Ruth Barrett - Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics’ War on Women, the Female Sex, and Human Rights

F EMALE E RASURE

F EMALE E RASURE

W HAT Y OU N EED T O K NOW A BOUT G ENDER P OLITICS' W AR ON W OMEN, THE F EMALE S EX AND H UMAN R IGHTS

Ruth Barrett, Anthology Editor

www.femaleerasure.com

FEMALE ERASURE

What You Need To Know About Gender Politics War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights

Anthology Editor: Ruth Barrett

Copy Editor: Kate Victory Hannisian

Tidal Time Publishing, LLC

Pacific Palisades, CA, U.S.A.

www.tidaltimepublishing.com

Copyright 2016, Tidal Time Publishing, LLC. First edition. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 0997146702

IBSN: 9780997146707

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910692

Tidal Time Publishing, Lebec, CA

Cover Art and Design by Claudia Kunin 2016

Interior Design: CreateSpace

Contributors to this anthology have exclusive copyright ownership of their piece(s), and entirely responsible for the content of their piece(s). No portion of this book may be reproduced in any without permission of the writer(s) except for brief quotations for review, or educational work, in which case the publisher shall be provided copies. All Rights Reserved, and with permissions of the following:

The First Sex: In the Beginning We Were All Created Female, by Monica Sj and Barbara Mor, from THE GREAT COSMIC MOTHER, copyright 1985. (HarperCollins). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Monica Sjs original pamphlet, The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All , was distributed in Great Britain in 1975.

A Creed For Free Women, by Elsa Gidlow, from SAPPHIC SONGS EIGHTEEN TO EIGHTY, copyright 1982, and published in Druid Heights Books. Reprinted by permission of the authors estate.

Mother, by Patricia Monaghan, from SEASONS OF THE WITCH: POETRY AND SONGS TO THE GODDESS, Third Edition. Copyright 2004. Reprinted by permission of the authors estate. All Rights Reserved.

The name of Tidal Time Publishing, LLC honors Mary Daly (1928 2010), wordsmith and feminist theologian. Tidal Time is Elemental Time, beyond the clocking/clacking of clonedom; Wild Time; Time that cannot be grasped by the daily man-dated world; Time of Wicked Inspiration/genius (Mary Daly, Wickedary, P 96.).

E NDORSEMENTS

In different voices, this compendium of articles shows how transgenderism is erasing the reality of what it means to be a woman. There are some marvelous essays in Female Erasure that make this book the recent go-to analysis of gender identity as an inherently misogynist idea. Read the writings by medical and psychological professionals who tell us about the wrongs their professions have inflicted on transitioners, including children; the accounts of women caught in the vicious cycle of transitioning and the stories of young lesbians pressured to be ABF (Anything But Female); and the narratives of wives of men who would be women, wives who learned the hard way that women are [not] actually real to these men. These are only a few of the meaningful essays in this anthology that address the current travesty of gender identity orthodoxy .

~ J ANICE G . R AYMOND IS P ROFESSOR E MERITA OF W OMENS S TUDIES AND M EDICAL E THICS, U NIVERSITY OF M ASSACHUSETTS AND AUTHOR OF T HE T RANSSEXUAL E MPIRE: THE M AKING OF THE S HE- M ALE.

As the liberal/postmodern dogma of transgender politics becomes the norm in more and more social and intellectual spaces, it gets harder to ask crucial questions, let alone offer a critique, of the sex/gender politics of that movement. Coming from a variety of philosophical/spiritual backgrounds, in a variety of literary styles, this is an impressive collection. All the writers in Female Erasure share a crucial commitment to rejecting patriarchy, which opens up space for the blunt, honest talk we need. Waving away these feminists questions and critiques with demands for inclusion wont magically answer the questions or respond to the critiques. As a man who has come to understand sex/gender politics through radical feminism, I hope readers will not back away from the fight against institutionalized male dominance. Neither liberal individualism nor postmodern posturing offer much hope in the struggle against patriarchy .

~ R OBERT J ENSEN, AUTHOR OF T HE E ND OF P ATRIARCHY: R ADICAL F EMINISM FOR Men ( S PINIFEX, 2017)

If you believe that women, including those who have been sexually assaulted by males, should not be forced against their will to share their most vulnerable spaces with males, this book is for you. If you believe that reality exists and is more important than ideology, this book is for you. If you believe that if a little boy likes dolls, he is a little boy who likes dolls and should be loved as he is; and that a little girl who likes working on cars is a little girl who likes working on cars and should be loved as she is, then this book is for you. On the other hand, if you think theres something wrong with little boys who like dolls and little girls who like cars, and these children need medical intervention, then you really need this book, because it will help bring reality into the discussion. This courageous book lays out how the transgender narrative and phenomenon are an end point of patriarchys hatred of women, the body, sexuality, and the living planet; and how it is the end point of patriarchys valuing of what we think about reality over reality itself. But brave women (and some men) are opposing this erasure of women and of material reality. With truth and reality on our side, how can we not prevail?

~ D ERRICK J ENSEN, AUTHOR OF E NDGAME, T HE M YTH OF H UMAN S UPREMACY, AND AL ANGUAGE O LDER T HAN W ORDS

A BOUT THE C OVER

I N MY INTRODUCTION to the anthology, I suggest that origins of female erasure in Western culture were propagated by the framing myth of Adam and Eve, and continues to affect a majority of people on our planet, regardless of whether an individual practices a religion based on this mythology.

The cover image is intentionally complex and multi-layered in its meanings. This classical image of Eve in the Garden of Eden is consistent with her portrayals in Renaissance art as a white European female. Our understanding of genetics today confirming human origins evolving out of Africa, the original Eve would surely have been a dark skinned female. Clearly the image does not represent all women in our glorious diversity of color and size. There is a double meaning intended in the cover image as the white Eve in the Renaissance portrayal has already been erased of her African origins, and continues to disappear even as she reaches for the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

In the Genesis II myth, a male God gives Adam, the first man, the power to name all the creatures of the earth, including Eve, the first woman. Adam is given the power by God to name her, and thus given power over the female sex, and given the power to define the very nature of woman. The males empowerment by God to name the female is intentional and significant. The woman does not name, and thus define, herself. Her nature is literally man-made. The power of naming is a magical act with cultural significance. The power to name, and thus define ourselves, has been historically usurped from women, and over time we have forgotten that we ever had this power to begin with. Female erasure continues to be propagated through gender identity politics today and continuing efforts to define and enforce oppressive gender constructs on the female sex.