I think because people without children feel oppressed by those who have them?

I knew two sisters who stopped talking for a whole year because the one with a child told the one without a child that she didn't feel like she was a real woman until she gave birth. So it cuts both ways. It's painful on both sides, I think.

A reminder
 

Even in the dictionary it reads:

breed·er (brdr)
n.
1. A person who breeds animals or plants.
2. An animal kept to produce offspring.
3. Offensive Slang A heterosexual person.
4. A source or cause: social injustice breeder of revolutions.


Right here it clearing shows many forms of how it is offensive.
And a huge amount of offensive sides are not even listed.

The word implies we are like cattle...Held to reproduce only.

And degrades our parenthood.

I for one was not raised to breed.
My mother never taught me that was what my adulthood looked like.
I chose my mothering. And adore and cherrish it.

I really don't want this thread to turn into what Dylan thinks about how women are groomed. I get what hy is saying and I hear hym.

I started this thread because just seeing the word upset me. It has been used about me in conjunction with how "girly girl" I am on several occasions. As if being a Queer Woman is a balancing act of being Queer but not too "Girly".

I don't think I will ever change my girliness or being a Femme. I wonder why that is frowned upon?

Raising kids with a mom, a dad and a partner feels subversive to some degree. More people to love and shape a child and I get to be *me*. It took me a long time to be brave enough to do that.

I think it is heterophobic.

Do you think women are groomed to be mothers for their own selves or do you think women are groomed to be mothers for the benefit of men?

Do you think motherhood is so regaled when a man is NOT involved?

Because when there's NOT a man around, those women (single women) are seen (STILL...in 2010) as whores and or 'untouchable' by men, because they have another man's child.

So, do you think girls are taught to be mothers (and that's not the word I want, because 'mothers' are usually regaled [unless they're single mothers]...mother does not have the same connotation as what I was trying to convey in how the patriarchy treats/grooms girls)

I'm not talking about how I (me,me,me) or you or women see parenting/motherhood/etc...I'm talking about patriarchy and how little girls are taught from a young age that their worth is tied to their sexuality and ability to create children. And because I likened that whole post to FLDS and the grooming that takes place in that arena...breed is exactly the right word.

Because I don't see the patriarchal grooming of (girl) children in this society as ANY different than FLDS society, and that's EXACTLY how women are treated in that patriarchal society.


Dylan

/derail
I wish this was true for all mothers.

I was watching youtubes of queer poetry recently and I ran into this discussion of the term "stud." I found it really interesting because I'd never heard anybody argue against the use of the term "stud" within the queer community and also because of the relationship of that word to breeding animals. Obviously this is a term many people in our community claim with pride, I really think there are possible parallels between the terms "stud" and "breeder."

(Since you mentioned other words that hurt our own)

I personally do not see women less than just because they can not or do not or choose not to have children.

Does not make them less than to me...

Stud in our culture means more of a machismo way of saying the best.

At least in my experience.

Right. This is the only way that I have heard the term used - as a synonmyn for heterosexual. Whether one actually had children had nothing to do with the definition of the term. However, I will say that I have only used the word used by a couple of people, once or twice, quite a number of years ago.

No matter how the term is used, it is insulting and hurtful to others (any others). It shouldn't be used.

It's a damn good thang I don't and have never listened to shit like that..

It may have been shoved down my face by things around me, it just did not ring true for ME.

I am the bomb fucking diggity cause I am a single mom, have been, and still don't need no damn body as I continue to do so.

I was taught I can do anything on my own.

Well I'm gonna have to change colors here so I can go point to point...because I think you raise some interesting questions...
Let me start first by saying that, as much as I love the warm sentiments of motherhood...I was NOT raised to be a mother. I was raised by a narcissist who made it very clear to me from a very young age that motherhood ruined her life, her future and her happiness. I was raised to believe that motherhood was one step above slavery, and the last thing in the world I should ever desire.

I do hear what you're saying Dylan...I just feel like you're talking about a 20 year old dynamic. :rrose:

thank a mother for what?

people are so self-righteous about giving birth, i really don't get it: it usually happens by accident and in 99% of cases there is *zero* preparation and planning and all that shit that "the gays" have to go through to acquire a kid.

sorry, i just think you're *really* misguided when you say that everyone childless chooses to be childless.

and really, how can you have this kind of world-view of mothers and women when you appropriate native american culture in that other thread--the two are so hard for me to reconcile.

That is not what I said, I said their are those that chose not to and their
are those that cannot for medical reasons, I said my heart broke for those who cannot have children, and if your reading this then someone a woman gave you life.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Nat
I think because people without children feel oppressed by those who have them?

I knew two sisters who stopped talking for a whole year because the one with a child told the one without a child that she didn't feel like she was a real woman until she gave birth. So it cuts both ways. It's painful on both sides, I think.

