WE ALL LOSE WHEN WE ENGAGE IN OPPRESSION OLYMPICS

About feminism, womanhood, trans identity & exclusion

OPPRESSION OLYMPICS

The first recorded use of the term "Oppression Olympics" was by Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez in a conversation with Angela Davis in 1993. It happens when marginalized groups are made to believe they must compete for limited resources and attention and that their oppression is more deeply felt than another group.

The Oppression Olympics have arisen within debates amongst marginalized groups. Lately, I have witnessed its dynamic within the feminist movement, and precisely I feel, amongst African feminists. As advocacy for Trans women gains in popularity, African feminists have expressed their concerns about the narrative now focusing on the experiences of trans women and the risk that it overshadows the ongoing struggles cis-gendered women and girls are still experiencing in the continent. There are also ongoing debates about transwomen's "real womanhood" to determine who are the real women and who are the most oppressed?

Two public figures have added their voice to the debate:

Chimamanda Adichie, during an interview, said:

"When people talk about, 'Are trans women, women?' my feeling is trans women are trans women."

Adichie also added the following to her former statement in a more recent interview:

"…While trans women face tremendous oppression and must be supported, we should also be able to acknowledge real differences between transgender women and women who are not transgender."

In addition, Laeticia Ky, an actress and a feminist artist from Ivory Coast, has been at the centre of the controversy. In past and recent social media posts, she equates womanhood to sex and defends the point of view that Sex is the base of most women's oppression.

"I have the right to choose what womanhood represents for me! The only thing that makes me feel like a woman is my body. MY BIOLOGY. Nothing else. If others want to feel like a woman for other reasons, it's up to them."

THE ART OF EXCLUSION

When it comes to exclusion, its power lies in its subtlety and insidious nature; what we say matters as much as what we do not say; what we centre on in our communication matters because of what it may imply.

"Exclusion happens even though, for the most part, people are not intending to exclude others at all, but they will say and do things that end up excluding people with marginalized identities." Dr. Tiffany Jana, in her book "Subtle acts of exclusion,"

When Adichie says that "trans women are trans women," she implies that trans women aren't "real women" and stresses the idea that Trans women are a category apart.

As for Ky, who seems to equate womanhood to biology or anatomy (sex), this is often how trans people are excluded in the first place.

The controversy surrounding womanhood and trans identity overall has left me with a few questions:

· What makes a woman a woman?

· Is biology a determinant of womanhood?

· Can anybody self-identify as a woman?

NORMALIZATION IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The definition of a woman as "an adult female human being" in the dictionary focus on physical attributes as a determinant of womanhood. This approach to defining womanhood made sense in our reality, as society treats gender and sex interchangeably. It also explains why women's oppression is primarily perceived as sex-based.

"We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic." — Bell hooks

Normalization is a process whereby behaviours and ideas are made to seem "normal" through repetition, ideology, propaganda, etc., often to the point where they appear natural and taken for granted.

Michel Foucault was the first person to coin the term normalization. In his book Discipline and Punish, he explained that a behaviour becomes normal when it meets two conditions:

· When individuals idealize it

· The system rewards the individual for fulfilling it

Categorization of the body according to sex is essential to our society because we live in a society that functions as a binary. Although Trans women and men have existed through time, the category of men and women is what is perceived as normal to our society, one because it is perceived as the ideal, and two because society rewards those who fall in these categories and marginalizes those who don't.

Biology has long been the argument for most people trying to dismiss Trans people. But let's take a moment to see what Biology actually says about sex and gender.

BIOLOGY SEX AND GENDER

In biology, there is actually no single, definitive biological indicator of sex. Instead, what is known of sex is its diversity and biological sex, such as male, female, or intersex, only refers to physical characteristics.

In an article ("The art of medicine. The misuses of "biological sex") published in 2019 for the Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale University, New Haven, Katrina Karkazis, denounces the misuse of biology to influence politics and promotes exclusion.

Dr. Katrina Karkazis is a cultural anthropologist working at the intersection of science and technology studies, theories of gender and race, social studies of medicine, and bioethics. Her research and teaching examine—and challenge—scientific and medical beliefs about gender, sexuality, and the body across a range of topics. Below are few quotes from her article that I invite you to read thoroughly here.

"Biological definitions of sex are at odds with the understanding that sex involves multiple biological and social factors. They are also at odds with social scientific work that complicates the idea that sex is biological whereas gender is cultural; sex, as much as gender, is culturally contingent and produced."

“Debates about sex are often framed falsely as scientific versus cultural arguments, whereby the former, by virtue of being grounded in biology, are seen as tied to nature and thus truth, whereas the latter are seen as hectoring from a postmodern gender La La Land. Trans regulation supporters, for example, have argued that critics of the policy misunderstand, or worse, obscure the scientific facts of sex. Yet this profoundly misconstrues who is hewing to science. Those questioning simplistic understandings of sex— scientists among them—are hardly unscientific but rather keen observers of the science of sex biology and the peculiar categorical gatekeeping of, say, soldiers and elite women athletes. This is not a case of science versus social constructionism, as some argue; it's about the calculated use of "biological sex" to buttress obsolete thinking about sex."

