Letter: Male feminists?

Katya Whitton
Tuesday 09 March 1999 19:02 EST
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Sir: Dr Adrian Coyle, as well as being offensive about transsexuals, also manages to miss the point.

Feminism, at its best, is about doing away with gender stereotypes, and with discrimination on the grounds of gender. It is about breaking the link that seems to exist in so many people's minds, between having a certain set of genitals or chromosomes and being expected to fulfil a certain sort of societal role.

Talking about "womanliness" as if it were universally agreed what this term means, and advocating the exclusion of people with y-chromosomes from the feminist movement suggests that, for Dr Coyle at least, sex discrimination and gender stereotyping are alive and well.

KATYA WHITTON

St Anne's College

Oxford

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