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Interchange – Sex Politics: Meghan Murphy and the Feminist Current

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What is identity and why is it political? In the wake of gender identity politics what has happened to the political category of Woman?

**Gender says that men are inherently violent, aggressive, independent, assertive, and rational. Whereas women are inherently passive, delicate, nurturing, irrational and emotional. These ideas have been disproved thanks in large part to the Feminist Movement. Yet, today in creating an supporting the idea that one can have an internal gender identity, we are regressing. No one is born with a gender; we are born male or female and gender is then imposed on us through socialization. Women do not know they are women because they are born interested in high heels or the color pink. They know they are women because they are female. Treating gender as though it is either internal or a personal choice is dangerous and completely misunderstands how and why women are oppressed under patriarchy as a class of people. Patriarchy was invented to control women’s reproductive capacity and gender was created in order to naturalize and reinforce that hierarchical system.**

– Meghan Murphy speaking in front of the Canadian Senate in opposition to (Bill C-16, 2016) An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. That bill added gender expression and gender identity as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights Act, and also to the Criminal Code provisions dealing with hate propaganda, incitement to genocide, and aggravating factors in sentencing. It became the law in Canada on June 19th 2017.

GUEST
Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist, and is the founder and editor of Feminist Current. She completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012. Murphy has been blogging about feminism since 2010. She is known for going against the grain and was the first to publish a critique of Slutwalk, back in 2011, and was one of the few popular feminist writers to publicly articulate both a radical feminist and socialist position against the sex industry, early on.

RELATED
Unmanning Sex: Meghan Murphy on Radical Feminism
Meghan Murphy Presents a Feminist Case Against Bill C-16, Canada’s “gender identity” legislation
What Is a Woman? The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism by Michelle Goldberg
Is the Ideology of the Transgender Movement Open to Debate? by Robert Jensen (Voice Male)
PODCAST: Heather Brunskell-Evans wants to talk about the idea of ‘trans kids’

MUSIC
“Rebel Rebel” David Bowie
“Personality Crisis” The New York Dolls
“Peek-a-boo” Siouxsie and the Banshees
“Man” Neko Case
“Androgynous” The Replacements

CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Assistant Producer: Rob Schoon
Executive Producer: Wes Martin

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