"The body as a material fact is given, but sex is not. It is long overdue that we understand sex not as an essential property of individuals but as a set of biological traits and social factors that become important only in specific contexts, such as medicine, and even then, complexity persists. For those arenas where it's not clear what purpose sex designation serves, we might question whether we need it at all. The question is more about "why sex categorization exists and whom or what it serves."

In sum, biology does not obey social norms. Biology is not on the side of gender or sex and certainly not on the side of people who claim it only to exclude.

GENDER, WOMANHOOD AND THE SELF

"Maybe asking "what is a woman" is an impossible question because there is any number of ways of being a woman.

Gender and, therefore, womanhood are probably determined by the self. And, just as there are no two identical women, there are no two usable identical definitions of womanhood

Perhaps all I can say is what makes someone a woman is simply a piece of unique, amorphous self-identity floating around in one's brain, saying: "you are a woman." Or, to put it more succinctly, paraphrasing an established principle from the trans rights movement: womanhood is what's inside your head, between your ears." Dawn Starin, anthropologist

Indeed, I do not know one woman who feels completely comfortable in any given definition of womanhood because what feels like a woman is subjective and personal to every woman.

As I reflected on womanhood, I concluded that the reason why there is no recognizable definition serves a purpose. Perhaps this tells us that womanhood's truth lies more in the questioning and personal quest than in a single and finite answer. Maybe, this is telling us that focusing on one definition for all would contribute to confining us women within norms, roles and single identities we are trying to fight in the place.

Womanhood, therefore, is less about our differences and more about what is common among us, which to me, is our shares oppression against patriarchy, and the restrictive norms of masculinity and femininity.

WHAT THE TRANS MOVEMENT IS TEACHING US

" Gender is an aspect of our personal identity. Gender has not always existed and has not always been binary. This understanding is foundational to the entire conversation about gender. Whether or not someone expresses their gender identity or has one at all, it is up to that individual, not external expectation or mandate. Our society must reflect the fact that human being exists in infinite diversity and infinite combinations and that this diversity extends to gender identity and gender expression"

— Blair Imani, 'Read this to get smarter, about race, class, Gender, disability & more.'

The Trans movement inspires me mainly because of its emphasis on freedom. Freedom of self-identification, freedom from harmful norms, and freedom to exist free of conditioning.

Do not get me wrong; I understand the importance of norms and the role they play in creating structure and functioning societies. But norms must be only that: frames of references we should learn to compose with. Norms cannot be a means for human connection, nor should they dictate personal identities. Complexity is part of the human experience. Therefore, forcing seven billion people to predetermine identities is impossible and rather harmful.

"We grow up in a world that divides billions of complex people into one of two categories. We would never do that to colours; we would never do that to flowers; we understand in most things that the more things that there are, the more beautiful they are. And not only that, not only do we divide them into two, we say that they have to be opposing and oppositional. Which means to be a woman means not to be a man. To be masculine means not to be feminine. That means there is an internal war going on between us and inside of us. Where we constantly have to ask, am I being too emotional and does that make me less masculine? So, we are having to regulate ourselves based on these preconceived ideas that focus on conflict over creativity." — Alok Vaid-Menon

WHEN WE FALL INTO THE OPPRESSION OLYMPICS

Oppression Olympics is an effective tool for oppression because it makes marginalized groups believe that economy and politics are limited resources they need to fight for. It is also a distraction that keeps different marginalized groups stuck in comparison and fighting against each other, which contributes to perpetrating the very oppressive system they are trying to dismantle in the first place

"While it's important to acknowledge our differences, the varying and unique needs of different marginalized communities, and that systemic oppression plays out in a plethora of ways on each of us, defaulting to oppression Olympics is not helpful. It upholds systemic oppression and puts up barriers to unity, solidarity, coalition and, ultimately, progress." — Amen Gashaw

As women, neither our biology (meaning our reproductive organs, hormones, menstruation, the ability to get pregnant, and menopause) nor society and external rules could define what being a woman is to all women.

There is something to be said about the fact that even Cis women do not experience womanhood in the same ways. For example, some women will reject femininity for their womanhood, while others will gladly embrace it as a determinant of their womanhood. Some will welcome maternity as what makes them fully woman, and others will argue that a woman is a woman regardless of her ability to make babies. We also do not experience oppression in the same. Wearing a head scarf would look like freedom to one woman while it is a prison to another woman.

Although there are differences in our individual journey into womanhood as cis gender, these have never been a reason to disqualify us from womanhood. So why can't it be the same for Trans women? Yes, they may be differences between transgender women and women who are not transgender but aren't we all different in our own way? So why focus on the difference between transwomen specifically?

I firmly believe it is possible to communicate our individual experiences of what womanhood look like and feel like for all of us without the need to exclude the people who do not share our individual experience.

Less not try to win the medal on this one. Why? Because when we take the time to look closer, when we can get out of the scarcity mindset that gives us the illusion that we can't win altogether, when we refuse to fall into the trap of oppressive power pitching marginalized groups against each other, then only, it becomes easy to realize how much, we all suffer from the same norms.

So next time you find yourself engaging in the Olympics of oppression, I urge you to ask yourself who it serves and who is the real enemy.

With love always,
Rachel-Diane Epoupa