TERF's - Feminists that don't think trans women are women

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I recently applied for a college teaching position. There's a gender quota on these, where I live, to encourage diversity.
I'm a white man, I should add.
Most of my competitors were female, however, among vollege staff, there's nit yet a 50:50 ratio, male to female.

So, I have next to zero chance to get this job (it was a preselected batch of applicants, so everyone's highly qualified, everyone's got a nice CV- so it comes down to the committee's taste and this gender quota, as I see it. And my aspie-charm makes it unlikely I ever get hired because I made an instant connection with the hiring committee).

So, having some ultra competitive thoughts, I wondered:
What if I said I identified as female? I could still say tgat, for practical reasons, i go with he/him pronouns, and ecpress my gender as male, because I am scared of transitioning, long-term health effects of hormones, the surgery, etc. - all valid reasons not to do it. Anyway: so... I think that's what Terfs are adraid of: they fought hard for quotas like this, and now men could use self-identification as a way to undermine those.
Of course, I didn't actually do that, because I"m not evil.
Or, if one were capitalist-minded: I didn't want the job enough to say this.

But what - besides my totally uncapitalistic sense of moral behaviour towards the transgender community and women - would keep me from claiming privilege like this quota that feminists have fought for?

It technically is the same as the 'which toilet should a trans-woman use' discussion, but it's closer to me, personally, because in my exampke, I do have a realistic, monetary incentive to self-identify as a woman.

Any thoughts, apart from moral arguments?

Personally, I'm anti-quota and I'm saying this from a point of view of a woman in a male-dominated field. I just want equality - the same criteria and the same respect. Quota, while maybe useful for encouraging diversity at initial stages, in long run are anti-equality, they encourage hiring women as mascots to make statistics look better and this certainly does not help with my goal of equal respect.

If the college you talk about has 50-50 ratio, then in my opinion, it's way past the initial stage of encouragging diversity and it should give up the quotas.

But that's my opinion, from a different place in the world.

It's possible she took the job just to do something before having children. I did have a job like that too when I was burned out with science and not yet a mother, I didn't mean to ever advance there and I left after a year.
A baby is a full time job.

That is a goal of quotas, right? You have a quota to start to show that there is equal abilities of different groups, and hope that changes opinions in the industry, but of course people can be slow to change, so arguments exist whether quotas can be removed while recruiters may hold sexist opinions. Then you have talks about policies and other things to try and force attitude changes, but then people complain that you can't police their thoughts, and what is wrong with some discrimination in the first place.

Not say does not happen, but you don't think perceptions like that can make it harder for women to find a job? I say this from the point of view of a man who spent an entire year being unsuccessful in finding a job.

I don't know about an answer, but I think some change can be done along the lines of assuming that looking after the baby be only the woman's job. The sort of thing where I don't have to be terrified about being misunderstood as some sort of child predator if I ever interact with one. A couple weeks ago I found out that the neighbourhood kids misunderstood a situation where some random boy was following me as if I was trying to kidnap him, so now I am being harassed.

My perspective: I don't mind gender imbalance at workplace. There are male-dominated fields, there are female-dominated fields, all I care about is if a person chooses the other gender-dominated field, they is equally respected.
Quotas create artificial inequality and special treatment that unnecessarily divide people. Proponents claim it's to counterweight biases but they make the biases live longer: oh, you're <...>, you were hired by the quotas, okay, get something light and easy because you are likely less competent because of lower threshold for ones like you.
Brutal? Oh, well. I prefer less balance but certainity that the ones who got the job get equal treatment.

In the place where I worked, the rotation was high anyway so I don't feel any remorse about it. People both genders chose this job as something temporary to do before settling elsewhere.
When it comes to looking after the baby - possibly yes but you have to deal with the reality. I doubt there is much equality in raising children in Lebanon so the lady just has to deal with the reality of her time and place. Workplace creches may be a bit helpful.
While I'm generally not really a feminist overall, I got quite angry when my husband was taking leave to care for our sick daughter and the secretary asked him why couldn't his wife take the leave. What the hell of a question?
That's something I hear about as notoriously happening in the US. You're in Australia, possibly things look similar. One can't just sit on a bench next to a playground not to be accused of being a predatory pedophile.
I find it an awful prejudice against men.

She's not less of a human just because she wants to be a housewife.

I was going to say too, there is nothing wrong with this aspiration.

Definitely.

On the other hand, it's rational not to invest time and effort in development of a worker who intends to leave.

There is that part of it and it's valid, but I suspect if the woman in question had implied she wanted to pursue her dream of being a musician or a lawyer instead of a housewife - the disappointment and desire to pour a drink over her would have been conspicuously absent.

Yes. I'm glad that when my career and family conflicted and I choose the family, my decisions were met with full respect, despite regret. It's not a perfect world but I'm happy at least for that.

Last edited by magz on 24 Dec 2019, 5:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Why did she waste so much time to study and become a Software engineer? Just to become a housewife?

I disagree with all of you, the "housewife aspiration" is what keeping women behind in many places.

1. To meet more valuable, educated potential husbands;
2. To be able to support herself in case she has to.

If in a given society becoming a houswife is the only sensible way for a woman to have children, it's inevitable.

Earth is overpopulated! Not every one has to pop babies .




This is so stupid, her fiancée is an army solider btw.

It makes her less of an employee, an employee that the company's trainers shouldn't invest any time in improving her skill set.

This is why even those who feel the instinct typically stop at one, two or three.

Well lets be fair guys, if a housewife is okay, so should a househusband.