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One piece of evidence that women are no longer socially oppressed is the lack of gatekeeping around womanness. For example, I just witnessed an argument among sex workers about whether a tech guy in the sex work industry could call himself a 'sex worker.' The argument went, 1/

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Jul 31, 2020

"it's not ok for someone who hasn't experienced the stigma of selling your body to identify as a sex worker." They saw the title as 'earned' by experiencing the negatives, and were upset that someone was claiming the title without going through the associated hardships. 2/

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Jul 31, 2020

So why doesn't the same thing apply to women? I suspect people who are ok giving the "woman" title to people who haven't "earned" it (e.g., grew up with the difficulties of people treating you as female) are ones who haven't seen women actually significantly oppressed. 3/

Aella

@Aella_Girl

It seems likely then that less privileged people from cultures with stringent gender roles, who see more downsides from the struggles of growing up as women, are more likely to try to gatekeep the title of woman, and people from more equal cultures will care less. 4/4

11:55 PM · Jul 31, 2020

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Interesting point of view. But why is it that terfs tend to be more white, privileged, and wealthy, while often intersectional, racialized feminists are pretty ok with no gatekeeping to the women category?

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OK, but you can start being a sex worker, start experiencing the oppression, and start calling yourself a sex worker. Why doesn't that apply to being a woman?

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It would be a logical fallacy to suggest that the only struggles associated with being a woman exist purely while "growing up. " If it's true though, why do "grown up" women keep complaining about it? Relax, you're an adult. The hardships of womanhood have passed. Get over it 😂