Yes I know that, but was referring to those who made the choice not
to have a child. I feel for those who want and cannot have a child, my heart breaks for them.
__________________I said the red area

yeah i'm suspicious of hetero (christian families with 2 parents and a minivan/xtra large suv) that haven't done the work (why should they?/they don't have to!) especially the white men who haven't done the work, who think that there is such a thing as hetero-phobia and/or reversed-racism. who are born into their privilege and deny it every day of their lives. call me phobic, but that's kinda *fishy behavior* to me.

i think this is one way that the term separates us as a community.

pitting those w/children against those w/o children.

women are fucking AMAZING by the very virtue of being women. not because they reproduce or not.

:|

i have strong feelings about this even though i have not had a child. i have been dissed on a couple of threads for suggesting that not every parent can have it all -- the career they want and being a good parent. It doesn't always work that way even if it should.

Anyway. Most places in the world, women do not have the choice to not have children. That's a given. That's wrong. BUT it's a separate issue.

Once someone has a child, that is, in my opinion, something to be respected, valued, and supported. If i err, it's on the side of romanticizing the work of parenting and the connection between parent and child. i can not see any excuse for ever denigrating it. It needs to be more respected, more valued in our culture and around the world. Liberation for women is not gotten through undervaluing how most women spend their time.

Most women, no matter how poor, sick, or oppressed, find ways to parent well and have rich and meaningful connections with their children. They invest their lives in their children. Whether they should have had to get pregnant or not, that investment deserves respect. Huge amounts of respect.

i do not think girls should be taught not to want to parent, not to value parenting as a life goal. i think boys should be taught to be more invested in parenting, to think of it as something they should prepare for and imagine and dream of.

People are always going to have babies, and it will be a decades or longer -- probably much longer -- before women on this planet always do so voluntarily.

But devaluing their contributions is devaluing their lives. However else they might have chosen to live, being a mom is the life most are leading. And it's hugely valuable.

To me, it's sacred. However a child came into this world, once she is here, the world must welcome her and honor those who guide her along her way.

Apropos to Dylan’s original point, it is the conditions of patriarchy that pits women against one another, and that forces the competition.

Unless it is evolution. (Though certainly patriarchy could be a tool of evolution.)

This doesn't surprise me at all. There's a lot of discrimination in the queer community and I have been the object as such.

I had gay men friends who always used breeder when talking about straights. None of this is new to me.

re the stud comparison above. the term was used during slavery to indicate the BREEDING capability of black men ...

which makes sense as to the poem that was spoken.

Way to make it about you.

Though, it raises the salient point that the term "breeders" doesn't refer solely to women, but to heterosexuals in general, aka "those who breed."

Because no queer person ever got pregnant. |:

The term "breeder" isn't necessarily one which pits woman against woman, except in this context, in which homosexual women (here) might use it as a put down toward heterosexual women (those "others"). Not having children v. having children.

It's an absurd and demeaning generalization, not to mention, we all know having babies is bad.

Studs oughta quit makin' em.

I gotta ask Jet

Do you let your gay men friends continue to use this ugly term? Or do you call them on their shit?

Curious how you blend in with the boys, I really am..

It can also be used by anybody LGBTQ against anybody else LGBTQ (who also has kids or has been in a position to have kids).

In your women vs women scenario above, queer women can use this term against other queer women.

I have to STRONGLY disagree with this misandrist statement...

I know for a fact that this is not true..

Both my mother and myself we *unwed mothers* and I know DAMN well that my father didn't think my mother was a whore or untouchable.. I know the same thing about my ex husband...

Remember.. there are NO absolutes in live.. not ONE group of ANYTHING/ANYONE feels the same way, simply because they belong to that group....

Sorry for the derail.. but I can't sit still and let all guys be tared with the same feather...

I've never actually had a problem with the word..

I've used it for myself a time or two..

But I never really put any thought into it...

To me, it just meant someone who had given birth/had children/who's job it was to have children...

I don't know if I've ever said it in a negitive way...

I'm going to have to think on this....

If someone called me a breeder, I wouldn't be offended..

But then again, I'm reading Chapterhouse Dune and the Breeding Mistresses are a power unto them selves... They control the future...

OFFS..

Lets just start a thread called

"out of context fuck ups"

or

"let's kick Dylan's ass"

Seriously,

We'll save space and could maybe post pics too!

This thread is about the word "breeder" and other words used to hurt other members of the LGBTQ community. At least, that's what I get from the thread title and every post made by the OP.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that even when LGBTQ people use this term to refer to straight people, even when the target is straight people, it does feel erasing and dehumanizing to LGBTQ folks who have kids or who have been in relationships where kids could have resulted. The fact that this group of LGBTQ people aren't even considered when directing this term at straight people is not simple innocence or thoughtlessness - it's disregard. Especially once an LGBTQ person has stated that the word itself is hurtful and upsetting.

