusations

Banning, shunning and de-platforming should not be the go-to solution for resolving conflict or dealing with differences. They are forms of violence. Too often I’ve seen someone shut out of a conference or denied a speaking opportunity because of allegations made on the internet or accusations that some group will not feel ‘safe’ if this person speaks. But an atmosphere of silencing reinforces the trauma suffered by every survivor of sexual abuse, of assault, harassment, of the homophobia and transphobia that have silenced so many for so long. Conferences and institutions need to have fair, transparent and accountable processes for evaluating accusations.

Space to Meet Our Own Needs‍  ‍

Needs may sometimes seem to conflict, but they do not have to negate one another.Trans women need to feel seen, validated and included.Women-born women, in a political moment when legal abortion is threatened and misogyny is still rampant, need information about their own bodily workings and health.‍  ‍

We may need some of the tools we developed in the second wave of the feminist movement, from self-health sessions learning to use a speculum to menstrual extraction.In a world that objectifies, sexualizes and ultimately hates the female body, we need to learn to honor and celebrate it.‍  ‍

Meeting those needs should not be seen as negating transwomen’s identity, but as opening space to honor and value all bodies and challenge the overarching structures of patriarchy that oppress us all.

Build a Broad, Welcoming, Body-Positive, Life-Affirming Movement

Misogyny is like the toxic air we experienced in the Bay Area as fires raged through California—permeating everything, not always detectable but always injurious.While it is specifically the hatred and objectification of the female sex, gender and body it also ultimately denigrates all bodies of any gender.‍  ‍

It’s part of the frame that separates spirit from nature, and assigns goodness and value to all that is high, light, white, male (but not too fleshily male) and disembodied, while devaluing all that is connected to earth, body, flesh, dark, female, and embodied in the natural world.That overarching frame underlies sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and more, as well as our complicity in the destruction of nature’s life-support systems.

To counter it we need a movement that embraces the body—in all its forms, that values bodily pleasure, that celebrates life, health, nature and connection and that understands that human beings exist in a web of complex, dynamic relationships, not a set of fixed categories.‍  ‍

A true liberation movement is a messy, murky and ever-changing process. It calls for courage, resilience, and compassion.But it feels good to stand together and support each other—just as it feels good to stand in the heart of the storm as the wild winds blow away the smog, and together breathe free.

Note: While I’m sure this will get posted on Facebook, that’s not a place I find productive in engaging in discussion.I encourage people to post comments to my blog.I do try and monitor comments on my own Facebook page, but I don’t have the capacity or the consistent internet access that would let me do it completely effectively.‍  ‍

I take responsibility for anything in this post, I am not responsible for what other people say about it.