Can someone help explain these posts from r/gc?

gcaccountbanmefools · 2020-07-01T20:03:19+00:00

I don't support aborting fetuses based on sex. I am childfree by choice, so I will never be having a baby; however, I do empathize and agree with those women that I would not want to have a male child myself.

GC was a place where women could state things that other women may not agree with; we didn't all always agree on everything and that was okay. Some of us had/have more "fringe" opinions or emotions and others were a lot more neutral.

However, I do support a women's choice/desire to have a baby of a certain sex. Women are not obligated to conceive male children. Many women are uncomfortable having male children who will grow up and eventually (as a class) continue to uphold patriarchy and end up oppressing women. Thats how socialization into patriarchy and being born into male privilege works. Thats how class analysis works. It's not about demonizing children; it's about considering the world boys will grow up in and how that world will most likely shape them into misogynists.

Many women are angry that society expects them to have children, shames them if they don't, and disallows them from having any control over the sex of their babies or how they choose to parent. Mothers are some of the most vilified and judged women out there no matter what their beliefs or decisions.

Sun_bear · 2020-07-01T20:58:45+00:00

I followed r/gendercritical for years and I never saw any screenshots like that. I saw a few posts who had anxiety over having male children which I know horrifies those fragile male lurkers, but I have never seen calls to abort male foetuses, or kill male children, or calls to violence of any sort really.

venecia · 2020-07-01T19:43:41+00:00

Yeah, GC on reddit went seriously off the rails at times, and TRAs were constantly in there roleplaying as man-hating TERFs so they would have something outrage worthy to share. Like right there.

No reasonable person here thinks those comments were okay, except maybe the ones about being disappointed about a baby's sex (happens to lots of women, with both girls and boys).

FlippyKing · 2020-07-01T20:24:27+00:00

I'm not clicking on it because I don't want to give Reddit any traffic.

But (yes, this is the internet, I'll comment without seeing it), I did see a lot of what I thought was concern trolling by agent provocateurs in GC over the final days, which I think was setting up the "taken down because of hate" rationalization.

Maly_Querent · 2020-07-01T19:53:09+00:00

You know, when ever someone starts with, "i am not [x], you can trust me" they are more than likely lying. Also, you are posting a link from r/AgainstHateSubreddits which, i heard, was behind the push to ban GC in the first place. I'm sorry, but you must be a plant.

CaliforniGinger · 2020-07-01T19:50:47+00:00

I didn't see them live and don't support those things. If someone is that determined not to love a child based on sex a. they should not have kids and b. if they're determined, use IVF to select the sperm to produce female babies. There were a couple of lesbians who kinda pushed for women to abandon men entirely and "can't you just try liking women," which was about the worst thing I saw. The discussions of female separatism usually just involved logistics of pricing and how the rules would work/how the already existing female only villages were run/what an impossible but nice dream it was.

heidischallenge · 2020-07-01T20:53:59+00:00

Someone made a post in GC saying she wanted to get pregnant but she didn't want to have a male child. Responses were like this: 1. don't get pregnant 2. abort if you find out it's male. 3. take your chances. mothers of sons wrote in about being able to raise a boy to be a good person

Some comments were really over the top. Those were screenshot and put on twitter. Proof that we are horrible people. Maybe the mods should have not allowed this conversation? Mothering male children is a valid feminist discussion.

endthewoo · 2020-07-01T21:21:20+00:00

Why is a tiny handful of women saying that they don't want to incubate a male fetus such an affront ?

writerlylesbian · 2020-07-01T22:24:05+00:00

This person is baiting. Don't fall for it.