We haven't gotten into other words seen as hurtful to members of this community, but the ones discussed most often in this community are incorrectly applied pronouns.

Other words that I see as similary hurtful: "real" and "true" - as in "real lesbian" or "real femme" or "true butch" or "real woman" or "real man".

Also the terms "more/most" and "less/least" in conjunction with butch, femme, masculine, feminine when used to describe others - that can be very hurtful language and not just for the intended recipient.

I've also seen people get very upset about being called a victim.

Though this isn't a specific word, I also find it alarming when LGBTQ people advocate outlawing divorce (stating that "divorce is the real threat to marriage", not gays). I've heard this more at protests against prop 8, but it's another way to erase and divide members of the community who may have gotten divorced. Beyond that, the sheer obliviousness to the ramifications of outlawing divorce stresses me out, even if the people who say this type of thing are trying to make a totally different point.

I also think it's alarming/upsetting when white members of the LGBTQ community show up at protests with signs that say things like "Gay is the new Black" or state in other ways that the struggle for LGBTQ rights is above the struggle for racial justice/equality or that the struggle for racial justice/equality has already been won.

Yanno this isn't the Dylan show..

It's about a WORD that is hurtful and a very civil conversation is being had. Have we asked Dylan not to use it, sure.

Will he stop?

Not really sure...

I don't feel I am taking anything out of context, it is something that is oogy to some of us, and being there have been THREADS all over lately about hurtful terms we figured we should and could be heard.

Just sayin'

It's patriarchy!
 

It looked to me like Dylan was talking about the patriarchal context of a term like breeder, as it relates to conditioning in a sexist culture. And I, *hold the phone*, totally agree with him. It's why the term is so offensive.

I am constantly confused about the way things get personalized around here.
Dylan wasn't talking about a particular, individual mother or father or person.
He certainly wasn't talking about misandry (huh?). He was talking about patriarchy. About an environment in which all of us, (male & female) learn that a woman's value is connected to whether or not she bears children in the service of the patriarchy. That construct exists. Do many of us defy it? Of course! That doesn't erase it however.

I have heard the term breeder used in two distinct ways -- as a slur by queers against straight people, and by childless people against people with children. While these slurs may not overtly differentiate between men and women (men also "breed" children), I agree with SF that these slurs reduce things down to women's reproductive organs. It's objectifying, offensive, and derogatory. And its patriarchy that sets up the context in which that is so.

Heart

This thread is about the word "breeder" and other words used to hurt other members of the LGBTQ community. At least, that's what I get from the thread title and every post made by the OP.



I too thought that is what this thread was about, NOT how Dylan chose to explain patriarchy.

*slaps* forehead

Silly me thinking it was ok to ask this be taken into account.

By all means continue to use the word. silly me..

Snowy - I don't get it -- we are talking about the word breeder and how it hurts us. Are you saying we shouldn't mention the context of the word, we shouldn't mention patriarchy? I don't know what your issue is with Dylan per se, but like I said talking about the patriarchal context of a word like breeder is not personal. I for one, can't talk about the word and leave out the context.

And by the way, the word has been used several times in very direct ways to hurt me. I am, after all a mother and a woman and a queer.

Heart

ONCE AGAIN...

IT IS NOT ABOUT DYLAN.......

Talk about patriarchy till you are blue in the face, can it be done without the word breeder though???

I believe that this is what this thread is ABOUT..

How hurtful the word breeder is.......

Not Dylan....

I have no issues with Dylan....

One could say I would even buy him a cuppa coffee, not from Starbucks though he doesn't like em.

boing ... boing ... (or thud ... thud...?)
 

This is more interesting than a tennis match. Only my brain, not head, is going back and forth.
I agree absolutely with Dylan and Heart (and a few others) that the ROOT cause of the word is patriarchy.
I also agree with Lady Snow (now that's a wonder!) that the WORD is offensive and derogatory. I can see that, by her response (and many others here on this thread) that it is hurtful ~ no matter the cause.
If I do that which I was taught, to take something that is hurtful to another and reflect upon it, find kindredness within my own experience/s, then I look at it this way: If someone used the "n" word (I hate how "polite" that sounds, but would probably get suspended from the site for using the entire word, despite my ethnic origins), no matter how it was explained to me it's rootedness in colonialism, racism, patriarchy (and yes, it has a root there, too ...), I would see red and not hear much of what was said afterward. Because it has been used to degrade me and darker skinned people of color, because of the experiential history of its use (images of dogs, water hoses, burning churches, and burning children, rape, etc. immediately come to mind), I would REACT to the WORD and not give a rat's behind about where the fuck it came from. Sorry, I don't know if I can use that word here *shrugs*.
So, Dylan, Heart, etc., let's drop the hammer and stop trying to beat something into peoples heads when it is their hearts that bleed ... I hear ya.