@Aisha #109389
Does that mean, in her view, that those women fall into the same category as trans men and "biological men" because they aren't disadvantaged when compared to the childbearing mothers she apparently thinks are the only ones that count as "real women"? Because, remember, she says that outside of the childbirth-related accomodations she lists, she says that men and women should be treated exactly alike.
No, I don’t think she and those like her would draw that conclusion, because they don’t take it to its logical end. Also, as you point out later on, there are other ‘issues’ that matter here (what she considers male-on-female violence and the inherent danger of men towards women). The goalposts get moved.
By her other rants, she obviously (and vehemently) believes there's more to feminism (and the rights women need) than simply maternity leave, abortion, and contraception. So she's not only defining "women" as "those who have children and no other" for the purposes of her faux-reasonable list of "women just need maternity leave, abortion, and contraception and otherwise can be treated identically to men", she immediately pulls a bait and switch, adding additional issues and rights that feminism needs to fight for beyond simply maternity leave, abortion, and contraception, but does not correspondingly expand her definition of "women" who face these additional issues and need those additional rights. She retains the definition of "women" as "childbearers only", even for the purposes of her expanded definition of what women have to face and what rights they should have.
This is because she wants to exclude trans women from her theoretical framework that defines “women”, of course. That is all that really matters here. I’d bet she didn’t “expand her definition of "women" who face these additional issues and need those additional rights” for the simple reason that, when you’re operating in the mindset of most TERFs, doing that is simply unnecessary — because it goes without saying. It’s already assumed by default: to them, the world is a never-ending battle to protect the sisterhood against “male” violence, and you are inducted into said sisterhood only by virtue of being born into a female body. That is the only basic defining factor of womanhood for TERFs; note also that you cannot leave the group of “women”.
That’s something very important for interpreting what this TERF is saying: In the TERF ideological view, whatever you do with your body after you were born, up to and including undergoing medical transition to the male sex, doesn’t change the basic fact that to them you remain forever female, which is equivalent to being a woman. When literal trans men who underwent surgeries including hysterectomy are still considered to be women by TERFs, it makes no sense to argue that TERFs exclude, say, cis women in menopause or otherwise infertile women from womanhood. They don’t.
The overall framework is simple: “men” (cis men, and especially trans women and AMAB enbies*) are inherently a threat to “women” (cis women, trans men and AFAB enbies), even the women who are infertile etc. This is the basic operating thought underlying TERF ideology; everything else is merely a supporting structure to that, and can be adjusted ad-hoc to support it better whenever it’s needed.
* = non-binary people who were assigned male at birth.
So yeah, the emphasis on reproduction isn’t there to exclude infertile or childless cis women (except if you ask a few particularly extreme TERFs); it’s there to exclude trans women. It’s also there because TERFs see everything in terms of sexual biology; when you believe that there’s an insurmountable gulf between women and men that is inherent in their very biological makeup, your arguments pretty much have to be based on that very premise. Yet they can’t really work, not only because the underlying assumptions are wrong, but also because the real basis of their ideology is something else: not a rational theory based on the science of biology (as much as TERFs would claim that), but a primarily emotional reaction — a paranoid fear and hate based on propaganda, on isolating themselves from information that is outside their bubble, on personal feelings of disgust, personal frustrations due to experiences of misogyny, and a general backlash against “men” stemming from having been sexually harrassed.
She retains the definition of "women" as "childbearers only", even for the purposes of her expanded definition of what women have to face and what rights they should have.
Which, as pointed out, is remarkably like the definition of "women" held by theocrats and conservatives.
Not quite. Theocrats and conservatives are fairly sincere in reducing the value of women to their ability to reproduce and raise children. TERFs, as I said above, are actually somewhat different in that they don’t genuinely apply that sort of view towards cis women (which doesn’t mean they necessarily really care even for cis women!); you can see this very plainly in the fact that TERFs by and large seem to support the right to abortion, not to mention other womens’ rights (though applied exclusively to AFAB people). That said, they are often willing to sacrifice those rights if it gives them an opportunity to attack trans women, because the hatred and fear of them comes first (TERFs would see that as necessary protection of “true women”).
The main point of TERFism is to exclude trans women from womanhood, and — for some TERFs — to pursue separatism from men. Other concerns, though they exist, are secondary.