this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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No there isn’t.
If a queer person is empowered to tell a conservative that “listen I’m gonna need you to STFU about my lifestyle choices, there’s not a thing wrong with them if that’s what I have decided to do” - which is 100% fair - then any person who feels that traditional gender roles suit them fine needs to be empowered to make the same STFU statement to anyone who’s somehow decided that they get to make the same determination on behalf of someone who just wants a family and kids and a farm somewhere, because they’ve decided that’s what will make them happy.
Misogyny is misogyny. “Normal” gender roles are different. Maybe the issue is a difference of definitions; there’s a certain amount of spousal abuse and authoritarianism that got written down as “traditional” by the ones that like to practice it. If that’s what you’re talking about or what you thought I meant by “traditional,” I will be fully in agreement with you that it’s fucked. What I am talking about is something different though.
Traditional gender roles are abusive 100% of the time. Now, if your transfemme polycule wants to play out a Stepford Wives kink fantasy (I am citing my own ex's fetish), then that's fine. That can be consensual. But if you're talking about actual tradition, the actual relationships of the past, that shit is abusive no matter what.
We are talking about a system where you can't divorce your husband if he beats you. Spousal rape isn't real rape. Abortion is illegal. No painkillers during birth. No birth control. Women being sold off to other families. Treated as possessions. You can't have a system of slavery and say that isn't abusive. There are no good slaveowners. And there are no good traditional husbands. Many men of 100 years ago were good people who meant well and did their best to do well. But the system they lived in was innately abusive. For all the kindness and decency they gave their wives, they could not give their wives the freedom to choose another life. And that lack of freedom is abuse. Often not the husband's fault, because he lived in a society where he was expected to behave that way.
But today, we have moved beyond those norms. So if a husband wants to go back to that old system and own his wife, then it is his fault. He is an abuser, no matter how kind or gentle. There is a way to make the appearance of a traditional relationship work as a kink. A way to ensure enthusiastic consent. There's roleplay to be done. But it won't actually be a traditional marriage. The people advocating actual traditional marriages, they want the abuse.
100% of the time, huh
Just an unbroken line of black eyes and unwanted pregnancies going back to the beginning of time, huh
Dude. If you want conservatives to steer clear from making wild accusations about what goes on in queer communities and why their whole lifestyle is unhealthy and awful 100% of the time, so they don’t need any further evidence other than just participating in the lifestyle to accuse everyone of taking part in some kind of horror even if they are just innocent people trying to live their life without being shamed for it, you need to extend the same courtesy.
I feel like we’re going in circles. That’s my take on it though.
You're misunderstanding what exactly they were referring to, the modern trad wife movement, which is literally about giving up your rights to a man. You literally said in your next comment that you didn't even read what they said. Why are you acting like you know what you're talking about if you didn't even read it?
I also really think you need to check yourself on the "it's your fault conservatives make wild accusations about queer people" bit there. Just really not okay to try and lay blame at their feet for that. Like do you have any idea how exploitative that is? "You're contributing to the transphobic hate movement unless you change your opinion" is basically what you're saying. Which is a really fucked up thing to say to a trans person. Our oppression is NOT our fault.
Yeah this is a fair point - way back up in my original comment I covered a couple different ways in which the internet “tradwife” thing is fucked, but I didn’t also say that it is explicitly approving of some of the most toxic and misogynistic parts of “conservative” society whether modern or old-school. The whole thing is a core of authoritarianism wrapped in a thin veneer of “traditional gender roles”. I can see I kind of left the door open for misinterpretation because I spoke up about the second without really distinguishing it from the first, when conflating the two is the whole “tradwife influencer” shtick and that’s relevant here. It is fair.
Also not what I meant, although I could see how it could have sounded that way.
What I meant is, if someone’s applying a whole toxic stereotype to 100% of people who pursue a lifestyle they don’t vibe with, that’s wrong, regardless of who’s on which side of it. Not that prejudice against traditional gender roles has any kind of causal relationship with prejudice against non traditional gender roles.
Well, no, the so-called """traditional""" gender roles that tradwives are play-acting aren't universal. They're relatively modern, actually! If they really wanted to get old school, their families would be matrilineal and they'd live in huge extended families.
Well, I made a novel point, and I accounted for the possibility of husbands who were good people and who didn't beat their wives. And then you promptly ignored me and made the same point again while pretending I made a different point than the one I made. If you don't want a circle, don't do one. I told you, history isn't all black eyes. You seem to have just completely pretended I didn't say that.
I’m gonna be honest, I read “Traditional gender roles are abusive 100% of the time,” and didn’t bother to read anything else. Maybe that makes me the bad faith guy, but I feel like once I’ve taken one bite of the dinner and it tasted that obviously wrong, I don’t need to just keep eating and hope it gets better.
I just went back and skimmed your whole comment. Okay, so you’re talking about the abusive legal structures that often went alongside consenting traditional roles. Yes, those are fucked, as I already said. If you are against those, I am with you on that, and I am aware that people sometimes call those “traditional” as a way of excusing them. As I already said, that’s not what I am doing and not what I am talking about.
We’re saying, I think, more or less the same thing, as far as what parts are okay and what parts are not. Although you’re still framing it in a way that seems like it’s making this blanket statement about the other grouping that would never be okay directed at a queer or otherwise “friendly” grouping.
Edit: Made less inflammatory
I see your points through the semantic fog. You had it at a problem of definitions and it doesn't appear to have gone away. One side defending personal intent and the other highlighting historic institutional malaise. Very little actually discussing, you both just happened to be making adjacent points in the same topic for the most part.
They're right in their analysis of the mores and norms that the system allows, even if their claim of no good people existing under a broken system is absurd.
You ain't in bad faith, it's more exhausting to get pinged by friendly IFF misreadings than extreme ideological opposites nowadays. That whole leftists eating leftists series of jokes applies somewhat.
Yeah dude. Everyone’s just looking for an enemy to dunk on. It’s like “Aha! I got one!” and they get all excited to debunk some kind of imaginary shit that no one involved in the conversation is saying.
Tbh your comments are all leading with pretty incindiary lines and just casting "dude" onto whoever is pretty fucking annoying, regardless of how much one might argue "it's gender neutral"
And I'm squarely against dunk culture, these are just some friendly requests 🙂
Yeah, you’re not wrong. I tend to use “dude” and “man” and the like and it’s probably not a good idea even when we’re not talking about gender and misogyny specifically.
Ooh I kind of want to read the inflammatory one!
Eh. I was trying to keep it productive. Railcar8095 already made in a nicer way the point that I made in an argumentative way and then deleted.
This summarizes the problem with your argument. You have such biased opinion that this is what you consider giving a concession.
Same energy as "I didn't say ALL trans groom children", basically.
When I think of "traditional gender roles" I think of a loving mother who spends her days in the house cooking and cleaning and looking after the many children, and a loving father who spends his day toiling on the farm to provide food and money for the family.
None of that is non-consensual. I suppose your issue is one of, idk, semantics? Cause when you hear "traditional gender roles" you think of the legal system surrounding it that prevented a woman from leaving the relationship? But those systems were abusive because the people didn't have a choice of what role to play. Now there are many different roles one could play in a relationship, one of those roles are the traditional gender ones. Don't ask me why, it's very far from my first choice of marriage role, but the abuse came from the system surrounding the roles, not the roles themselves.
But at that point you're splitting hairs because your only issue is what they call it, but they call it "traditional gender roles" because most people know what they are talking about and don't associate abuse with it.