Catshit · 2020-07-01T20:20:39+00:00

Lurked a while in GC, but I lurk a little everywhere. I saw quite a few off-ish posts. I assume that with the nature of the internet, and with how passionate that people can get about topics that hit them on a personal level that we're bound to see extremist views no matter where we go. I was under the impression that GC promoted the safety of women AND the children that we may or may not produce, so those particular posts are distressing. I understand traumatic events coloring our viewpoints, but when we're discussing the abortion of a male (for being male) or insisting on a perceived justifiable harm in any way to a male child/female child/any child at all, I'm going to have to slam the brakes. It's that kind of vindictive, hateful ass attitude that loses me. The reason why I have so much trouble with the trans/gender identity movement in the first place is because I feel like it's not only encroaching on biological women's rights, but that it's predatory towards children and those considered to be under the age of consent. It's nonsense fantasy shit, when there's far cooler fantasy shit to be discussed instead that won't result in being a sterile shadow of former self. Digressing a slight bit, but when your country will not allow you to purchase cigarettes or alcohol under the age of 21, but will allow parents to make permanently damaging decisions for their children with hormones and surgery.. we have a problem. Parents that buy into this shit are negligent at best. I've described it to friends before in opinion as looking almost like Munchausen-by-Proxy with some cases, and like someone having a lap dog that they dress up with others. They're not dolls. They're not social bonus points. They're people. Tiny people that make terrible fucking decisions until their brains/decision-making hubs are fully developed, and still some bad ones after that because of human nature and life circumstances. I don't know who made those posts, or who has internalized feelings like this but we still have to take responsibility on our end. Why in the actual fuck would we celebrate aborting males? Why celebrate abortion at all outside of a necessity? It's not a we giveth life and so shall we take it away thing. You're not walking out of that procedure unscathed and it can fuck you up, your body up, on so many levels waiting too long to have it done. Better ways are available to gain the upper hand than being the mirror of the pieces of shit we want protections from.

msteacherlady · 2020-07-01T23:20:59+00:00

Here is my brief experience with such ideology as it appeared on GC.

Some weirdo on there told me that if i didn't give my 2 year old son a special soy diet in order to manipulate his hormone levels, that he would become a rapist. The comment was immediately downvoted by others and someone even replied to chastise the person. I didn't report it, but someone did and within a short period of time the comment had been removed by mods.

In general I keep my interest in men's issues (am wife to a man and mother of a son, and also care about my male students) out of feminist spaces because it ain't that lens' problem and I also understand and respect some women's need for separatism. I think within that sphere there are some real fuckin' weirdos though. Like, who would, especially when we criticize HRT for young people, tell a mother to biohack her child? Reminds me of Jenny McCarthy eschewing vaccinations and claiming diet cured her kid's autism. But from what I see, the real weirdos aren't tolerated. I hope I don't see a rallying cry for women to abort their male children coming from this corner of feminism.

112223sps · 2020-07-01T21:03:19+00:00

I actually did see a few of those posts as they were happening, and I don't agree with them. I remember disagreeing once or twice and some other woman replied saying that it's fine to basically emotionally neglect (though I'd call it abuse) your child if it ends up being a boy. I was pretty disgusted. I can understand why someone wouldn't want to have a boy if they view all men as evil, but for that same reason, why would they want to have a girl? If your view is that you're giving birth to an evil oppressor by having a boy, why would you want to create more victims by having a girl? If that's how you think then you just shouldn't be having kids at all, because either way you're just bringing more suffering into the world, right? Though that's actually how I feel about having kids in general since I'm antinatalist, so yeah, I obviously have my own controversial thoughts on this subject.. Lol

ThisSiteIsUnusable · 2020-07-02T10:28:27+00:00

Many women on GC weren't/aren't radical feminists, just against trans ideology. There tended to be pushback against any posts that were perceived as being too anti-male, and that was one of them. There were some of us supporting a woman's right to refuse to bear males but it was pretty controversial. I don't know if that's because the mods considered it too far or if they realized men would lose their shit at the idea and didn't want to deal with it.

jkfinn · 2020-07-02T00:34:14+00:00

At rare times, I felt in opposition to some separatists comments, usually dealing with bio-determinism and female superiority, but I can recall once saying (very offhand) that I got on best with women with no children or one female child, and I was downvoted.

I would think that if the TRAs were looking for so-called hate, it would be comments directed at themselves. But every one of those was relatively lightweight and very minimal given the rape and death threats that have been steadily aimed at GC over the past 7-8 years. In fact, almost anything less than these tough responses would make the commenter seem almost suspect, and rightfully so.

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