It’s difficult to talk about the experience of being bullied, picked on, vilified. Sometimes it feels easier to stay silent, to quietly move on. There’s a shame that comes with being attacked, it somehow taps into the darker voices of your own psyche that whisper to you from time to time that you are bad or unworthy. It’s also scary to think you might invite further attacks, and just perpetuate an already horrendous situation. And I think as women we are often encouraged to keep our heads down and keep walking, rather than ‘fight back’. Not to be angry, not to be aggressive, not to draw attention to ourselves. Instead to hold our distress in our quietly clenched fists, in the tightness of our jaw, in the knots of our shoulders. And be silent.
Milli, you are such a hero of this movement. Truth is the first casualty of totalitarian regimes such as the trans movement, and women are often the second. You are right, only women give birth, whatever they call themselves. Females, by definition, have the eggs and adult human females, as mammals, are the ones who give birth. Since the patriarchy began it has struggled with this simple fact and it is the basis of their need for control of women. If they didn’t control us they wouldn’t know who their children were, and as patriarchy at the core of capitalism they have to be able to pass their wealth on in order to cheat the other thing they can’t control - death.
But they cannot bear their dependence on us. So here we are in the 21st century, using words to pretend that it isn’t women who have the babies, it’s just any “person”, male or female, who happens to get pregnant.
Milli, you are such a hero of this movement. Truth is the first casualty of totalitarian regimes such as the trans movement, and women are often the second. You are right, only women give birth, whatever they call themselves. Females, by definition, have the eggs and adult human females, as mammals, are the ones who give birth. Since the patriarchy began it has struggled with this simple fact and it is the basis of their need for control of women. If they didn’t control us they wouldn’t know who their children were, and as patriarchy at the core of capitalism they have to be able to pass their wealth on in order to cheat the other thing they can’t control - death.
But they cannot bear their dependence on us. So here we are in the 21st century, using words to pretend that it isn’t women who have the babies, it’s just any “person”, male or female, who happens to get pregnant.
Womb envy has never been more alive and kicking.